9/11
005
Memorial Museum World Trade Center, New York City,USA
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911 Memorial Museum Iconic message in an invisible structure: a monumental tragedy, manifested through the loss of a city skyline, is narrated while descending to bedrock. A void capturing the enormity of loss stands in the shadow of the resilient Slurry Wall. An urban pit is the aftermath of a city block erased and the will to rebuild and remember the event of September 11, 2001.
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World Trade Center Plaza
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Located at 70’ below street level, the 911 Memorial Museum site is suspended between bedrock and Memorial Plaza. The Museum’s envelope was in constant flux mitigating infrastructural needs (PATH, Chiller Plant) with Memorial design transformations, ending up with a total area of 110,000sf. With cavernous volume, an aftermath of a charged site, design process, and public debate, the project held to the only remaining remnants on site, ensuring a set of rational relationships in an organic process.
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Setting
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PRE-SEPTEMBER 11 WTC SITEPLAN
Site Representative of the fallen Twin Towers through their remaining foundations, the Museum claims no presence of its own. The 9/11 Memorial Museum stands witness to the tragedy and its monument. Turned inside-out and hovering weightlessly above foundations footprints, the ‘reflected absence’ of the pools on top becomes a suspended presence within hallowed ground.
Unlike a typical museum, the 911 Memorial Museum is enveloped by its artefacts, instead of enveloping them. With no footprint of its own, the 911 Memorial Museum encapsulates the only remnants of the Twin Towers Site, including the Towers foundations’ footprints and the Slurry Wall. It is the antimonument telling a monumental story; a building perceived upside down aiming to reveal bedrock in a city craving the sky.
The Ribbon A ribbon, reminiscent to the 500 foot ramp that accessed the urban pit during rescue and recovery mission post September 11 events, is the centerpiece of the design. Amidst the vastness, the ribbon meanders downwards, revealing gradually a sequence of spaces, artefacts, exhibits, and audio-visual installations of recorded accounts. The ribbon, suspended between the City and its bedrock 70’ below, claims belonging to none to tell the story of it all. It weaves, reveals, conceals, overlooks, bypasses, ramps, steps, and escalates to create multiple-vantage points to a complex narrative of healing and remembrance.
911 Memorial Museum
Exhibition Halls Difference in materiality, shapes, proportions, heights, etc. dramatize the transition between distinct exhibition halls that while housing some artifacts, are shaped by others. The journey starts with a descent meandering ramp, ‘The Ribbon’ that overlooks some of the spaces before accessing them. The journey starts with the ‘Concourse Lobby’ ramping down gradually through the ‘Exhibition Intro’ along the Ribbon.
The Overlook Towards the ‘Overlook’, the Ribbon widens and its flanking side walls give way to an open 70’ drop wedge space, known as the ‘Foundation Hall’. Turning in on itself, the Ribbon spans across the south side of the north tower footprint shimmering Aluminum Foam façade, weightlessly acknowledging the foundations’ footprints underneath. A stair coupled with Survivors’ Staircase descends to bedrock at ‘Memorial Hall’, a pivotal space between the South and North Towers ‘Footprint Galleries’, inscribed in the foundations of the Twin Towers.
The Narrative Progressively disclosed, the concourse ramp widens into an exhibition hall, gradually wedging its side walls down in the ground to reveal early on concealed spaces. The different vantage points within the vast hollow space narrates a complex, multi-faceted story. Tectonically curated, the Museum stands testament to human humility, resilience, hope, and resurgence; its architectural unassuming nature reveals an ‘archeology’ larger than life.
Materiality The perforated aluminum panels of the geometrically faceted ribbon stand in stark contrast with the foamed aluminum clad Twin Towers’ ghostly presence. The hollow pit is carved out raw concrete or matching finish, with reflective epoxy bedrock flooring, visually blurring the edges of a once perplexed envelope.
CONCOURSE LEVEL 01 Concourse Lobby 02 Ribbon Descent Introductory Exhibit West Overlook 03 Museum Support 04 Museum Shop 05 Entry Pavilion (Above) 06 South Pool 07 North Pool
BEDROCK LEVEL 01 South Tower Memorial Exhibit Screening Room Education Center 02 North Tower Historical Exhibit Temporar Gy allery Coda Gallery 03 Foundation Hall Slurry W all Last Column 04 Memorial Hall Survivors’ Stair East Overlook Above 05 Path Station
The Exhibition Halls, while housing some artifacts, they are being shaped by other surrounding ones (Slurry Wall, Twin Towers foundations’ footprints)
Davis Brody Bond Concept Design by Naji Moujaes Architects and Planners
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