World Trade Center - Memorial and Reconstruction Proposal - Plans and photographs of a proposal for the World Trade Center memorial and reconstruction in New York City. With links to other World Trade Center sites.

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Archived News About The World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition:

The last two months have been very hard for me to concentrate on my art work and school work. I think all of us are going to need a vacation from all the built up worries after the finalists are announced...
I have even gone as far as to have my proposal blessed on the altar in my church before sending it to New York. My pastor was so overwhelmed with emotions upon seeing my proposal that I could see tears in his eyes...
Sometime after I mailed the proposal my friend and I were walking up a hill in the evening, I was feeling a little bit stressed and doubtful about the fate of the proposal. Then as we gazed into the clear indigo sky a shooting star streaked across the sky. That shooting star gave me a feeling of hope that something wonderful is going to happen and the feeling that someone is watching over us who understands the burdens and tensions which we are all enduring...
My local newspaper called me 'undaunted', but I think in a way we are all undaunted in our quest to build a memorial that will last and inspire us for generations. I will continue praying for all of us and that the LMDC will be able to understand our designs and hear our messages... God Bless Us All.

What a statement of hope, pride and determination! This from a 19-year old college student in Virginia. You know, expressed above is the hope that LMDC understands our designs and hears our messages. Nathan: they do hear, and they do understand. Since November 2001, LMDC has received thousands of unsolicited submissions for WTC site plans, towers and memorials. Their staff have borne the impact of this spontaneous worldwide outpouring of emotion and innovation -- while simultaneously having to distance themselves from official recognition or acceptance of any of these works that have crossed their office threshold without invitation. This must impose a heavy emotional impact on the workers who handle the materials that arrive each day. They see the passion within the printed words, sketches and images which reach up to their office-weary eyes as the envelopes are cut open, connecting and communicating with powerful, plaintive force. People inside LMDC have been changed forever by this experience.

As official competition entrants, we will receive no formal recognition of our participation, but unlike the thousands of submissions that have arrived unsolicited at LMDC offices over the past two years, our display boards will not be unceremoniously rejected and disposed. All 5,200 official entries are being recorded by high-resolution digital photography, cataloged, and prepared for eventual display as an official web-based archive. In addition, $250,000 in LMDC funds have been allocated and plans are underway for public display of a large selection of entries at the spectacular World Financial Center Winter Garden, likely sometime over the winter, after the winning design is announced. And, I suspect this will become a travelling exhibit through 2004, as cities or organizations step forward to host it. Finally, all 5,200 display boards will become permanent part of the WTC museum and archives, and thus, history. Many people have written to me stating that this was the motive that drove them to participate: the opportunity to speak to history.

» READER FEEDBACK - OCTOBER 1st, 2003 - Over the past several months I have received many, many e-mails from visitors to this web site, persons who entered the WTC memorial competition and who have expressed their thoughts, support and encouragement on a personal level to me. All receive a reply, and I normally only share some of the contents of these messages indirectly or anecdotally on my site. This afternoon, however, I received a note from a competition entrant in Maine that sums up, with eloquent succinct words, the emotion that is pouring forth out there, among the 5,200 entrants in this grand competition, as the announcement day nears. I feel compelled to share it:

I want to thank you for your website... It has helped me to feel less crazy as I wait to hear from or about LMDC. I'm still not sure whether or how they plan to notify all 5,200+ of us. I remember when we were working on the design, feeling the energy of the thousands of others throughout the world focusing on this awesome project.

Last week, when I was getting a bit scattered in all my other work, I thought again of all of us. It is good to have a place to check into each day, to let myself know I'm not alone. Without a doubt, this has been the most exciting and heartfelt project I've ever collaborated on. Many lessons learned, and this is without any idea as to what design will be selected.

I'll be glad to finally be able to show my design to others... It would be great if all 5,200+ of us could meet someday.

