WTC Memorial Park vs Ground Zero (1)
key issues surrounding the current World Trade Center
redevelopment efforts revolve around planning errors
and mistakes that are now more clearly than ever visible,
attributable, and extended by BRANDING the entirety of the
WTC memorial site as being the "GROUND ZERO" of 9/11 events.
it was not up until this moment of heinous disregard for
the goals and aims of the 9/11 memorial that their side-
lining could be seen as a result of a branding STRATEGY
that makes consensus-based compromises between various
commercial, institutional, and citizen lobbying groups.
the potential was that these constituent parts may add
up to a larger whole transcending limited self-interest.
the pitfall is that an actual and pure INTENTION becomes
secondary to BUREAUCRATIC managing of conflicting ideals.
from the first days of the 'rebuilding' effort this was
evidenced in the misguided priorities of the INSURANCE
settlements in relation to real estate, square footage of
office space, and debates over who controls redevelopment
of the site. it turned PROCEDURAL and 'business-as-usual'
with regard to how the rebuilding effort became framed
primarily in terms of PRIVATE profit of select players.
the most obvious betrayal of the PUBLIC_TRUST was the
immediate focus on the development of the REAL ESTATE.
these cross-purposes of good intentions were materialized
in the motivations of developing the WTC SITE with respect
to COMMERCIAL interests, firstly: 'A real estate developer
builds on land, thereby increasing its value.' [2] and yet
the value already existed for the site and only needed to
be respected, honored, and served by a designed intention.
instead, the value of the real estate became paramount and
all design decisions flowed from this other value system.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_developer
the branding of "Ground Zero" wholly facilitated this view,
as its cultural value was pre-ordained, a fait-accompli,
and now only needed to be expertly exploited and consumed.
The overwhelming proof of this is that the entirety of the
WTC site was developed by accomplice ARCHITECTS prior to
a MEMORIAL even being considered with respect to the site.
that is, the 9/11 memorial was effectively an afterthought
of the existing "MASTER PLAN" which was generated by real
interest agendas: increasing the value of private property
holdings: doing exactly what is, in effect, to be expected.
the major problem with this approach - facilitated by the
use and abuse of architects to cloak this decision-making
under a guise of ART, SPIRITUALITY, and PHILOSOPHY - is
what was a 'sacred TRUST' was undermined by institutional
dysfunction, represented by individuals no more in control
of these forces than most anyone else, thus unaccountable.
such complacency may be voiced as: "it is just how it is."
the VALUE of the WTC site was borne into existence on 9/11
and secured an extraordinary place in the public's reality
and imagination as to its true worth and cultural meaning.
it was unlike any other site, any other place, any other
time. unique, outstandingly tragic and heroic, and sacred.
this shared value system was to be the necessary requirement,
the MEASUREMENT for the success of the site and 9/11 memorial
in relation to the goals and objectives as stated, so as to
protect the site from becoming a monument to the PROFANE.
how else could it be that the zoning of the memorial area
of the 'master plan' could now be arguing over the status
of art in what is, unarguably, the inner sanctum of the
site plan as designed? how could such a PUBLIC cultural
institution be placed in such proximity to unspeakable
and unbelievable events that the triviality of human
expressions pales in comparison to, in terms of scale?
rebuilding was branded as a statement, a TESTAMENT of
belief and of a defiance not to be cowed by terrorists.
again, the only LOGIC that deciphers such failures of
decision-making, dealings, and compromises of the TRUE
content and unique content is the efforts to "BRAND"
the redevelopment project as "Ground Zero". that is,
to MARKET and 'SPIN' the redevelopment efforts into
a controlled and exploitable commercial context. in
other words, "Ground Zero" thus becomes a commodity:
it is then made into the functional equivalent of
Disneyland, and ADVERTISED as a new CULTURAL MECCA.
never-mind that 'ground zero' is a generic definition
of tragedy that has already been used in other places,
such as post-Tsunami Indonesia. yet it functions as if
the cultural trademark of the WTC and 9/11 memorial now
and is utilized as a default IDENTITY of the site and
the larger rebuilding effort. what does it symbolize?
