It’s extraordinary to take in the authenticity of the site, the enormity of the space, and begin to contemplate the narrative of the museum exhibit
The museum is not really a building, but an expansive interior space, punctuated with original pieces of engineering – now historical assets – such as the slurry wall, twisted pieces of steel and the box col- umns that have been excavated to reveal the outline of the North Tower footprint. Greenwald says: “The architects cre-
ated a ramped descent with vistas that show how enormous the space is. Scale was always the story of the World Trade Center – the scale of what was here, the events, the potential for redevelopment and recovery. It’s all conveyed in the architecture. It’s extraordinary to take in the authenticity of the site, the enormity of the space, and begin to contemplate the narrative of the museum exhibit. Davis Brody Bond designed what I think is one of the great built environments in New York, if not in the world.”
FREEDOM TO CHOOSE Inside the museum, Greenwald and the design teams decided early on to create a segregated area where visitors opt in – the most difficult artefacts wouldn’t be encountered unless a visitor chose to do so. In the North Tower that space became the historical exhibit, while in the South Tower, it houses the memorial exhibition. Tom Hennes and his studio Thinc
Design conceptualised the exhibition, with the help of media and technology partner Local Projects, and designed about 80 per cent of the exhibits. Layman Design took charge of the historical exhibit.
www.attractionshandbook.com For Hennes, the most important consid-
eration when designing the exhibit was a respect for the trauma engendered by the attacks, and finding a way to present the story without forcing visitors to relive it. “Trauma plays a central role at the per-
sonal and the social scale,” Hennes says. “That’s most significant for the people who were directly involved, but the ripples of trauma travelled through society. Our world view was disrupted on that day. For many people it became a singular event that changed everything.” The designers worked closely with advis-
ers, including historians and psychologists, to create a layout that permits each visitor to determine his own route. As long as he’s informed about what’s coming next, the visitor can “regulate the intensity” of his experience. There’s no definitive route through the exhibit, so the visitor is free to choose his journey. “Visitors understand they are in a museum, and not in 9/11,” Hennes adds. “Here and now is a museum on the site of one of its attacks, not a re-immersion in 9/11.”
ETHICS AND APPROPRIATENESS As the visitor experience was devised to avoid being unduly traumatic, every arte- fact was tested by the same principles before it was deemed right for display. One unique challenge lay in the fact that
so much of the material was audio media, such as cockpit recordings, voicemails and radio transmissions. “The timbre of the human voice has an immediacy and a
power that is very real,” says Greenwald. “Our advisors cautioned early on that we needed to be extremely prudent in our selection of audio materials.” Hennes offers an example, describing
how he’d trawled through video of the towers falling countless times, but on one occasion listened with the volume on and heard female screams from out of shot. “I found that more difficult than just
about any of the material I’ve seen because it took me to that raw, unpro- cessed, emotional experiencing of terror and disbelief of the moment,” he says. Imagining a museum that has this type of subject matter demanded responsibility from the project team. “In some ways, that intensity is what we have to shield people from because it can trigger trauma. Trauma is a felt experience that, by definition, is not fully understood.” Discretion was applied to every type
of artefact, Greenwald says. “When do you cross the line between documenta- tion and exploitation? We debated that question endlessly and we worked very hard not to cross that line.” A case in point was the telling of the
story of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all on board. Little survived the impact that could document the attack, but 37 phone calls were made by crew and passengers during the onboard siege. “We made choices to include
certain voicemail messages that are heartwrenching, but we felt they were
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