MOVING THROUGH THE SCARRED LANDSCAPE

The site is organized into the following key terms: viewshed, gateway, approach, the ridge, the bowl and Sacred Ground.

At first glance, the immense scale of the industrially disfigured site can be overpowering. For this reason, a system of progressively increasing spaces and views connected by a one-way main road, paths and trails is proposed to assist in engaging the immense landscape. The route focuses attention on its scarred temperament and recovery through natural succession.

◄ The entrance approach consists of a series of intimate and enclosed park spaces. Dark hemlock forests sculpt its thresholds. Arrival and departure points by main road are accentuated by clusters of white birch. A field of white clover enhances the site’s voluminous quality. Waysides access a system of seasonal footpaths made from concrete and crushed stone.

◄ The trails allow visitors to explore the parklands, discover the area’s mining past and experience nature’s ongoing recovery of the land. In each space, a framed view of the ridge and distant draglines becomes an object for way-finding.

◄ Deeper into the park, views of the landscape successively increase. A visitor center located midway up the main road opens onto a paved plaza. Framing this plaza is the concrete footprints of the welding shops once used as the staging ground for the Flight 93 recovery process. They are retained as reminders and form a series of interpretive elements crucial to the understanding of the incident. Situated on the southern perimeter of the Outer Bowl, the visitor center’s form and roof structure hugs its ridge, terminating in a sheltered gateway. Within, overlooking the open meadow of the Inner Bowl, visitors can leave physical tributes and personal written reflections in the Book of Remembrance. The scar-like profile of the memorial shimmers in the distance.

◄ The Bowl’s meadow is covered in perennial grasses and native wildflowers. Here, seasonal shifts and incessant winds sharply contrast the sheltered confines of the birch and hemlock stands. Every September 11th, blooming white wildflowers overtake the meadow, shrouding its scars in ethereal whiteness and completing the annual cycle of rebirth and healing.
 

continued in RECOVERY