Opinion BY Armin

A New Voice for the World Trade Center Memorial

Reflecting Absence, the planned memorial at the site of the World Trade Center, designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker, has not come easily. It has endured more than five years of delays, scrutiny and political and sentimental maneuvering. Not surprisingly, of course, as it is a subject that requires tact and patience. The site on the southern tip of Manhattan remains, for lack of a better description, in ruins, and the expectation of what the site will be, only adds to the eagerness of seeing it completed. As a way to emphasize the importance of the memorial as a national endeavor the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation recently changed its name to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center. Long, certainly, but with pinpoint accuracy in giving it a larger sense of relevance, beyond New York. The identity, “a creative interpretation of the pools of the Memorial itself [that] represent the strength and the ephemeral quality of our memories” has been designed by New York-based Number Seventeen. [Bigger view here]. The design is understated, with its subtle depiction of the tower footprints, both as a reminder of what once stood there and as a representation of the water that now flows through them; elegant, in its soft colors and centered arrangement; and modern, in its typographic selection, reminding us that this happened in the 21st Century. As a reflection of what design can do to convey meaning and sentiment, this identity stands strong as a complementary voice to the powerful echo of the design of the memorial.

\n\nReflecting Absence, the planned memorial at the site of the World Trade Center, designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker, has not come easily. It has endured more than five years of delays, scrutiny and political and sentimental maneuvering. Not surprisingly, of course, as it is a subject that requires tact and patience. The site on the southern tip of Manhattan remains, for lack of a better description, in ruins, and the expectation of what the site will be, only adds to the eagerness of seeing it completed. As a way to emphasize the importance of the memorial as a national endeavor the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation recently changed its name to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center. Long, certainly, but with pinpoint accuracy in giving it a larger sense of relevance, beyond New York. The identity, \"a creative interpretation of the pools of the Memorial itself [that] represent the strength and the ephemeral quality of our memories\" has been designed by New York-based Number Seventeen. [Bigger view here]. The design is understated, with its subtle depiction of the tower footprints, both as a reminder of what once stood there and as a representation of the water that now flows through them; elegant, in its soft colors and centered arrangement; and modern, in its typographic selection, reminding us that this happened in the 21st Century. As a reflection of what design can do to convey meaning and sentiment, this identity stands strong as a complementary voice to the powerful echo of the design of the memorial.

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