Nilsson+Siden Associates Inc.

World Trade Center
Memorial Park Competition

The Memorial Park honors the victims of the terrorists’ attacks by celebrating life with a Memorial Theater that is both a place of quiet contemplation and a creative background to live performances.

Among the very highest honors awarded to an Athenian citizen was the right to have his or her name inscribed upon a seat in the city’s theater. Politicians, generals and others of distinction were granted the privilege by which generations that followed could read and remember the names of those who had contributed so mightily to their community... Let those who perished communally... be honored through a never-ending chorus of the living. A theater filled with exhilarated and inspired, entertained and contemplative Americans encircled in one of the oldest architectural forms given to us by those who invented democracy itself. [1]

Each of the nearly 3,000 victims’ names is inscribed on a seat of the theater. Aisles radiate out to the footprints of the original World Trade Center towers designating areas for quiet visitation and contemplation. Between the tower footprints and adjacent to the main entrance, the surviving bronze orb sculpture sits on an elevated plaza as a symbol of enduring strength. Surrounding the orb, crystalline skylights illuminate the final resting-place below for the unidentified remains from the World Trade Center site. Arbors identify the original tower footprints, extending along two sides of the towers to provide plantings and shade during summer and protective cover during winter.

[1] Connelly, Joan Breton, “Let’s Look To Ancient Forms For a Memorial”, Wall Street Journal, 10/17/02.
 
 
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