» NEWS UPDATE - OCTOBER 1st, 2003 - No news to report regarding the jury's announcement of World Trade Center memorial design finalists; however, continued indications of extreme anxiety and stress on the part of many competition entrants. I took a trans-Atlantic call on Monday afternoon from a very nice lady in Austria. She wanted to ask if there was anything more known about the jury's pending announcement. I simply told her anything I learn will be posted on this web site, so keep clicking! And yes, people are clicking; daily traffic at end of the month was triple the levels in the first week of September. I have e-mails from other participants who report that their wives are wondering when their heads will get back to normal, and others who say that colleagues at the office think they have lost their marbles over obsession with this project. So relax, everyone, I can tell you it's obviously a normal state to be anxious about the finalist announcement -- hundreds, perhaps thousands of competition entrants are feeling the same anxiety. We all seek a glorious and timeless memorial for the day that will never fade from the deepest reaches of our memory.

Meanwhile... one of the memorial competition jurors now has a friendly source for snacks and baked goods to help feed her fellow jurors in their never-ending deliberations. According to Associated Press, last week Maya Lin was a special guest at the official opening of The Greyston Bakery, which was founded by a Zen master in 1982, hires the homeless, and supplies brownies for Ben and Jerry's. This $9 million aluminum-clad building, on a once-contaminated site in southwest Yonkers, is architect Lin's first industrial design. Politically savvy finalists are advised to prominently display Greyston goodies on the table when they attend their interview sessions with the competition jury in late November or early December!

» EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT - SEPTEMBER 29th, 2003 - For those who live in New York City, or who plan to visit before next Saturday, a special exhibit: Absence Into Presence: The Art, Architecture and Design of Remembrance, an exhibition at Parsons School of Design through October 3rd, examines the multitude of ways in which men and women throughout history have struggled to remember people, events and even ideas through the media of art, architecture and design. The exhibition considers the range of aesthetic, cultural and political issues that affect and arise from the process of remembrance, and explores a wide variety of memorial and monumental structures and artworks, from a range of cultures around the world. Exhibit location: Aronson Galleries at 66 Fifth Avenue. My appreciation to Hugh Lester for contribution of this news item.

» NEWS UPDATE - SEPTEMBER 28th, 2003 - One of my frequent corrspondents and a fellow memorial competition entrant, architect Hugh Lester, has passed along this excellent WTC related reference link from MetropolisMag.com. Actually, it's more of a trivia facts & figures page, filled with numbers and stats gleaned from various news sources over the past year (from my extensive reading on this topic I recognize many from NYTimes.com and NYNewsday.com). Hugh asks me (in reference to a factoid in the middle of the MetropolisMag.com web page), "what's up with the 24 memorial competition entries received AFTER the 5:00 pm deadline on June 30th?" Yes, Hugh, I recall an Edward Wyatt news story on NYTimes.com, posted July 1st:

Yesterday was the last day for entries in the competition to design the memorial to the 3,022 victims of the attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, and the 1993 trade center bombing. By the 5 p.m. deadline, thousands of proposals, enough to fill a caravan of delivery trucks, had been received at the nondescript, six-story warehouse at 515 West 36th Street in Manhattan. Entries started being accepted on June 9, and the last ones trickled in for more than an hour after the deadline.

» NEWS UPDATE - SEPTEMBER 26th, 2003 - In reviewing recent refinements to the WTC site plan (see yesterday's commentary), and specifically the apparent complete elimination of truck ramps, loading docks, concourses and commercial infrastructure above the former twin towers' footprints, it becomes apparent that the definition of the memorial boundaries may now be mutable. Might the memorial have opportunity to reach below the level of its currently defined ground plane, 30 feet below street level? If so, has the competition jury been made aware of this possibility? Might the jury now be assessing the few remaining contenders (apparently numbering less than 20) on their potential to adapt to an expanded depth? The possibility of reaching to bedrock foundations on large scale could deliver a powerful visitor experience. And for sharp readers, please note that I consider the 13-foot wide sliver of access to foundations of the slurry wall, specified near the north-west corner of the memorial area, to be a somewhat marginalized site feature. I'm just posing the questions; I have no idea what the answers here may be. Reader feedback is welcome.

