Start Slideshow
Interview with Michael Arad, designer of the 9/11 Memorial in New York CityNo other event stands out in America's recent collective memory as clearly as the attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. This one event changed us, and the world, forever. To memorialize such trauma requires a tremendous sensitivity, skill and humility. A healthy dose of courage is necessary too, particularly given how polarizing the 9/11 memorial project has been from the very start. Architect Michael Arad's design for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan was chosen out of 5,200 submissions, and officially opened at Ground Zero in downtown New York City, on the 10 year anniversary of that horrific day. We had the great privilege to chat with Michael Arad about his iconic design for the 9/11 Memorial in NYC and his architectural work in general. Read on for an insightful discussion about one of the most important memorials in United States history.1
Interview with Michael Arad, designer of the 9/11 Memorial in New York CityNo other event stands out in America's recent collective memory as clearly as the attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. This one event changed us, and the world, forever. To memorialize such trauma requires a tremendous sensitivity, skill and humility. A healthy dose of courage is necessary too, particularly given how polarizing the 9/11 memorial project has been from the very start. Architect Michael Arad's design for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan was chosen out of 5,200 submissions, and officially opened at Ground Zero in downtown New York City, on the 10 year anniversary of that horrific day. We had the great privilege to chat with Michael Arad about his iconic design for the 9/11 Memorial in NYC and his architectural work in general. Read on for an insightful discussion about one of the most important memorials in United States history.2
Aerial view of the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in NYCNo other event stands out in America's recent collective memory as clearly as the attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. This one event changed us, and the world, forever. To memorialize such trauma requires a tremendous sensitivity, skill and humility. A healthy dose of courage is necessary too, particularly given how polarizing the 9/11 memorial project has been from the very start. Architect Michael Arad's design for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan was chosen out of 5,200 submissions, and officially opened at Ground Zero in downtown New York City, on the 10 year anniversary of that horrific day. We had the great privilege to chat with Michael Arad about his iconic design for the 9/11 Memorial in NYC and his architectural work in general. Read on for an insightful discussion about one of the most important memorials in United States history.3
911 Memorial in New York City at the World Trade Center, at duskNo other event stands out in America's recent collective memory as clearly as the attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. This one event changed us, and the world, forever. To memorialize such trauma requires a tremendous sensitivity, skill and humility. A healthy dose of courage is necessary too, particularly given how polarizing the 9/11 memorial project has been from the very start. Architect Michael Arad's design for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan was chosen out of 5,200 submissions, and officially opened at Ground Zero in downtown New York City, on the 10 year anniversary of that horrific day. We had the great privilege to chat with Michael Arad about his iconic design for the 9/11 Memorial in NYC and his architectural work in general. Read on for an insightful discussion about one of the most important memorials in United States history.4
911 Memorial in New York City at the World Trade CenterNo other event stands out in America's recent collective memory as clearly as the attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. This one event changed us, and the world, forever. To memorialize such trauma requires a tremendous sensitivity, skill and humility. A healthy dose of courage is necessary too, particularly given how polarizing the 9/11 memorial project has been from the very start. Architect Michael Arad's design for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan was chosen out of 5,200 submissions, and officially opened at Ground Zero in downtown New York City, on the 10 year anniversary of that horrific day. We had the great privilege to chat with Michael Arad about his iconic design for the 9/11 Memorial in NYC and his architectural work in general. Read on for an insightful discussion about one of the most important memorials in United States history.5
INTERVIEW: Inhabitat talks with NYC's 911 Memorial designer Michael AradArad: "I think one of the things that drew the jury to this particular design was that it challenged the master plan in some ways, and I think that was important to them—to see how you can make a memorial plaza that's actually part of the city."6