-- unmistakably it presents Ground Zero as COMMERCE.
whether economic, political, cultural, social, class,
architectural, institutional, bureaucratic, celebrity,
strategic, demographic, religious, stylistic, creative,
historical, security, psychological, ... ideological.
as such it is entombed in private interpretations of
the IDEA of what is believed to be of VALUE from a
relativistic perspective unable to transcend beyond
its special interests as they are not organized along
PRINCIPLES of a PLAN which serves the PUBLIC INTEREST.
instead, bits and pieces of this unique public PROPERTY
are parceled out to selected participants who were able
to further refine the details of the project by way of
PROPRIETARY exchanges using the above-mentioned logic,
which establishes a series of procedures to be followed.
this is not an indictment against commercial interests
in real estate development or less than noble aims in
some conspiratorial situation- it is a natural result
of approaching the absolutely unique question of what
to do with the WTC site and the memorial using tried-
and-true METHODS, based on and justified by IDEOLOGY.
this IDÉE-FIXEE manifests itself in the WTC site plan
where two towers, 1,368' and 1,362' respectively, were
cremated into the dust and fury of armageddon realized.
the safety, security, procedures that failed on that day
of insanity and infamy, which resulted in the deaths of
over 2,700 people was, until that moment, unimaginable.
and yet immediately after this event it became an agreed
upon consensus that a SKYSCRAPER must replace what was
lost, regardless of the wisdom of such an approach. only
in the last week (06/2005) have the findings from the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
outlined the collapse and given recommendations for
addressing the safety issues involved in such design.
in other words, the existing WTC efforts have pursued
a master plan that encompasses the 9/11 memorial site
with skyscrapers without serious review or questioning
of the obligation to do so. that is because this is in
the realm of expertise of architects whose calls were
either ignored or dismissed while 'business as usual'
forged ahead with a plan for its business development:
time is money. and yet these trade-offs have severely
decreased the value of the WTC site and 9/11 memorial
and truly endanger the site by not addressing the true
structural threat of repeating an unmistakable design
flaw which needs to be reconsidered as a FAIT ACCOMPLI.
this is to say the SKYSCRAPER is one building type of
many which could shape the design of the site and the
TYPOLOGY of a square, garden, and bounded civic space
could have defined a Memorial Park as a viable option.
this is a fact based in the professional knowledge of
urban planning, architectural design, and landscape
architecture. yet the outcome was always BIASED by
pre-conceived notions of how the site should 'look.'
its image, which is illusory and often just a facade.
the empty skyline and archetypes of the twin towers
held more weight with the public's mind than reason.
and when architects should have spoke up, they didn't.
the planning approach was not decided by EXPERTISE but
by an AGENDA that reverse-engineered the end results
using the means of architecture, real estate, culture,
etc. to arrive at a workable solution for businessmen
and a mass appeal that is repeating a cosmic mistake.
thus, by pursuing the development of 'Ground Zero' as
speculative real estate, the rebuilding effort became
prioritized by office space in a series of skyscrapers
surrounding some as-yet-to-be-designed 9/11 memorial
which has no relation to the overall plan of the site.
meaning: the WTC redevelopment effort is not the result
of securing the aims and goals of uniquely commemorating
the events, ideas, and emotions of 9/11 in a memorial.
instead, the questions about which the master plan has
been made to revolve are those of a private businessman.
business planning has thus generated the 9/11 memorial:
the memorial itself is of arbitrary design, uncritical
to the context of master planning for the overall site.
it is inconsequential to directing WTC site development
and it has no core design influence in the larger scale
and context in which it was created and ultimately will
be operating. instead it is the result of limiting the
public goals and aims of architecture to its clientele
and not to the ideas and goals of ARCHITECTURE itself:
this public project is an entirely private development.
specifically, it is the ideology of MODERNISM which has
facilitated this architectural outcome. no real conflict
exists, no paradox, no contradictions, between the world-
view of modern ideologues and the triumph of business
interests over those of the public interest, if obeying
the TENETs of modernism which limits the substance of
what architecture is (e.g. light, material, geometry).
buildings in themselves do not need to mean anything.
it is simply a metaphysical belief system of subjective
expressions: a DOCTRINE believed by its followers as
equivalent to universal statements of fact manifested
by design, in built form. the architecture of the WTC
redevelopment is simply an extension of this ideology,
that which designed, built, and justified the original
World Trade Center site while ignoring critical details
which helped undermine its security, to great peril.
