Light Driven Memorials

9-11 Memorial-Competition Submissions-2003-NYC That Never Was-World Trade Center. Levine-0039/11 Memorial Competition Entry: Garrett Finney, inventory

We think of memorials we have seen and they are often stark greyscale, with little color other than foliage blossoms. A number of 2003 entrants thought that light and/or color should be the memorial focus – these are but two from the “light and color” chapter of the book.

Garret Finney, an inventor, envisioned using light from technology, a collimator, a “beam limiting device” sharply moving and focusing light. Walking around you would see the following:

“Each day the Collimator will collect the sun’s rays and use them to project the…names…into the shifting shaded portions of the site. [They] will move throughout the course of the day, tracking with the sun’s movement. The names will dance and float over the glass, brick, stone, concrete, trees, grass and people…The names will move in a seemingly random fashion but will follow a prescribed course just as the stars do…The names will be there and not there as they are projected into shadow and then get lost in the sunlight. The solitary traverse of each name will express each victim’s individual nature.”

9-11 Memorial-Competition Submissions-2003-NYC That Never Was-World Trade Center. Levine-0049/11 Memorial Competition Entry: David Schatzle, architect

Architect David Schatzle had another approach using light. He powered his design by color, using camera obscura devices around the memorial to capture images of visitors. He believed memory needs to encompass both “the body and the soul” to “…affirm the reality of spirit and the reality of matter” and relate the one to the other.

There would be a central “fluid crystal” (liquid crystal) wall of light and color. From a distance, you would see a constantly changing blend of the images.

Up close you would see a mosaic of faces of the victims.