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The design strives to make visible what is absent — Michael Arad
Nearly 25 years ago on a maiden visit to New York, the erstwhile twin World Trade Towers loomed large over the Hudson Bay docks from where various boat cruises originated. The sleek Modernist blocks designed by Minoru Yamasaki were the signature top of the Manhattan skyline — nearly as iconic as the Statue of Liberty. Almost all tourists clicked pictures to immortalise this moment. As the cruise began, the Big Apple’s legendary vertical skyline began to configure more legibly. Then on September 11, 2001, the whole world saw the images of these elegant 110-storey Twin Towers crumbling down live on TV screens. The cataclysmic event of 9/11 left 2,900 dead and injured. It was imperative to fill the gaping wounds and hollow pits left behind at Ground Zero — and above all rebuild and resurrect the demolished American spirit. Accordingly, an international design competition was held to conceptualise the new World Trade Center. After a prolonged process of screenings, revisions and legal wrangles, a new comprehensive scheme was finally unfolded to include: Five new skyscrapers (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 WTC), The National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Transportation Hub and a Performing Arts Centre. The project symbolises a unique and unprecedented teamwork of famous international architects, artists and urban developers, including Santiago Calatrava, David Childs, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Fumihiko Maki, and Richard Rogers — their common and singular objective being, creation of a grand, inspiring ‘new urban centre for 21st century New York. Construction on ground began on April 27, 2006, and the authorities in 2009 announced that the highest building would be known by its legal name ‘One World Trade Center’, rather than the popular name Freedom Tower. On May 10, 2013, the final component of the skyscraper’s spire was installed, making One World Trade Center (WTC) the tallest structure in New York and the Western hemisphere, surpassing the height of the Empire State Building. The newly erected One World Trade Center (One WTC) with its nearly 400-feet spire stands tall in vicinity of famous buildings like the Empire State, Chrysler Building. To visit the One WTC, take the subway and get down at the Wall Street, and walk through narrow streets flanked by endless high-rises of what Le Corbusier called, ‘Grand Canyons of concrete’. Surprisingly amid the choc-a-block sky vaulting buildings, in a tiny little park stands a quaint old church, whose bells toll musically, calming the adrenaline rush of the Wall Street financers strutting by. Juxtaposed with the 19th century ivy clad, Saint Nicholas church, one can spot in the background, the shimmering, gleaming glass of an endlessly high tower — One WTC. There is a large queue of people in front of the visitors centre of the WTC. After a rigorous security check and more crawling in serpentine lines, one finally enters the WTC quadrangle. Since the construction work is still underway, the whole area is cordoned off, besides the security concerns. As one enters the site dotted with rows of oak trees, you see two sunken pools with water cascading on all four sides. The ground-level piazza has been conceived as an urban forest with contemplative spaces and green foliage spread across one and a half acres. Close to the pools is the geometrically angular form of the upcoming ‘The Museum of September 11’, and you have to crane your neck to be able to see up to the pinnacle of the One WTC standing north of it. The sleek, blue tinted-glass skin-wrapped around the steel structure of One WTC rises from a solid concrete base sheathed in metal cladding. The reflecting glass facade mirrors the passing clouds as well as the adjoining buildings, trees and landscape in an ever-changing kaleidoscopic images. The 104-storey One WTC, designed by architect David M. Childs, including the spire, stands at a symbolic 1,776 feet, signifying the year America signed the Declaration of Independence. "We wanted our design to be grounded in something that was real, not just in sculptural sketches. We explored the infrastructural challenges because the proper solution would have to be compelling, not just beautiful", explains Childs. Not surprisingly, some New Yorkers consider the new city icon to be too staid and not iconic enough. Most cabbies refer to it as the ‘Big Finger’! It is expected to be fully complete and formally inaugurated this year. But the real crowds are around the two 30-feet sunken memorial pools, with cascading waters. These constitute the largest manmade waterfalls in America. In January 2004, the scheme ‘Reflecting Absence’ by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker was selected. "The design strives to make visible what is absent," Michael Arad said. "The primary responsibility we have is to those we lost that day." Large multitudes of people with American flags in their hands, crane their necks to read the names of the 9/11 victims etched on the metal-clad parapet tops running all around the pools. Perhaps, there is a parent, brother, sister, a spouse or a daughter or son whose name is being searched. It’s not surprising to see someone sitting quietly on a bench beneath the oak trees with moist eyes. . The Memorial Museum designed by Davis Brody Bond, when fully complete will present a "sequence of experiences which allow for individual and personal encounters within an overall context of a historical narrative. Visitors will enter through a pavilion with an auditorium, a multi-purpose area for contemplation and a private space reserved for victims’ family members". Interior work is underway, and expected to be complete soon. In 2011, President Obama, President Bush, New York Mayor Bloomberg gathered with those who lost loved ones at the World Trade Center site to mark both the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 and for the dedication ceremony for the memorial and museum. As you walk away from the site and again take a boat cruise around Manhattan. For it’s only with the perspective of distance and time that the enormity of the past sinks in. That deep void of 9/11 now stands valiantly filled up by the One WTC — standing like a sentinel guarding the New York skies. America rises yet again through an architectural metaphor.
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