911 Memorial in New York City at the World Trade CenterNo other event stands out in America's recent collective memory as clearly as the attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. This one event changed us, and the world, forever. To memorialize such trauma requires a tremendous sensitivity, skill and humility. A healthy dose of courage is necessary too, particularly given how polarizing the 9/11 memorial project has been from the very start. Architect Michael Arad's design for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan was chosen out of 5,200 submissions, and officially opened at Ground Zero in downtown New York City, on the 10 year anniversary of that horrific day. We had the great privilege to chat with Michael Arad about his iconic design for the 9/11 Memorial in NYC and his architectural work in general. Read on for an insightful discussion about one of the most important memorials in United States history.7
INTERVIEW: Inhabitat talks with NYC's 911 Memorial designer Michael Arad"There are two important design objectives for me in thinking about the site, and one was to make absence sort of tangible and visible, and that sense of that violent rupture that occurred here; finding a way to capture that and that sense of ongoing absence and emptiness. It started with a sketch of shearing the Hudson River to form two square voids, and it translated to these two memorial pools on the plaza, which break the surface of this big flat plaza and plunge deep down into the ground," said Arad.8
INTERVIEW: Inhabitat talks with NYC's 911 Memorial designer Michael AradArad: "Another key idea to this memorial was that it would be a public space at grade—that it would be open and civic and democratic and would bring people together here at the site. And that came out of my own experiences here in New York in places like Washington Square and Union Square, which acted as sites for impromptu memorials immediately after the attack, but even more importantly, acted as places for us to gather and respond as a community."9
911-memorial-01Arad: "I wanted that to be part of this site, a place for people to come together and to be in the presence of others when they're here, a place that's a living part of the city, where people who come here aren't just visitors to the memorial. They’re also people who live and work in this neighborhood and we bring all of them together here and make the memorial a living part of the everyday of the city in a way that doesn’t diminish it, but enhances every activity that goes on around it."10
INTERVIEW: Inhabitat talks with NYC's 911 Memorial designer Michael AradArad: "If you’re here for that once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to New York and you see the office workers gathered here, which are no different than the office workers whose names are inscribed on these parapets, I think it reinforces that message that they are us, we are them, and this is the day-to-day life that was so painfully interrupted on that day."11
INTERVIEW: Inhabitat talks with NYC's 911 Memorial designer Michael AradNo other event stands out in America's recent collective memory as clearly as the attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001.12
INTERVIEW: Inhabitat talks with NYC's 911 Memorial designer Michael AradAn 8-acre plaza at the center of the greater 16-acre World Trade Center complex, the National September 11 Memorial comprises two pools recessed 30 feet in the ground in the footprints of the original towers, with waterfalls cascading into the holes of the former towers.13
INTERVIEW: Inhabitat talks with NYC's 911 Memorial designer Michael AradThe experience of the National September 11 Memorial is simultaneously moving, reflective, horrifying and peaceful - all depending on where you stand.14
Michael Arad, 5th Street Farms, Green Roof on top of the Earth SchoolNo other event stands out in America's recent collective memory as clearly as the attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. This one event changed us, and the world, forever. To memorialize such trauma requires a tremendous sensitivity, skill and humility. A healthy dose of courage is necessary too, particularly given how polarizing the 9/11 memorial project has been from the very start. Architect Michael Arad's design for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan was chosen out of 5,200 submissions, and officially opened at Ground Zero in downtown New York City, on the 10 year anniversary of that horrific day. We had the great privilege to chat with Michael Arad about his iconic design for the 9/11 Memorial in NYC and his architectural work in general. Read on for an insightful discussion about one of the most important memorials in United States history.15
Interview with Michael Arad, designer of the 9/11 Memorial in New York CityNo other event stands out in America's recent collective memory as clearly as the attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. This one event changed us, and the world, forever. To memorialize such trauma requires a tremendous sensitivity, skill and humility. A healthy dose of courage is necessary too, particularly given how polarizing the 9/11 memorial project has been from the very start. Architect Michael Arad's design for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan was chosen out of 5,200 submissions, and officially opened at Ground Zero in downtown New York City, on the 10 year anniversary of that horrific day. We had the great privilege to chat with Michael Arad about his iconic design for the 9/11 Memorial in NYC and his architectural work in general. Read on for an insightful discussion about one of the most important memorials in United States history.16
