Business as Usual

Which memorials have succeeded, in your opinion?

The one that’s really done that, I think, is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington [designed by Maya Lin]. It was a brilliant design that magnificently balanced the abstraction of the design itself, that beautiful V that was cut into the earth, and the reality of the names on the wall. So you had both a powerful architectural experience by this space that she created very subtly by that cut into the earth, and the concrete experience of the names, and the sense that as you walked through it, you gradually saw the vastness of the losses and the tragedy. And the individual names had meaning to the family and friends of those who died, but for others there was the sense of the wholeness of the names, which was so powerful, and it worked on all levels.

It’s interesting you mention the layout of the victims’ names, because that’s been one of the biggest controversies in New York.

I think the fact that it’s been such a controversy underscores the way in which we’ve begun to think that the whole purpose of a memorial is just to make the families of those who died feel better. And in fact, with all due respect to them, that’s not the most important point—that’s not the reason the memorial exists. We’ve begun to focus much more today on memorials with names, whereas once the memorial was to the event itself, and the enormity of the event itself, not just to the individuals ... I think it’s always important to keep the broader goal of a memorial in mind.

There’s been a great deal of criticism over the amount of time it has taken New York City to get this memorial off the ground. Is this typical of a place so close to the tragedy?

They certainly had difficulty in Oklahoma City, which is one analogy. That took a long time. I think it is difficult today because we have a very difficult time having a sense of common values and common architectural language but also social values ... We [also] have a much, much bigger job than any other city. It’s not just a memorial; it’s part of 16 acres like no other 16 acres anywhere. It’s where everything happened, and it’s also in the heart of the greatest city in the country. And we have the conflict between renewing the city and memorializing. So it’s not comparable to the memorial challenge of any other place or any other city.