FLIGHT OF THE DIAMONDS
World Trade Center Memorial Proposal by Edward McGinnis

THE INTERACTIVE MEMORIAL

Sun, earth and water are the essence and symbols of human existence, life and our planet. The Memorial incorporates this concept, using architecture as the medium, in order to symbolically resurrect the lost souls of the victims of 9/11 through interactive participation.

THE SUN

THE FLIGHT of the DIAMONDS: The Memorial site is entered at the Upper Level from the street into a grassed park-like setting, thereby allowing integration with the City. Visitors may sit and contemplate (2) the vast arrays of four feet high metal Diamond Monument (1a) shapes secured to space frames spanning across the voids of the Twin Towers footprints. The voids are the negative ghost forms of the fallen Towers - the Diamond Monuments are the deceased occupants. Each Diamond Monument will represent a victim lost at each separate Tower, about 3,000 total. The arrays will also include those victims from other WTC-9/11 events. The arrays are located scientifically in accordance with precise altitude and azimuth solar angles such that morning sunlight will begin to highlight them between 8:46 and 9:03AM, the times of the separate attacks. (The Cultural Center overhanging the north Tower footprint would be repositioned at the site's center to allow the 8:46AM sunbeam; and the designed building at Liberty Street, along the axis of Cortland Street, would have to be moved slightly to allow the 9:03AM sunbeam to fall on the south Tower footprint.)

The Diamond Monuments (1a), grouped according to Tower occupancy and in alphabetical order at each array, are cast from the original aluminum façade of the Twin Towers. Most of the Monuments are silver aluminum, but among them are some with warm red and blue anodized aluminum surfaces, representing the fallen uniformed heroes (firefighters and police) lost at Ground Zero. Additionally, there are anodized gold surfaces representing victims from other 9/11 locations, and bright silver surfaces the people lost in 1994. The surfaces are buffed and slightly convex in order to reflect light back to the Grandstands on the opposite side of Greenwich Street.

ARRAY OF DIAMOND MONUMENTS

The Grandstands are erected at the roof of the Lower Manhattan Station and the low level of the building to the east of Greenwich Street between Cortland and Liberty Streets. (These structures could be built before the office building developments.) As the sun sweeps across the morning sky, spectators will experience the Diamond Monuments in both locations gradually come out of the shadows and reflect back sunbeams in unison, each group sparkling briefly to life for about 30 minutes, rising up like a flock of birds taking flight, hence THE FLIGHT of the DIAMONDS. After the sun gives brilliant sparkling life to the Monuments, it passes on and the brightness that all the lost souls had brought to the world is symbolically extinguished. The Monuments will still glisten in the non-direct sun, and each will be lit with small lights from the ones in front for evening viewing.

BIRDS IN FLIGHT

POINTS OF LIGHT: Each Monument houses a small optical lens which, when lit with sunlight, concentrates and refracts a light beam to the floor below, creating the Points of Light (1b) pattern. The beamed light, through etched glass, focuses the initials of the victim represented by the Monument above onto the floor of the Lower Level so each lost soul will blossom to life for a brief spiritual resurrection. As the sun casts light across the site, eventually becoming perpendicular to the Diamond Monuments above, all peripheral light will be blocked out and only the concentrated, focused Points of Light will brighten the spaces for about 30 minutes starting at 8:46 and 9:03AM respective to their locations. Visitors could then make a permanent memento of the event by exposing light sensitive paper to the light beam, thereby creating a personalized imprint, a tangible epitaph, that could be cherished forever.

POINTS OF LIGHT at 8:46 & 9:03 AM, SHADOW PATTERN in LATE MORNING

EARTH and WATER

The Upper Level has fountain pools of bubbling water that cascades down over stone façades, creating waterfalls at the west ends of the Diamond Monuments. A thin "sheet" of water flows down the wall and across the stone floor, lightly flooding the Points of Light fields, but contained in the area below the Monuments. The water flow is turned at 10:28AM each morning, the moment the second tower fell, therefore allowing visitors an opportunity to experience the warm, brilliant sunbeams of the lost individuals again shine. Benches will line the Points of Light for contemplation (2) while the water flows. The areas below the Monuments, as well as the waterfall walls, will be paved with an artificial stone composed of the actual bedrock and earth below each Tower footprint, bringing the ritual of "earth to earth, dust to dust" to the memorial fields.

MEMORIAL WALL: The slurrywall will be retained for its full 30-foot height and sky lit for a depth of about 15 feet. The restored wall will have photographic Portraits (1c) of every victim, viewed from hanging walkways, along with obituaries on plaques mounted to the railings.

MEMORIAL PORTRAITS