Remembering, Reflecting, Proposing, or
an architectonic / photographic memory

| 15 Comments

riedel_WTC_mem_001.jpg

What if one, or maybe some buildings around the World Trade Center Site “remembered” the reflection of the Twin Towers? The windows in these buildings would be replaced with the pieces of a Twin Tower reflection.
Visitors could then still experience the dimensions of the towers from certain specified points and could be reminded of this overwhelming size of the buildings and the dimensions of the catastrophe that happened in New York City on September 11th 2001.
What if there were more of such works around the city?
What if such reflections appeared on façades around the world?
Maybe some would be just temporary. Some would be there to stay.
Some would be tiny and private. Some would be large enough to give visitors a feeling of the presence of the two buildings.

15 Comments

interesting concept.

what if it all came true ?
that, would be wonderful :)

hmm... it is very much like memory... indeed...

also... the reflections could grow very, very slowly... one window at a time...

and the reflections should probably be of the buildings, not of the September 11th events. hmm...

and it can be healing... but not really taken away or destroyed because it's not really there.

you see you see...
amazing :)
you.

amazing, yet heartbreakeing, to tell the truth...not quite sure of the healing side of it. memory is such a difficult patient to heal.

Creating reflections on several locations would indeed decentralize the idea. It is much easier to attack an object than it is to attack an idea.
It would allow for new memories.
It would also allow for future visitors, to realize, at least in part, the scale of things. There is currently a large hole in downtown Manhattan and there will be many discussions before anything is going to happen there.

As for the memory being a difficult patient to heal. Much of the memory many of us currently have, of the buildings and of the events surrounding them is hardly our own. Many of the memories many of us used to have of the proportions of the buildings is now overpowered by images and words of death and destruction.
Maybe the patient does not need to be healed. Maybe the patient needs to be found and talked to in person again.

too true, the 'patient who needs to be talked to again' bit. Sorry if i sounded harsh earlier, i didn't mean to say it's not a good idea, still it's been such a shocking and tragic event i wouldn't know how to deal with that. surely something must be done, in order to remember, but i still have no clue of what should be done....just me, sorry.

Oh, you did not sound harsh at all.
no need to apologize. ; )
I am a bit worried that it will take a really long time for anything to happen at all. By the time anything will happen there will be certainly very different forces at work than memory. Any new object to be placed in this location will just very likely create a completely new set of ideas and memories. The new images created will be very much removed from the immediate presence that was so unique to the twin towers.
Already now the memories we have of the Towers are very much shaped by images that were shown to us indirectly. This is very likely to increase.
The one on one experience of the buildings will be less and less graspable for those who knew them and completely unavailable to those who did not have a chance to come face to face with the twins.

Wow, I think this is an incredible idea. I especially like the thought of it growing one window at a time.

A very interesting idea, but might be hard for some to deal with.

: )

hard to deal with for some. Isn’t this the part of any idea?

It is hard to deal with, but a fantastic idea, nonetheless. Easy enough to accomplish with (alot) of the material they wrap city buses with.

Everytime I see the towers on TV (they are prominantly displayed in TV shows about the city) I wince. And my memory of the real towers is fading. I used to see them from afar down 5th and 6th Aves everyday when I walked to work. Now I have a hard time recalling just how far into the sky they reached. And that makes me sad all over again.

we think it's a great idea to have the reflections on the buildings. would create a lot of emotion but what's wrong with that? great photo. great idea.

great idea. really haunting. few things are as powerful as reflections. then again, faking reflections can be tricky. there's this rip-off of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial where the reflections of people are physically sculpted into the wall. not so hot, i think.
aside: i hear that Venice was unconquerable because it was so fragmented (by the canals). it would be really moving to have a memorial that didn't exist in any one place.

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This page contains a single entry by Witold published on July 22, 2002 10:32 PM.

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