» NEWS UPDATE - SEPTEMBER 25th, 2003 - Take a look at the new site plan model at top of this web page -- it's time to get excited! Thanks to Felix Salmon, who snapped this exclusive photo at the LMDC unveiling last week, I can share this image with you and simply say, once again, job well done to LMDC and Studio Daniel Libeskind! This is a great plan. The sweep of tall towers is impressive, and the memorial space retains adequate room to breathe, with no commercial development anywhere under the footprints (except for PATH train infrastructure and mechanicals). Larry Silverstein (the developer/leaseholder who soon will receive a $3.5 or $7 billion insurance payout) can build and lease innovatively articulated Libeskind/Childs designed towers (five new ones, plus Childs' WTC-7 that Silverstein is already constructing independently) with traditional floor plates reaching practical, leasable heights. New Yorkers and the world get the 1776-foot WTC-1 tower, so-called Freedom Tower, at the site's corner gateway location, plus several new streets and intersections with human-scale retail and community features (giving the boot to Westfield Group; back to the suburban big-box mall business for those guys!) Plus, studies are proceeding for either a partial or complete tunneling of West Avenue immediately to the west of the WTC site, and Santiago Calatrava has been selected to design the new WTC transportation center. All of this in two short years! Now, one final piece of the puzzle remains -- we stand by for news from the memorial competition jury!

» BREAKING NEWS (REVISED) - SEPTEMBER 18th, 2003 - A fellow competitor, 'J', who attended the Municipal Art Society event last night (see the announcement in my Sept. 15th commentary, below) has reported that a panelist at this meeting, Reed Kroloff (a professional competition advisor who served recently as a juror for the Highline design competition in New York), and who claims to be close to one of the WTC memorial jurors, stated that "they (the jury members) are down to 11 proposals." Apparently then Kroloff backtracked and corrected, "between 11 and 18." These numbers have not been confirmed by official sources but I pass this on for the benefit of other anxious competitors who have chewed all 10 of their fingers down to the bone. You should know that Kroloff also stated that 4,500 proposals were eliminated almost immediately (85% of the 5,200 total), apparently separating the emotional-based submissions from the serious ones. I conclude that an announcement of finalists is likely to come in the next two weeks -- consistent with LMDC's original timetable -- but how tough will it be for the jury to work 20 down to the final 8?

» NEWS UPDATE - SEPTEMBER 18th, 2003 - Lower Manhattan Development Corporation yesterday released a newly revised site plan for the WTC site (the latest images and renderings from Studio Daniel Libeskind are posted here -- read this NY Newsday article and study these slide-show images presented by Daniel Libeskind at yesterday's news briefing). Libeskind's original site plan survives intact, and even is enhanced! Placement of the 1776-foot Freedom Tower remains at the north-west corner of site. There will be four commercial towers, with a fifth located off-site, on the south side of Liberty Street. Thus the overall building mass on the WTC site is reduced, allowing greater airspace and sunlight to penetrate, but without sacrifice of overall commercial square footage. Truck ramping will originate off-site from the south and completely avoid the tower footprint areas (victim family wishes have been respected). There appear to be no commercial concourses nor infrastructure, other than train tracks, anywhere below the former twin tower footprints and anywhere below the south south-west quadrant of the site. This apparently opens the possibility for some components of the memorial to reach below grade (presently defined as the level 30 feet below street) all the way down to foundations, 40 feet deeper, although no official comment about this has been offered. If true, this is excellent news! It's also great news for possibile variations of my memorial proposal. Congratulations to LMDC, Daniel Libeskind, and Larry Silverstein (the site leaseholder) for working out these details and confirming the vision and integrity of Libeskind's original plan.

Inside Design Competitions
September 17, 6:00 pm (Location TBC - call below for details)
This event is free to the public but space is limited, please RSVP to Maia Mordana at (212) 935-3960

"Inside Design Competitions," co-sponsored by the Municipal Art Society's Imagine New York project and New York New Visions, will explore the structure of design competitions through the experiences of professionals who have played key roles in the process: competition advisor, juror, designer, and client. The discussions will be focused not only on the panelists' experiences with competitions in general, but on issues relevant to the memorial competition at the World Trade Center site that are currently underway. Invited panelists: Reed Kroloff, professional competition advisor; Marion Weiss, Weiss-Manfredi Architects; Tom Finkelpearl, Queens Museum of Art; Vishaan Chakrabarti, NYC Dept. of City Planning. RSVP to Maia Mordana at (212) 935-3960.