Modernism exists both as a refutation of tradition and
as the new ORTHODOXY, extending the 18th century while
solidifying the ideals of the 20th century in DOGMAS
that are central to failures of redevelopment efforts.
from issues surrounding the worth of the original WTC,
to biased competitions and juries which resulted in
the imperatives of using skyscrapers (sans significant
questioning of their utility as an urban building type
even after such a cataclysmic, catastrophic failure),
to the predictable result of pre-ordained goals for
the STYLE of the 9/11 memorial which was determined
in advance to follow in the tradition of Maya Lin's
modernist approach for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial-
the jury selection a Maya Lin-like 9/11 memorial, a
design which exemplifies modernist design principles
over the last half-century and says absolutely nothing
architecturally that has not been said before, and as
such is merely FORMULAIC and representative of works
originating in the 1960s and is in no way unique to
the events of 9/11 nor does it need to be, by design.
the 9/11 memorial and site plan are architecturally,
in essence, nothing more than an applied ideology.
as architecture, they are underwhelming, less than
what is agreed to be necessary, and average at best.
-this handicapping of several competitions ultimately
limited the architectural outcomes, the basic idea that
a 9/11 memorial would be able to generate a master plan.
instead, architectural decisions were delegated to a
cadre of established architectural practitioners who
support and extend Modernism in their own works, in
the school systems and organizations which effectively
limits what is possible in the field today. the events
of 9/11 called into question this ideological surety
and yet the questions that needed to be asked in open
forums and public debates never occurred. instead the
celebrity, academic, and theoretical architects found
shelter in the process so to extend the ideology further
without critical evaluation and substantive peer-review.
that is, core assumptions in relation to architecture.
instead, non-architects began carrying the mantel of
Modernist ideology by declaring "greatness" as if a
matter of faith. the absence of actual content such as
symbolism was replaced by semantics. literally, signage.
the "Freedom Tower's" ultimate value is in the specious
detail of its being 1776' tall, 'exactly' impossible.
architecture is spiritualized, able to heal wounds, and
other magic acts as if delivered from holy architects.
the architectural facade may serve politics, but it does
not serve ideas of architecture which make it actual, real,
true, beautiful, and of value. it cannot be spun or faked
when people feel disappointment or lose their expectations
for something so sublime as to defines this unfolding era.
it is nothing less critical than a foreign policy decision,
and the strategic approach to not repeating mistakes of the
past- instead, imagining and designing better way of living.
the ZONING decisions which have resulted in placing a
building type such a museum, which uses the structural
form of a parking garage hovering above the 9/11 voids
said to commemorate the loss, pain, grief, and sorrow
for eternity, is another example of trying to reverse-
engineer public participation in the private process
of developing the site, organized by its real estate.
these are glaring mistakes in the goals of the project.
i.e. the maneuvering of the rebuilding effort around
real-estate interests (office space in a series of
skyscrapers surrounding an after-the-fact memorial)
resulted in the void that is left at the center of
the site and yet which is without any meaning itself.
it is an abstract expressionist architecture when what
occurred on the site on 9/11 is nothing of the sort.
as such the design of the memorial and the "master plan"
are mainly pseudo-intellectual instead of emotional and
grounded in experience, knowledge, understanding, and
relation to 9/11 and what happened in this place, in
those days, to have the architecture speak, not the
architects. the project is now an academic exercise,
it is unacceptable to not be revolted by this fact.
it is the result of the 'master plan' of a private
enterprise appropriately named "Ground Zero"- there
is nothing there except ideological commercialization
of 9/11. 9/11 is absent from the architecture, ideas.
if the true aims and goals of the site were pursued
as stated, the memorial would have largely designed
the space, programming, site planning, and zoning.
and instead it is exactly opposite of this approach.
the business agenda designed the memorial to 9/11:
this situation is unacceptable and must be stopped.
the first step in stopping these mistakes and errors
is to not perpetuate them any further. to differentiate
the current and total failure to approach the aims and
goals of this unique site and honor and value 9/11 at
the core of its redevelopment, the project should no
longer be considered as "Ground Zero." this moniker
has become a business plan for exploiting memories
for private profiteering and has exacerbated already
serious problems with managing the many expectations.
