Interior Design Blog

The glass pavilion

Designed by New York-based Davis Brody Bond Aedas, the 120,000 square feet museum will be built below the eight acre memorial plaza. The entrance of the museum will feature a ground level glass pavilion  that will lead visitors to a 665-feet long ribbon or a gently sloped ramp that will wind down 45 feet to the Memorial Hall or lobby of the museum. The ribbon is a model of the ramp that was used during the construction of the towers and later for the rescue efforts. Prior to the lobby is a three-pronged trident column recovered from the trade center rubble.

The centrepiece of the museum, christened 'Reflecting Absence', will be two square reflecting pools set above the footprints of the twin towers. The pools, clad in recycled aluminium similar to that used in the construction of the twin towers, will appear to float over space due to special lighting. The depth of the pools in the cavernous site will trigger the memory of the twin towers from different areas of the museum. The names of nearly 3,000 victims will be etched on the parapet walls of the pools.

As visitors proceed down the ramp, a flight of stairs or an escalator will take them through a 25-feet final descent to bedrock and then to a trapezoidal expanse containing the 60-foot high slurry wall. The slurry wall, measuring 60 feet by 60 feet, had prevented the Hudson River from overflowing and inundating the financial district of New York.
 
The last standing steel column with the slurry wall to the left

The bedrock in the floor slabs exposes the tower's foundational steel box columns. Also present is the last standing 36-feet tall steel column (Above: Steel Column with slurry wall to the left) that was removed from the debris after a nine-month effort. The column was covered instantaneously with tributes, photographs and inscriptions. The column, the slurry wall and the tower's foundation steel box column will be retained in the museum.

The survivor's staircase

The final descent also runs parallel to the 37-steps Vessey Street stairs (above) or the survivor's staircase that served as an escape path for thousands who fled from the unfolding horror and had stood as one of the last above-ground remnants of the twin towers.

The pavilion of the museum has been designed by international landscape architecture firm Snøhetta. The pools have been designed by Israeli-American architect Michael Arad. The museum is expected to be opened to public in 2012.
 
The 9/11 museum carries at heart two elements - the enormity of the loss and the triumph of human spirit - both of which are sure to tug at the heartstrings of the visitors.