ILLUMINATING ABSENCE AND HOPE THROUGH THE ENFOLDING / UNFOLDING OF COURAGE AND SACRIFICE

(left to right) Scars (drainage swales and mining pools) of the Site, Bowl and Memorial ▲

The memorial is situated on a vast meadow scarred by drainage swales and mining pools. An extensive concrete wall sections a small fragment of that meadow.  “A common field one day, a field of honor forever” is engraved at its northern end in polished quartzite.  Descending into the entrance courtyard, visitors experience the collapsing of scales from vast landscape to sheltered memorial entrance.  The wall and change in elevation effectively sever views of the meadow while preserving a view of the ridge over which Flight 93 emerged.

◄ The plane’s flight path is inscribed in the floor of the Entrance Courtyard. Beginning as a horizontally ascending wall at the southern portion of the memorial’s Entrance Courtyard, the roofscape folds and becomes a roof over the Passage of Collective Memory, rearticulates itself and becomes a wall at the Turning Point, and returns to a descending floor at the journey’s end in the Memorial Courtyard.

◄ At the Entrance Courtyard, the roofscape forms an enclosed, terraced overlook that orients and frames the Sacred Ground.  Engraved on the quartzite wall is “0842: Departure from Newark, New Jersey”, recalling the beginnings of the doomed voyage.  As two separate elements, the roofscape’s upper cast glass assembly begins its journey towards Sacred Ground as its quartzite counterpart rises horizontally.  The materials unite at the entrance to the Passage of Collective Memory.

◄ The Passage of Collective Memory evokes the ordinary, individual memories of passengers and crew going about their everyday lives – a typical day of everyday concerns, wonderings and worries.  Dim and enclosed, the passage descends into the earth.  Above, the roofscape radiates with warm light accentuated with slivers of shimmering light refracted off the textured quartzite skin.  Inscribed midway through the passage is 0928: Takeover.

◄ At the 0939: Turning Point, the roofscape reverses its course and unfolds into a semi-enclosed space.  This space recalls the moment when the passengers and crew of Flight 93 became aware of their grave situation.  The gradual unfolding of the roofscape exposes earth and sky; its white crushed stone courtyard amalgamates with a strip of onsite quarried stone that lines the underside of the Passage of Collective Memory.  This space allows for pause and reflection. 

◄ The roofscape’s composition ends at the open, paved Memorial Courtyard.  It gradually descends into a horizontal position, revealing the Sacred Ground.  Forming an inaccessible threshold, the roofscape creates a slight incision in the earth, situating visitors below the surface of the Sacred Ground.  The descending trajectory of the quartzite shell folds and flattens to become a raised slab hovering above the dark concrete courtyard.  The roofscape’s form and the surrounding tree line embrace and protect the memorial courtyard from the site’s prevailing winds.

continued in HEALING MEMORY