"Ground Zero" is the symbol of the current failure of
the 'master plan' and memorial to do what is necessary
to protect the site from unfettered business agendas,
whether public or private, it is a zoning nightmare.
"Ground Zero" served its purpose by biding time and
allowing reflection, and that has led to the self-
evident fact that a superior approach is needed and
a new organization logic which places the memorial
to 9/11 at the center of events, the ORGANIZATIONAL
LOGIC by which the larger site plan and zoning is
designed in relation to, with inherent symbolism
of the events of 9/11 such as the cathedral wall
as the central focus, from which all things evolve.
This is no longer "ground zero" but instead, a new
vision for the rebirth of Lower Manhattan, designed
around the periphery of these still vivid memories,
not masked in abstractions of glass, steel, concrete-
instead, in a beautiful park which places humanity
at the center of events, in a delicate balance of
what is lost and what is found, what was gone and
what returns, and to respect and honor such truths.
A master plan designed around a WTC Memorial Park
will facilitate reorganizing the planning around
ideas, not ideologies, around the cosmic scale of
events, not the height of a skyscraper, and with
human experiences in a special place we all share.
if these values guide a new vision for the site,
then all will be able to see with their own eyes
what the superior approach is: hearts will tell.
people will not have to be told how great it is,
they will know the true power of architecture.
this new master plan must serve all people, and
its architects and its architectures just serve
the 9/11 memorial, firstly, which will generate
the larger zoning and site plan, balancing aims
and goals of memory in the overall master plan:
a focus on life and the future of its community.
tears will not just flow from the sorrow of events,
people will weep because of an overwhelming beauty.
the new plan will be self-evident, not contrived.
this is to say: "Ground Zero" is dead. it should
no longer exist. forged in its place is its true
future as 'the World Trade Center Memorial Park,'
which grows by each possibility, hope, and effort
to do everything it takes to make it into reality.
support citizen architects who can make it happen.
please do whatever it takes to make it happen...
[next: WTC Memorial Park]
brian thomas carroll: research-design-development
architecture, education, electromagnetism
http://www.mnartists.org/brian_carroll
http://www.electronetwork.org/bc/
key issues surrounding the current World Trade Center
redevelopment efforts revolve around planning errors
and mistakes that are now more clearly than ever visible,
attributable, and extended by BRANDING the entirety of the
WTC memorial site as being the "GROUND ZERO" of 9/11 events.
it was not up until this moment of heinous disregard for
the goals and aims of the 9/11 memorial that their side-
lining could be seen as a result of a branding STRATEGY
that makes consensus-based compromises between various
commercial, institutional, and citizen lobbying groups.
the potential was that these constituent parts may add
up to a larger whole transcending limited self-interest.
the pitfall is that an actual and pure INTENTION becomes
secondary to BUREAUCRATIC managing of conflicting ideals.
from the first days of the 'rebuilding' effort this was
evidenced in the misguided priorities of the INSURANCE
settlements in relation to real estate, square footage of
office space, and debates over who controls redevelopment
of the site. it turned PROCEDURAL and 'business-as-usual'
with regard to how the rebuilding effort became framed
primarily in terms of PRIVATE profit of select players.
the most obvious betrayal of the PUBLIC_TRUST was the
immediate focus on the development of the REAL ESTATE.
these cross-purposes of good intentions were materialized
in the motivations of developing the WTC SITE with respect
to COMMERCIAL interests, firstly: 'A real estate developer
builds on land, thereby increasing its value.' [2] and yet
the value already existed for the site and only needed to
be respected, honored, and served by a designed intention.
instead, the value of the real estate became paramount and
all design decisions flowed from this other value system.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_developer
the branding of "Ground Zero" wholly facilitated this view,
as its cultural value was pre-ordained, a fait-accompli,
and now only needed to be expertly exploited and consumed.
