REFLECTING ABSENCE Sunken, square pools in an arbor would outline the twin tower footprints. (Photo courtesy of LMDC)

On Jan. 14, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., with New York Gov. George E. Pataki (R) and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (R), unveiled the revised design of Reflecting Absence, the memorial competition winner announced Jan. 6 (ENR 1/12 p. 7). But even the revision, based on input from WTC master planner Daniel Libeskind, will continue to evolve, said Vartan Gregorian, spokesman for the competition’s 13-member, unpaid jury.

"We do not view our selection of a winner as the end of the memorial," said Gregorian. "Rather, we see our selection as one more stage of memory."

The jury picked Reflecting Absence from an initial 5,201 submissions from 63 nations. "Of all the designs submitted we have found that Reflecting Absence...fulfills most eloquently the daunting–but absolutely necessary–demands of this memorial," he said. "In its powerful yet simple articulation of the footprints of the twin towers, Reflecting Absence has made the voids left by the destruction the primary symbols of our loss."

Duo Plus. Walker (left), Arad at unveiling with Pataki (right). (Photo by Nadine M. Post for ENR)

The concept is by Michael Arad, a 36-year-old architect with the New York City Housing Authority, working with landscape architect Peter Walker, of the 20-year-old Berkeley, Calif., firm that bears his name.

The design calls for a grove of deciduous trees, at grade, "interrupted" by two voids containing pools, recessed 30 ft and outlined by waterfalls. The 200-ft-square pools and ramps around them would encompass the footprints of the twin, 110-story towers of the 16-acre World Trade Center, destroyed by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. The memorial will also honor those who died in a terrorist bombing of the WTC on Feb. 26, 1993.

The pools would be linked by a passageway with rooms for contemplation. Surrounding each pool would be a continuous ribbon of names, etched in stone in no particular order, of those killed. Rescuers would be differentiated only by their agency’s insignia. The lack of alphabetization will promote the democratic ideal that all lives are equally valuable, said Bloomberg.

Along the site’s western edge, a stairway would provide access to a section of the slurry wall foundation and the entrance to an "interpretive center" for artifacts. A room for unidentified remains would be at bedrock below the north tower footprint.

More memorial design information is available at www.WTC. SiteMemorial.org.

John C. Whitehead, chairman of LMDC, said details about the WTC Site Memorial Foundation, which will oversee fund raising, construction and programming, will be offered in the next few weeks.