8 WTC Memorial Design Finalists Unveiled

Photos: World Trade Center Memorial Design Finalists

By AMY WESTFELDT Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- The eight designs unveiled Wednesday as finalists for a World Trade Center memorial remember the dead with quiet gardens, reflecting pools, inscribed names and lights for lost lives.

All eight designs, selected from a pool of 5,200, list the names of those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, as well as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. They are inscribed on granite walls, glass panels and stone columns.

"We have sought designs that represent the heights of imagination while incorporating aesthetic grace and spiritual strength," the jury that chose the finalists said in a statement.

The finalists, whose identities were made public for the first time Wednesday, range from local artists to international architects.

One design proposes an open air structure with cathedral-like vaults and a glass walkway overhead where thousands of lights illuminate engraved names of the victims. It groups the rescuers' names separately in a ribbon that loops through the other names.

Another suggests votive lights suspended over a reflecting pool, with each light representing a victim.

One design includes a park sloping from street level to 30 feet below, a garden where the south tower stood, and a structure where the north tower stood with a staircase waterfall.

The proposals include private areas for relatives of the victims and a tomb for unidentified remains of people killed when the twin towers were hit by hijacked planes and collapsed. One design envisions a blue light projected upward from the place where the unidentified remains are entombed.

All of the designs preserve the slurry wall, the only surviving remnant of the original trade center.

The eight proposals, accompanied by videotaped interviews of finalists talking about their designs, were displayed at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden, near where the towers stood.

John Whitehead, chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is overseeing the rebuilding of the site, said the jury "identified the best work of highly creative individuals and teams from around the globe."

Family members of those who died were shown the designs prior to the unveiling and said they mostly approved of the plans.

"I thought they captured the essence of what the memorial should be," said Christine Huhn-Graifman, who lost her husband in the attack.

But some said Tuesday that the plans did not provide enough access to the bedrock level of the trade center site. As it stands now, the redevelopment plan preserves the approximate circumference of the towers, but construction would encroach on the twin towers' footprints at bedrock level.

Wednesday's viewing was the public's first chance to see the eight proposals, picked by a 13-member jury, which will decide the winning design by the end of the year.

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