The overwhelming proof of this is that the entirety of the
WTC site was developed by accomplice ARCHITECTS prior to
a MEMORIAL even being considered with respect to the site.
that is, the 9/11 memorial was effectively an afterthought
of the existing "MASTER PLAN" which was generated by real
interest agendas: increasing the value of private property
holdings: doing exactly what is, in effect, to be expected.
the major problem with this approach - facilitated by the
use and abuse of architects to cloak this decision-making
under a guise of ART, SPIRITUALITY, and PHILOSOPHY - is
what was a 'sacred TRUST' was undermined by institutional
dysfunction, represented by individuals no more in control
of these forces than most anyone else, thus unaccountable.
such complacency may be voiced as: "it is just how it is."
the VALUE of the WTC site was borne into existence on 9/11
and secured an extraordinary place in the public's reality
and imagination as to its true worth and cultural meaning.
it was unlike any other site, any other place, any other
time. unique, outstandingly tragic and heroic, and sacred.
this shared value system was to be the necessary requirement,
the MEASUREMENT for the success of the site and 9/11 memorial
in relation to the goals and objectives as stated, so as to
protect the site from becoming a monument to the PROFANE.
how else could it be that the zoning of the memorial area
of the 'master plan' could now be arguing over the status
of art in what is, unarguably, the inner sanctum of the
site plan as designed? how could such a PUBLIC cultural
institution be placed in such proximity to unspeakable
and unbelievable events that the triviality of human
expressions pales in comparison to, in terms of scale?
rebuilding was branded as a statement, a TESTAMENT of
belief and of a defiance not to be cowed by terrorists.
again, the only LOGIC that deciphers such failures of
decision-making, dealings, and compromises of the TRUE
content and unique content is the efforts to "BRAND"
the redevelopment project as "Ground Zero". that is,
to MARKET and 'SPIN' the redevelopment efforts into
a controlled and exploitable commercial context. in
other words, "Ground Zero" thus becomes a commodity:
it is then made into the functional equivalent of
Disneyland, and ADVERTISED as a new CULTURAL MECCA.
never-mind that 'ground zero' is a generic definition
of tragedy that has already been used in other places,
such as post-Tsunami Indonesia. yet it functions as if
the cultural trademark of the WTC and 9/11 memorial now
and is utilized as a default IDENTITY of the site and
the larger rebuilding effort. what does it symbolize?
-- unmistakably it presents Ground Zero as COMMERCE.
whether economic, political, cultural, social, class,
architectural, institutional, bureaucratic, celebrity,
strategic, demographic, religious, stylistic, creative,
historical, security, psychological, ... ideological.
as such it is entombed in private interpretations of
the IDEA of what is believed to be of VALUE from a
relativistic perspective unable to transcend beyond
its special interests as they are not organized along
PRINCIPLES of a PLAN which serves the PUBLIC INTEREST.
instead, bits and pieces of this unique public PROPERTY
are parceled out to selected participants who were able
to further refine the details of the project by way of
PROPRIETARY exchanges using the above-mentioned logic,
which establishes a series of procedures to be followed.
this is not an indictment against commercial interests
in real estate development or less than noble aims in
some conspiratorial situation- it is a natural result
of approaching the absolutely unique question of what
to do with the WTC site and the memorial using tried-
and-true METHODS, based on and justified by IDEOLOGY.
this IDÉE-FIXEE manifests itself in the WTC site plan
where two towers, 1,368' and 1,362' respectively, were
cremated into the dust and fury of armageddon realized.
the safety, security, procedures that failed on that day
of insanity and infamy, which resulted in the deaths of
over 2,700 people was, until that moment, unimaginable.
and yet immediately after this event it became an agreed
upon consensus that a SKYSCRAPER must replace what was
lost, regardless of the wisdom of such an approach. only
in the last week (06/2005) have the findings from the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
outlined the collapse and given recommendations for
addressing the safety issues involved in such design.
in other words, the existing WTC efforts have pursued
a master plan that encompasses the 9/11 memorial site
with skyscrapers without serious review or questioning
of the obligation to do so. that is because this is in
the realm of expertise of architects whose calls were
either ignored or dismissed while 'business as usual'
forged ahead with a plan for its business development:
time is money. and yet these trade-offs have severely
decreased the value of the WTC site and 9/11 memorial
and truly endanger the site by not addressing the true
structural threat of repeating an unmistakable design
flaw which needs to be reconsidered as a FAIT ACCOMPLI.
this is to say the SKYSCRAPER is one building type of
many which could shape the design of the site and the
TYPOLOGY of a square, garden, and bounded civic space
could have defined a Memorial Park as a viable option.
