The 9/11 memorial competition resulted in eight designs that had far more in common than they differed. Unsurprisingly so, the rules for the competition were unusually rigid, requiring the entries to honor everyone who died in the attacks, designate the spaces where the Twin Towers once stood, provide a contemplative space for visitors, etc. plus a variety of "guiding principles" that the memorial was expected to conform to. Thus, the results featured almost universally lowered spaces at the foundations of the Twin Towers, some sort of light fixtures or falling water, walls with names on them and other similar staples of 21st century memorial design.
And being similar, they also came under attack from similar criticism. Max Page writes about how instead of a memorial looking back, Ground Zero could become the site of something new and forward-looking that embodies the nature of New York and the people that inhabit it. This article offers a similar critique, accusing the memorial designs for lacking a human resonance and being overly "spectacular" and "corporate".
The 9/11 memorial controversy provides helpful insight into how people think about memorializing. There seem to be two complementary elements at play in the case of the 9/11 memorial - the aesthetic and the personal. Aesthetically, the 9/11 memorial is trying to achieve monumentality, trying to preserve the memory of the people who perished in the attacks by associating them with a grand aesthetic design and thus engraining them in the minds of the visitors. However, this is hard to achieve without a personal component - the visitors should feel a personal connection to the memorial, feel that they, not the architecture, is central to the site and the story it represents. In the end, the people matter, not the buildings.
This seems to apply generally as well as particularly. Not to say that objects with power cannot hold our attention simply due to sentimental, personal value, or because of high aesthetic qualities, but generally the artifacts, places and buildings humans value most tend to exhibit a combination of the two. For instance, lavish gothic churches can be appreciated simply for their remarkable architecture and craftmanship, but a viewer appreciating the Notre-Dame on those grounds, will never walk away with the same experience as a viewer for whom the church is also a place of congregation, prayer and, in the case of the Notre-Dame, also an integral part of historical Parisian landscape.
If we accept the argument that objects can have 'inherent' power, as far their qualities and aesthetics appeal to what can broadly be described as a common human sensibility, we could also claim that in order to make a true impression, they would also have to create a personal connection to which this aesthetic impact can be tied to. For instance, one can appreciate gold, for the many qualities that make it appealing for us (it's rarity, durability, malleability), but one usually does not value gold in an abstract sense, but through a personal connection - gold as jewelery, gold as material for religious objects, gold as means of economic exchange.
So, this brings me back to why the personal impact of the 9/11 memorial is crucial. If the memorial is dominated by it's aesthetic complexity, it runs the danger of becoming a "dead monument", one that is seen as an artistic accomplishment, but not as an important site for a large number of people. Granted, it is less likely to happen in the case of this particular memorial (just by the virtue of the fact that 9/11 itself had such a large impact on people's lives, so some of it will rub off on the memorial), but it is an important factor to keep in mind nonetheless.
No comments:
Post a Comment