How to Build a Better Memorial

At Slate, on this day of days, Witold Rybczynski asks: Why can't we build a 9/11 memorial like this?

This is the Spire of Dublin, inaugurated in 2002, and built to replace Nelson's Pillar, which "was erected in central Dublin in 1809 to memorialize the British admiral and was demolished in 1966 after being fatally damaged by an IRA bomb."

The parallels are pretty clean: Iconic construction destroyed by terrorists. Cities in need of a replacement. Dublin wins.

Here I chronicle the woes of building on the World Trade Center site, and here Todd Seavey discusses Art Deco at Ground Zero.

Comments

[Randolph Carter]

I love the spire. Nice and understated.

[Thelonious_Nick]

Plus, think of the money we'd save at Ground Zero if all we did was put up a flagpole.

[Russ 2000]

How are you gonna collect rent on THAT?

[Fluffy]

The symbolism of that is all wrong.

For the proper symbolism, we need Albert Speer to design an impregnable fortress.

[Number 6]

Big events don't necessarily require big memorials. Sometimes, understated is better.

[Chris S.]

In my opinion, one of the most beautiful memorials in the US is the Vietnam War Memorial in D.C. Simple, elegant, and touching. Contrast the Vietnam War Memorial with the garish and overwrought WWII memorial recently constructed in D.C. The WTC memorial promises to be even more of a disaster.

[Russell]

My response to The Times invitation for alternative Post G-Zero proposals was a twice life-sized clone of the Chrysler building

[Randolph Carter]

Chris S - I agree - that WWII memorial is very Roman-Empire looking, in a kind of off putting way. No more so than most of the temples of government in DC, but still.

I'm sure someone's written a thesis on it, but there's a big substantive difference between the Mediterranean monuments and the Germanic monuments. Is that just in my head?

Or am I just thinking "when I die lay me in a mound, raise a stone for all to see, runes carved to my memory" as opposed to big mounted statues?

[JBinMO]

Our memorial should be a building with no doors or windows, but lots of hidden microphones placed inside.

[joe]

A memorial at the WTC site is a good idea.

Office buildings at the WTC are a good idea.

Trying to make the office building itself the memorial is a terrible idea. It will either be a lousy memorial, or a lousy office building, or both.

[joe]

I like the FDR Memorial. It's a place, not a thing - a series of outdoor "rooms" created by using landscaping features to enclose spaces.

It's human and humane, not a megalith at all, but it's still impressive and inspiring.

[James Kabala]

Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I find the Spire rather ugly.

[somebody]

The best response to 9/11 would have been to rebuild the Twin Towers as fast as possible. But no, the most powerful nation on Earth has to weep and care for a wound inflicted by insignificant pests. Too bad we lost the taste for success and instead act like some sort of drama queen nowadays.

[joe]

The Twin Towers sucked.

Only 10% of the people working there got direct sunlight. Nasty, uncomfortable, soulless megaliths.

[Urkobold?]

THE URKOBOLD SUBMITTED A DESIGN FOR THE WORLD TRADE CENTER MEMORIAL. IT WAS SIMPLE, ELEGANT, AND HAD CLASSICAL CHARM: BIN LADEN'S HEAD ON A PIKE.

[John]

I think the spire sucks. Having lived in Dublin at Trinty college very near that spot when I was in law school, I think they ruined one of the better places in the city. It is just bloody awful. It is just tall. It is so thin, it doesn't inspire any sort of ah for its size the way the Eiffel Tower does. It is just a pointless metal stick in the middle of the street.

Joe you are right, the towers were a blight. They were a symol of the excess of one of the great villians of the 20th Century; Robert Moses. The damn things never made any money and were nothing more than ugly white elefants that should never have been built. That doesn't dimiss the tradegy and crime that was 9-11, but lets not let 9-11 cause us to forget what the towers really were; taxpayer funded monuments to one man's corruption and ego.

[joe]

John,

I'd argue that Moses's shortcomings were more ideological than personal.

He, and many, many other people, genuinely believed in what they were doing when they tore down Radio Row and replaced it with those towers.

[joe]

Also, those towers would have been just as god-awful if they'd been built privately, on freely-sold land.

[yoshi]

I was in both Dublin and Paris last year. First time for Dublin. Many things impressed me about the city - the spear being one of them.

Now contrast that with the Eiffel Tower which I found boorish, crowded, and, frankly, ugly. Its a lot more impressive looking at it from several miles away.

[Abdul]

This is the structure known commonly as "the Stiletto in the Ghetto."

hardly a fitting tribute to 9/11.

[joe]

That puppy needs some wireless antennas on it.