this is a fact based in the professional knowledge of
urban planning, architectural design, and landscape
architecture. yet the outcome was always BIASED by
pre-conceived notions of how the site should 'look.'
its image, which is illusory and often just a facade.
the empty skyline and archetypes of the twin towers
held more weight with the public's mind than reason.
and when architects should have spoke up, they didn't.
the planning approach was not decided by EXPERTISE but
by an AGENDA that reverse-engineered the end results
using the means of architecture, real estate, culture,
etc. to arrive at a workable solution for businessmen
and a mass appeal that is repeating a cosmic mistake.
thus, by pursuing the development of 'Ground Zero' as
speculative real estate, the rebuilding effort became
prioritized by office space in a series of skyscrapers
surrounding some as-yet-to-be-designed 9/11 memorial
which has no relation to the overall plan of the site.
meaning: the WTC redevelopment effort is not the result
of securing the aims and goals of uniquely commemorating
the events, ideas, and emotions of 9/11 in a memorial.
instead, the questions about which the master plan has
been made to revolve are those of a private businessman.
business planning has thus generated the 9/11 memorial:
the memorial itself is of arbitrary design, uncritical
to the context of master planning for the overall site.
it is inconsequential to directing WTC site development
and it has no core design influence in the larger scale
and context in which it was created and ultimately will
be operating. instead it is the result of limiting the
public goals and aims of architecture to its clientele
and not to the ideas and goals of ARCHITECTURE itself:
this public project is an entirely private development.
specifically, it is the ideology of MODERNISM which has
facilitated this architectural outcome. no real conflict
exists, no paradox, no contradictions, between the world-
view of modern ideologues and the triumph of business
interests over those of the public interest, if obeying
the TENETs of modernism which limits the substance of
what architecture is (e.g. light, material, geometry).
buildings in themselves do not need to mean anything.
it is simply a metaphysical belief system of subjective
expressions: a DOCTRINE believed by its followers as
equivalent to universal statements of fact manifested
by design, in built form. the architecture of the WTC
redevelopment is simply an extension of this ideology,
that which designed, built, and justified the original
World Trade Center site while ignoring critical details
which helped undermine its security, to great peril.
Modernism exists both as a refutation of tradition and
as the new ORTHODOXY, extending the 18th century while
solidifying the ideals of the 20th century in DOGMAS
that are central to failures of redevelopment efforts.
from issues surrounding the worth of the original WTC,
to biased competitions and juries which resulted in
the imperatives of using skyscrapers (sans significant
questioning of their utility as an urban building type
even after such a cataclysmic, catastrophic failure),
to the predictable result of pre-ordained goals for
the STYLE of the 9/11 memorial which was determined
in advance to follow in the tradition of Maya Lin's
modernist approach for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial-
the jury selection a Maya Lin-like 9/11 memorial, a
design which exemplifies modernist design principles
over the last half-century and says absolutely nothing
architecturally that has not been said before, and as
such is merely FORMULAIC and representative of works
originating in the 1960s and is in no way unique to
the events of 9/11 nor does it need to be, by design.
the 9/11 memorial and site plan are architecturally,
in essence, nothing more than an applied ideology.
as architecture, they are underwhelming, less than
what is agreed to be necessary, and average at best.
-this handicapping of several competitions ultimately
limited the architectural outcomes, the basic idea that
a 9/11 memorial would be able to generate a master plan.
instead, architectural decisions were delegated to a
cadre of established architectural practitioners who
support and extend Modernism in their own works, in
the school systems and organizations which effectively
limits what is possible in the field today. the events
of 9/11 called into question this ideological surety
and yet the questions that needed to be asked in open
forums and public debates never occurred. instead the
celebrity, academic, and theoretical architects found
shelter in the process so to extend the ideology further
without critical evaluation and substantive peer-review.
that is, core assumptions in relation to architecture.
instead, non-architects began carrying the mantel of
Modernist ideology by declaring "greatness" as if a
matter of faith. the absence of actual content such as
symbolism was replaced by semantics. literally, signage.
the "Freedom Tower's" ultimate value is in the specious
detail of its being 1776' tall, 'exactly' impossible.
architecture is spiritualized, able to heal wounds, and
other magic acts as if delivered from holy architects.