» NEWS UPDATE - SEPTEMBER 12th, 2003 - In the deluge of news stories this week relating to the 2nd anniversary of the attacks, numerous memorial competition entrants have allowed themselves to be interviewed by news reporters (see web links to the stories in my 9/11 news update, below). Those published interviews have included specific descriptive details of their memorial proposals. Such apparent violations of competition rules are truly unfortunate and those entrants now risk being disqualified. However, some interesting observations can be made after reading the specifics of their plans. Seems that all are overly focused on replicating the winning themes of the Oklahoma City memorial and the Pentagon memorial -- placing 3000 'somethings' that represent each victim: 3000 hollow glass tubes; 3000 glass panels; 3000 frosted lighted glass columns. You can speculate on a multitude of other variations that may be in the pile: 3000 waterspouts; 3000 rosebushes; 3000 benches; 3000 obelisks; 3000 trees; 3000 lanterns, 3000 chairs. I think the competition jurors are going to grow really, really tired of that theme!

» BREAKING NEWS - SEPTEMBER 11th, 2003 - James Young, one of the WTC memorial competition jurors (sounds like an authoritative source to me!) has revealed that design finalists will be announced 4-5 weeks from now, in "mid-October", according to this story in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. The story also confirms that the judging is taking place in New York (sincere thanks to a fellow competitor, 'Harmonicaman', for the tip). So now all of us can relax, de-stress ourselves; enjoy the fine September weather!

» NEWS UPDATE - SEPTEMBER 11th, 2003 - There is a tidal wave of noteworthy articles today, on the 2nd anniversary of the attacks. If you wish to see what I am reading each day, simply use one of the Google newstracker bookmarks that I set up. I also note that a news interview this week with a team of memorial competition participants in Nebraska makes unfortunate reference to numerous specific design details of their proposal -- are the LMDC web surveilance staff and rules enforcers watching?? This is just one of several apparent violations of project confidentiality that I have observed or been tipped to; the first was published here in July, and others in profile stories of two Nebraska architects and a Stamford CT resident this week. I do not wish to implicate others, except that in order to preserve essential impartiality of the 13 jurors the only proper time to publicly discuss details and specifics is after announcement of the 5-8 competition finalists, expected in mid-October, which also is consistent with the official rules we all are bound by as participants. Did you people not read the rules?

» NEWS UPDATE - SEPTEMBER 9th, 2003 - Looks like I may be in New York City from September 18-21 for various matters. Anyone care to get together and discuss the WTC memorial competition? I welcome the interaction (the rules do not disallow us to meet and discuss privately). Contact other tri-state area competition participants you know, then e-mail me and let's set something up! NEXT DAY FOLLOW-UP: Yes, seems that several New York area competition entrants are eager and available -- more details shortly!

» NEWS UPDATE - SEPTEMBER 5th, 2003 - Well, it seems that many of my fellow WTC competitors are getting antsy and itchy to hear ANY news about status of the memorial judging. There has been a very strong increase in e-mail and web traffic through this site in the past 2 weeks -- consistently over 130-160 persons daily (most coming off Google searches)! Many thanks to all who have contacted me. Yes, the judging committee's announcement is coming soon, no doubt. Any credible scraps of information I get hold of will be posted on this site.

WTC memorial design competition entries delivered to warehouse for processing - June 30th 2003.

» NEWS UPDATE - AUGUST 19th, 2003 - Sources at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, as reported by NYNewsday.com, today revealed that up to 8 finalists will be selected for second-stage consideration in the design competition for the World Trade Center site memorial, 3 more than originally proposed during the lead-up to the competition earlier this spring. At present, the 13-member judging panel is reviewing all 5,200 submission presentation boards, with each member indicating his/her initial preferences using colored stickers. Boards that earn no stickers after initial review by all judges are eliminated from further consideration. Whether this sticker system will be used for subsequent rounds of judging was not revealed. This is outstanding news — an increase in the anticipated number of finalists indicates a very high level of design innovation in this competition, and promises that the judges have freedom to bring forward widely divergent proposals for second-stage judging. William Stratas, chief plan designer and team leader of Planetcast's proposal, comments: "I am very optimistic and confident that our presentation board has been blessed with many of those wonderful colored stickers!"