[John]

"He, and many, many other people, genuinely believed in what they were doing when they tore down Radio Row and replaced it with those towers."

A lot of Bolsheviks believed the same thing. Not to say that Moses is on their level, but good intentions doesn't excuse folly. Moses also, had he not been stopped, wanted to build an expressway tearing down SOHO, little Italy, and Chinatown because in his words "there was nothing there to save." Further, had the private sector built those towers, they wouldn' thave been able to use imminant domain to get the land or screw people out of fair payment by paying them nothing for thier property figuring they were to poor to fight city hall and sue to get fair compensation. The big urban projects of the 1950s and 60s were horrible in doing that, one of the worst of which was the central artery in Boston which destroyed entire city blocks for very little compensation and sat as an eyesore on the city for decades.

[John]

"This is the structure known commonly as "the Stiletto in the Ghetto."

Maybe I am wrong, I haven't been to Dublin since it was built, but that structure apears to be at the end of Grafton Street in front of Trinity College, anything but the Ghetto in Dublin. Why is it know as that?

[HJA]

I read the Slate article yesterday and was surprised by it - I was in the vicinity of the Spire of Dublin for a couple days recently, and it wouldn't have occurred to me to recommend it to anyone as an exemplary monument. It's very impressively tall, and not aggressively unattractive - in fact, I liked it fine! - but it also struck me as kind of bland and it certainly puzzled me, with its "muteness." Dublin was overcast the whole time I was there, maybe that had something to do with it. The spire certainly looks more beautiful in the photos accompanying the Slate article and this post than it did, to me, in real life.

But, tastes vary. And speaking of that, not everybody goes for the postmodern aesthetic of elusive meanings, or for minimalist tastefulness, and I don't think that it's self-evidently true that those aesthetics are finest. I don't know that anywhere here has asserted that they are, but I'm assuming that a distaste for busyness in art or for anything that verges on kitsch is inspiring some of these thoughts about the spire.

ALSO, unless I'm greatly mistaken, there weren't very many people actually inside the Nelson Pillar when it was destroyed, and I can imagine that fact exerting some influence over the nature of the monument erected in its place (almost 40 years later? Overall, I'm having trouble seeing what the Spire of Dublin has to do with anything 9-11 related, except that people are generally fed up with 9-11 commemoration and would like to say, put up a great big spire and be done with it already.)

[joe]

John,

I wasn't seeking to excuse his folly, just understand and explain it.

[Dead Horse]

Stop beating me.

[Rhywun]

Trying to make the office building itself the memorial is a terrible idea. It will either be a lousy memorial, or a lousy office building, or both.

The memorial is going to be "Reflecting Absence" (worst. name. ever), not the Liberty Tower.

Dittoes to the WTC being an awful relic of the sixties' penchant for replacing street activity with raised, windswept plazas surrounded by blank walls and accompanied by claustrophobia-inducing, underground warrens.

[joe]

The Liberty Tower was designed to be a memorial structure, too. That's the problem.

[Lamar]

The Liberty Tower will one day become the signature of the inspirationless years.

[bob mologna]

I prefer "The Erection in the Intersection" myself. Seriously though, it's not much to look at in person. Also, it's on O'Connell St, not Grafton St. Not exactly "the ghetto" but still North Dub.

[Richard]

Hate the "tasteful spire" idea. David Gelernter wrote an essay on rebuilding that I agreed with. National Review had a cover illustration, but I can't find it on line.
http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback-gelernter022703.asp

[stephen the goldberger]

you can't be serious, that thing is so lame. They should just build a park and get some trees in this city.

[ChrisO]

Why not just build a couple of non-sentimental, non-sucky office towers at the WTC site? The best rejoinder of all of to the dirtbags.

[Hang onto your wallet]

Why not let the market decide what should go on the site? Or are we worried that the market winner just might be "the richest man in Dubai"?

[mitch]

Nobody disagreed with joe about the temple to FDR, so I will; 8 acres of welfare state propaganda and deification of a court-packing aristocrat is not exactly my idea of a good memorial.

[Aresen]

I liked the Twin Towers.

I still feel they should be rebuilt, only ten floors taller.

[Rhywun]

Why not let the market decide what should go on the site?

It's somewhat more market-oriented now than it was before. Larry Silverstein pretty much has the say over what gets built.

I liked the Twin Towers.

Just curious... have you ever worked in them or near them? They might look pretty on postcards but up close... not so much.

[VM]

"by claustrophobia-inducing, underground warrens."

Would our very own Warren (as in "doot doot" fame) be classified as such a warren?

And does anybody remember the movie "the Hot Rock" (hier)?

[ChrisO]

Why not let the market decide what should go on the site?

