World Trade Center Memorial

Written with Light.

The footprints of the towers are marked by reflecting pools, each with a island chapel in which are interred the human remains found on the site.

The chapels are "lanterns", comprised of sandblasted glass panels with the names of the victims left clear. Those within the chapel during the day will have their bodies and faces washed by the pattern of light and shadow. At night, the same pattern will radiate outwards.

A "tower" on the site designed to evoke the memory of the destroyed structures will direct a column of focused sunlight, with mirrors & lenses across the face of a memorial wall, through the course of a day, every day, all year, every year, as long as the sun shines.

The memorial wall is a composite of black granite inscribed with the names of the victims, and layers of glass with a photo-sensitive gel. As the column of sunlight from the tower moves across the face of the wall the gel reacts to the sunlight and changes from opaque to transparent, revealing the names of the dead for a period of time before slowly concealing them again- Creating the effect that the names of the victims are being "written" on the stone by a shaft of sunlight.

Ephemeral like human life itself, and yet powerful like our memory of those who lost their lives