WTC memorial finalists unveiled

(BBC URL gakked from dafydd)

The final eight designs for the World Trade Center memorial have been unveiled.  Two sets of photos are available that I'm aware of -- the BBC has one photo per design, SFGate has two to four.  The SFGate pictures do them better justice, I think.

From the BBC photos, I like "Suspending Memory" and "Passages of Light" the best, but I couldn't really decide on a preference between them.  Then I looked at the SFGate photos.

"Reflecting Absence" doesn't do it for me ... it's too sterile, too enclosed, too walled-off.  I get the feeling it commemorates the buildings, not the victims.  "Votives in Suspension" is an interesting idea, but it's very abstract, and I wonder about maintenance issues.  I very much like "Passages of Light", particularly the way it ribbons the names of rescuers among those of the victims.  "Inversion of Light" and "Dual Memory" are also good, but I dislike the idea of randomly scattering victims' names ... people who lost friends, relatives or family members there should be able to find their names without having to search the entire site.

And then there's "Suspending Memory." Just look at this (full-size view here).

The others are memorials.  Just memorials.

"Suspending Memory" is an elegy.  It's poetry made physical.  It reached out and grabbed me.  It's also the only memorial design that commemorates those killed at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania as well as those who died in the WTC.

So there's my votes ... "Suspending Memory" followed by "Passages of Light".  ("Passages of Light" is currently leading in the BBC's informal poll.)