No argument from me on that point. But the odds of that happening in Manhattan aren't too good.

[joe]

mitch,

It's too bad you can't see through those partisan blinders to see the aesthetic value of the design.

[Rhywun]

But the odds of that happening in Manhattan aren't too good.

The odds of that happening anywhere in the US are nil; but why not take the opportunity to take a cheap shot at NYC anyway?

[Aresen]

Rhywun

Fair call. I haven't been in NYC since I was a kid.

My "like" was a postcard view. They were always a powerful symbol of NYC to me.

But since it's clear those who are doing the rebuilding are going to build some gigantic monstrosity anyways...

[joe]

If all you care about is the post card, the Freedom Tower will look just fine in the NYC skyline. The torch-thingy sort of echoing the Statue of Liberty was a nice touch.

But the people who work there, or nearby, or who live in the area, or who go there to play get to walk past 200' of windowless concreate over their heads, surrounded by a big expanse of no man's land. Yuck.

[BakedPenguin]

Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I find the Spire rather ugly.

You're not alone. It looks like a giant flagpole.

[Randolph Carter]

joe,
I didn't like the FDR monument, not for partisan reasons, but because I hate statue gardens dedicated to something other than mythology. Well, maybe the FDR monument counts as mythology. It seemed like it would be more appropriate as the huge-ass atrium of a Great Depression museum or something.

I think that monuments should be understated and simple, because otherwise you run the risk of an Ozymandias situation, and that just sucks.

[Very UN PC Joe]

I dont suppose we could just have a pile of debris from Mecca & Medina inside new towers.

[Pro Libertate]

I have an idea. Let's borrow yet another page from classical Rome and deify a past leader. Like Washington. Then we can built a colossal statue of our new god in place of the WTC.

[HJA]

I don't think that minimalism is an especially creative way to go with a monument in this day and age, but you could do worse: anyone know the Katyn Massacre Memorial in Jersey City, near the Exchange Place Path Station? A more fitting subject for a monument I cannot imagine, but this particular one consists of a great big, larger-than-life depiction of a Polish officer, upright, but writhing in agony because a rifle with a bayonet has been jammed into his back. So it's a big statue of someone being murdered, and it's on a big pedestal, and it's right - I'd link to some pix of it online, but they don't do it justice because they don't show the setting very well - it's right in this sort of "business plaza," I guess you might call it - a public plaza between these two big office buildings in downtown Jersey City, right by the Hudson, and right in front of - practically blocking! - the view of (by coincidence) lower Manhattan. I mean, the view of Manhattan is one of the things that Jersey City, at times a hard luck town, has going for it, and what happens with this terrific public space with a view of and across the Hudson? It gets a great big gruesome statue that looks like something out of an "Evil Dead" movie.

[An Ottawa Reader]

Stiletto in the ghetto? You mean the sticky on the Liffey, surely?

Dublin's city government, like many others around the world, has been in the habit of building "modern" monuments and statues in the mistaken belief that such things make Dublin "modern" and "world-class." Normal Dubliners have shown great ingenuity in giving the statues rhyming nicknames, almost always insulting.

The tradition probably begins with the late, but particularly unlamented "floozie [slut] in the Jacuzzi."

Her official name was Anna Livia (Abhainn an Life), and she was an allegorical figure representing the River Liffey (and an allusion to Joyce's Finnegans Wake), who reclined in a fountain built for her on O'Connell's Street.

Dubliners hated it immediately. The monument clashed with the existing statues of Daniel O'Connell and Charles Parnell something awful, and to many "Anna Livia" looked like nothing so much as a naked woman soaking in a hot tub--hence the nickname. People used the "Jacuzzi" as a trash-can, and otherwise so badly abused it that the "floozie" quickly became an eyesore, and the city government eventually had to tear "Anna Livia" down.

Then, of course, somebody got the bright idea to put a big hypodermic needle on O'Connell's street instead. Some people never learn...

...but if it's someone else's money, why should you?

[ChrisO]

The odds of that happening anywhere in the US are nil; but why not take the opportunity to take a cheap shot at NYC anyway?

A bit defensive about the Big Apple?

Development in Manhattan is more politicized and government-infested than anywhere else in the country. Doesn't make it bad place to live, work, or visit, though. I consider it a real treat to visit Manhattan.

[joe]

See, Randolph, I thought the human (or just slightly larger) scale of the FDR Memorial WAS an antidote to the problem of super-human monuments. It didn't make you feel small, or awed, at all - unlike the Washington, Lincoln, or even Jefferson.

It was cozy and intimate, and like the Vietnam wall in that sense. That's what I liked about it.

Plus the inclusion of water features. That was brilliant design.