the architectural facade may serve politics, but it does
not serve ideas of architecture which make it actual, real,
true, beautiful, and of value. it cannot be spun or faked
when people feel disappointment or lose their expectations
for something so sublime as to defines this unfolding era.
it is nothing less critical than a foreign policy decision,
and the strategic approach to not repeating mistakes of the
past- instead, imagining and designing better way of living.
the ZONING decisions which have resulted in placing a
building type such a museum, which uses the structural
form of a parking garage hovering above the 9/11 voids
said to commemorate the loss, pain, grief, and sorrow
for eternity, is another example of trying to reverse-
engineer public participation in the private process
of developing the site, organized by its real estate.
these are glaring mistakes in the goals of the project.
i.e. the maneuvering of the rebuilding effort around
real-estate interests (office space in a series of
skyscrapers surrounding an after-the-fact memorial)
resulted in the void that is left at the center of
the site and yet which is without any meaning itself.
it is an abstract expressionist architecture when what
occurred on the site on 9/11 is nothing of the sort.
as such the design of the memorial and the "master plan"
are mainly pseudo-intellectual instead of emotional and
grounded in experience, knowledge, understanding, and
relation to 9/11 and what happened in this place, in
those days, to have the architecture speak, not the
architects. the project is now an academic exercise,
it is unacceptable to not be revolted by this fact.
it is the result of the 'master plan' of a private
enterprise appropriately named "Ground Zero"- there
is nothing there except ideological commercialization
of 9/11. 9/11 is absent from the architecture, ideas.
if the true aims and goals of the site were pursued
as stated, the memorial would have largely designed
the space, programming, site planning, and zoning.
and instead it is exactly opposite of this approach.
the business agenda designed the memorial to 9/11:
this situation is unacceptable and must be stopped.
the first step in stopping these mistakes and errors
is to not perpetuate them any further. to differentiate
the current and total failure to approach the aims and
goals of this unique site and honor and value 9/11 at
the core of its redevelopment, the project should no
longer be considered as "Ground Zero." this moniker
has become a business plan for exploiting memories
for private profiteering and has exacerbated already
serious problems with managing the many expectations.
"Ground Zero" is the symbol of the current failure of
the 'master plan' and memorial to do what is necessary
to protect the site from unfettered business agendas,
whether public or private, it is a zoning nightmare.
"Ground Zero" served its purpose by biding time and
allowing reflection, and that has led to the self-
evident fact that a superior approach is needed and
a new organization logic which places the memorial
to 9/11 at the center of events, the ORGANIZATIONAL
LOGIC by which the larger site plan and zoning is
designed in relation to, with inherent symbolism
of the events of 9/11 such as the cathedral wall
as the central focus, from which all things evolve.
This is no longer "ground zero" but instead, a new
vision for the rebirth of Lower Manhattan, designed
around the periphery of these still vivid memories,
not masked in abstractions of glass, steel, concrete-
instead, in a beautiful park which places humanity
at the center of events, in a delicate balance of
what is lost and what is found, what was gone and
what returns, and to respect and honor such truths.
A master plan designed around a WTC Memorial Park
will facilitate reorganizing the planning around
ideas, not ideologies, around the cosmic scale of
events, not the height of a skyscraper, and with
human experiences in a special place we all share.
if these values guide a new vision for the site,
then all will be able to see with their own eyes
what the superior approach is: hearts will tell.
people will not have to be told how great it is,
they will know the true power of architecture.
this new master plan must serve all people, and
its architects and its architectures just serve
the 9/11 memorial, firstly, which will generate
the larger zoning and site plan, balancing aims
and goals of memory in the overall master plan:
a focus on life and the future of its community.
tears will not just flow from the sorrow of events,
people will weep because of an overwhelming beauty.
the new plan will be self-evident, not contrived.
this is to say: "Ground Zero" is dead. it should
no longer exist. forged in its place is its true
future as 'the World Trade Center Memorial Park,'
which grows by each possibility, hope, and effort
to do everything it takes to make it into reality.
support citizen architects who can make it happen.
please do whatever it takes to make it happen...
[next: WTC Memorial Park]
brian thomas carroll: research-design-development
architecture, education, electromagnetism
http://www.mnartists.org/brian_carroll
http://www.electronetwork.org/bc/