An interesting essay from Slate architecture critic Christopher Benfey on why the best monument at Ground Zero would be no monument at all. His prose becomes unfortunately fuzzy toward the end, with lots of high lit references -- but the first two thirds, where he remains practical, is riveting. He notes that in opposition to the tradition of grand, opulent memorials (the Pyramids, Grant's Tomb), is a countertradition of empty spaces, voids to mark the loss of something or someone.
Benfey explains: "When Henry Adams, himself a literary master of absence, traveled to Japan in 1886, he particularly admired the Great Buddha at Kamakura, where a 15th-century tidal wave had swept away the huge temple housing the 40-foot statue. Did the Japanese rebuild the temple? No. Its very absence, with its "footprint" marked by broken pillars, was a powerful presence."
This eastern aestetic is of course in striking contrast to the western ideal of edifices as an aid to memory. But so far as I can tell, that the use of grand memorials to the dead is something that emerges out of a purely pagan context. It was the Egyptians and Greeks, after all, who erected grandiose tombs. And perhaps there's something wanting in the use of such visual aids to remember those lost to us. Ryan Davidson just walked in and suggested that this is "a search for immortality through structure," and I'm inclined to agree.
As novelist Ayelet Waldman writes, "memory is this awful, transient thing. It just withers and slides away, until all you have left is the frozen image from a snapshot, an image that wasn't really yours to begin with, but has assumed a magnitude all out of proportion to its real meaning because it's sitting in a frame on your desk, or in a file on your desktop."
So perhaps what bothers me about creating a bold, active memorial to the 9-11 terror victims is that will begin, by its very "there"ness, to objectify and codify our memories of those our country has lost. I'd rather see us memorialize the deaths for what they were -- a void, a gad ripped into the existence of thousands of Americans. I'm uncertain what this would look like architecturally (Andy?), and I'm not sure it's any of my business, but I'd hope to see a memorial that doesn't objectify the victims, but reminds us that they are lost to us -- at least for now.
Posted by mesh at June 16, 2003 05:14 PM | TrackBackI'd like to mind your gap.
Posted by: JosiahQ at June 16, 2003 07:31 PMHmm. Personally, I don't think that leaving 4 odd acres of Lower Manhattan real estate lie fallow is a good move long term - it gives the terrorists what they wanted. I say build something, and personally, I like the current proposed design. But I do think that something should be built, and more importantly, I think it should be functional, not only a memorial.
Posted by: ryan at June 16, 2003 08:45 PMMan, screw the terrorists. Build something bigger, higher, and with our corporate logos all the heck over it. I liked that one massive lattice work design, with two towers bigger than the others.
Posted by: JosiahQ at June 16, 2003 09:42 PMBy rebuilding the towers in any fashion as functional buildings we give the terrorist acts of 9/11 more legitimacy. The misguided, crazed terrorists that hit those towers dreamed that their act would somehow destroy America the great Satan. In reality the only thing that was destroyed at 9/11 were the lives of innocents and the dreams of madmen. 9/11 did nothing to harm America. By making another economic center there I feel like we do acknowledge that the terrorists did harm our insfrastructure. That's a message I don't want to sin.
One architect at one point suggested that 9/11 be the grounds of a museam/park. The park would contain the huge spotlight things that would shine in the nightsky, taking up the vertical real-estate that the Trade Centers occupied. This idea seems the most reverent and beautiful.