» NEWS ALERT: JULY 17th, 2003 - William Stratas, Planetcast's president and founder, is quoted today in a worldwide Associated Press newswire story on the World Trade Center site memorial design competition [see various pick-ups of the story: NY Times, ABC News, NY Newsday, The Guardian, SF Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sacramento Bee, WNBC and various others]. William is chief plan designer for one of the competition submissions; a total of 5,200 submissions were received by final deadline, June 30th. The interview, conducted by telephone from New York, solicited his opinion regarding the record number of submissions received in the competition: "I'm thrilled that there's a very vibrant level of interest," said William Stratas, a Toronto Web developer who is part of a three-person team that submitted a proposal. "I believe that even if you don't make finalist you do have the opportunity to sculpt the result."

WTC memorial design competition entries stacked at warehouse for processing - June 30th 2003.

» NEWS UPDATE - JUNE 28th, 2003 - 6:00 pm - Successfully delivered! We raced to the FedEx terminal in downtown Toronto at 4:30 pm today - the final opportunity to ship to New York for the Monday deadline. Our custom packaging was unassembled, but the artboard accompanying it was complete - and perfect! Only $150 (yikes!) for air express shipment to NYC by 10:30 am Monday (extra charges for Saturday shipping with Monday delivery). We assembled the package carefully, and loaned our tape gun to several other people who also were in line for the FedEx deadline! So, greetings to fellow entrants Dave, Drew and Ginger; we are all going to get together soon and discuss this project, after resting up - e-mail me now! Many, many thanks to Roshanak Ghadiry and the staff at Bay Signs in downtown Toronto for their extraordinary assistance with the digital printing and mounting of our competition submission!

» NEWS UPDATE - JUNE 20th, 2003 - Our memorial design proposal is being finalized this week. We hope to generate spectacular output, with final hi-resolution printed images integrated within the 32x40 inch artboard. We plan to ship the finished entry to New York on Friday June 27th. We can't display any details or images of our submission on this web site at this time, according to competition rules, because anonymity of all entries must be ensured. Wait for the unveiling reception in Toronto (and on this web site), expected late September or early October!

» NEWS UPDATE - AUGUST 23rd, 2002 - The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has unofficially announced that an open competition will be held for design of the World Trade Center memorial and related project elements. This is great news; it means that our proposal will stand equally with all others. We remain extremely confident of the theme and scope of our memorial proposal and overall site plan. LMDC is expected to announce official guidelines for the competition in early Fall 2002. The competition is expected to close in Spring 2003, with a winner announced by mid-to-late summer. Our proposal plan will be unveiled shortly after close of the design competition -- get ready for a big party!

Quick Facts About The World Trade Center Site Memorial Design Competition:

» A total of 13,683 registrants from 93 countries worldwide have registered their intent to submit proposals for the World Trade Center site memorial. Within the United States, 11,370 people registered their intent to compete. New York had the most registrants of any state -- 4,598 people -- followed by California with 1,151 competition registrants, and New Jersey with 922 registrants. By the deadline date of June 30th, 2003, a total of 5,200 submissions were received -- a world record total for any prior architectural or memorial design competition.

» By comparison, 2,500 people registered in August 2002 for the Pentagon memorial competition, and 1,126 submitted entries that met the competition rules. Manhattan architects Julie Beckman and Keith Kaseman won that competition, with benches and trees for each victim of the September 11th attack on the Pentagon.

» The Oklahoma City Memorial competition, held to honor the victims of the bombing at the Alfred Murrah Federal Office Building in 1995, attracted 4,800 registrants and 627 design submissions. Butzer Design Partnership, now based in Cambridge, MA, won that competition.

» The Vietnam Veterans Memorial competition in 1981 accepted 1,421 proposal entries and was won by Maya Lin, a second year architecture student at Yale University, who currently is serving as a judge on the World Trade Center site memorial competition jury. As a matter of historical interest, take a moment to read Maya Lin's design submission to the Vietnam Veterans memorial competition.