[Pro Libertate]

joe,

So you do not kneel before the God Washingtonius?

[joe]

Naw, I curl up in the lap of the household diety Einsteinius.

[Aresen]

Pro Libertate | September 11, 2007, 3:11pm | #

I have an idea. Let's borrow yet another page from classical Rome and deify a past leader. Like Washington. Then we can built a colossal statue of our new god in place of the WTC.

Been to the Washington Mall lately?

[Pro Libertate]

Aresen,

Yes, yes, all marblely and stuff, but Greek-style statuary and Roman architecture is not the same as formal deification.

joe,

May Washington forgive you, you pagan.

[mitch]

joe,

The thing is not "human scale," it is huge; it is the size of a village. Also, it is too personal, too literal, it really is an attempt to deify FDR, the hero who saved all those poor starving people whose statues you can see in that other part of the maze, and who also loved his cute little dog! Isn't that sweet!

The Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln memorials and monuments are somewhat more abstract, as if they represent something other than an individual, like they represent particular values, or human aspiration, or something like that.

As for cozy, I felt like I was in an endless maze. The Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson memorials make you look up, like at a mountain or a cathedral, signifying something greater than the self, but the FDR thing made me feel surrounded, trapped; every where I turned it was there, stifling me.

[dhex]

sounds like fdr in a nutshell.

[Randolph Carter]

Pro L,
What about "The Apotheosis of Washington"? That's right in the Capitol building. I think those mid-1800 dudes beat you to the punch.

[joe]

mitch,

But you don't see the whole thing at once. You go from one place to another to another, each one of which is a cozy, human-scale setting.

It's certainly an attempt to honor FDR - that's what monuments do, you know - but "deify?" He isn't presented as a diety, but as a real, approachable person. Making you look up and feel small, like when you see a mountain or a cathedral when you look upon his countenance - THAT'S deifying the subject. Treating a person as if he is a symbol of eternal values or human aspiration - THAT'S deifying someone.

[Pro Libertate]

Randolph Carter,

I'd acknowledge such worthy efforts if we were, in fact, praying to George Washington today. Someone dropped the ball, I'd say.

[J sub D]

Ahhh, monuments. Like all pieces of art, they divide. IMHO, If it doesn't do that, it's probably not really art.

[Rhywun]

Development in Manhattan is more politicized and government-infested than anywhere else in the country.

True, but irrelevant to the topic at hand. There's nowhere in America where an event of this magnitude would be less politicized.

[Abdul]

My wife, a Dubliner, just told me this structure is also known as the "skewer by the whore" ("whore" rhymes with "skewer" if you learned English in Ireland or Brooklyn). The "whore" is the "floozie in the jacuzzi" referred to above.

[joshua corning]

The parallels are pretty clean: Iconic construction destroyed by terrorists. Cities in need of a replacement. Dublin wins.

huh??

The World Trade Center actually did something..(housed little Eichmanns I think)

To replace it with something else that does nothing?

Well that is pure asinine.

[DJB]

'An Ottowa Reader' has it pretty much dead-on, although I've heard this thing called "The Stiffy on the Liffy", alluding to it's rather uh... phallocentric design.

The fact there seems to be several names for this bland metal stick (all of them insulting, but without real malice) sums up the residents' attitude to the monument perfectly. That is, it's a classic "statement" piece commissioned by politicians - and no doubt cost too much money - but at least it doesn't take up too much space and acts as a half-decent landmark for the tourists.

[joshua corning]

The Twin Towers sucked.

Only 10% of the people working there got direct sunlight. Nasty, uncomfortable, soulless megaliths.

Don't forget death traps joe...urban planners forbade the use of asbestos on the steel support beams...essentially guaranteeing it would collapse.

[Sean Healy]

I live in Ireland and see the spire every day. It's inoffensive and unspectacular, but nice. Anyway, Irish people hate everything - especially new things - not for any good reasons, but because they are painfully insecure about their recent prosperity and think begrudgery is the same thing as humble self-deprecation. So on the one hand you get painfully naive attempts to signify some sort of Celtic Tiger "confidence" (to overcome their insecurity), while on the other everyone tries their best to undercut that very notion (because they're insecure). Google "antony gormley dublin docklands sculpture" to see the latest iteration of this pathology. In the local parlance, we've gone up our own arse.

[Sean Healy]

Anyway, the best suggestion for the WTC site comes from an architect friend of mine: rebuild the towers one floor taller, paint a bullseye on one and a sign on the other that says "We dare you".

[joe]

joshua,

Urban planners don't establish building techniques.

And there was fireproofing on the support beams - it was blasted off in the explosion.

But hey, I'm sure it felt right in your gut to write that.