The World Trade Center memorial June 2012. Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Michael Arad says that as a “New Yorker I felt compelled to respond to the emotions I felt on September 11, 2001. As a designer, I began to sketch and imagined two voids in the Hudson river.” The end result of the personal process is a very public one: the World Trade Center Memorial, which Arad designed. We invite you to a special guest lecture which he will deliver to Skoltech and OpUS (Open University Skolkovo) community members.

What: The design and construction of the National 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center in New

When: December 5, 2014; 16:00

Where: Moscow School of Management, Beijing Auditorium

Please register: https://www.skoltech.ru/en/about/contacts/

Michael Arad, the New York architect who designed the World Trade Center memorial

Summary: I will describe the process and challenges involved in the design and construction of the 9/11 Memorial, a process that stretched over the better part of a decade amidst much political and emotional tumult.

I will explain what design principles were essential to the project (reflecting absence and making the site a public space), and how these ideas were challenged and adapted to a complex set of demands.  The presentation will cover the evolution of the design from sketch through constructed reality with many images illustrating various stages of the process.

I will candidly discuss the setbacks we encountered and how we responded to them creatively to maintain the character of the memorial.  I will explain some of the unique challenges the project posed and how we responded to them (e.g. arranging the names of the deceased according to a system of meaningful adjacencies, a process that elicited the participation of all families and culminated in an emotionally freighted and logistically complex resolution).

The talk will last for roughly 45 minutes with an additional 15 to 20 minutes for Q&A.

* The Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) is a private graduate research university in Skolkovo, Russia, a suburb of Moscow. Established in 2011 in collaboration with MIT, Skoltech educates global leaders in innovation, advances scientific knowledge, and fosters new technologies to address critical issues facing Russia and the world. Applying international research and educational models, the university integrates the best Russian scientific traditions with twenty-first century entrepreneurship and innovation.