NYC: Staten Island September 11 Memorial

One of the hardest hit communities, Staten Island, who lost 270 people as a result of the attacks of September 11, set aside $2 million for a memorial to be erected on the St. George waterfront. A 179-entry competition was narrowed down to six finalists before an Advisory Committee selected Masayuki Sono's Postcards, dedicated on September 11, 2004.

The Japanese-born Sono wanted to connect the victims to those left behind, and used the postcards he typically models pieces with as inspiration. Even in the era of cell phones and e-mail, the postcard continues to be a handwritten communication sent across great distances. He multipled its dimesnions by 267 to convey the scale of loss, and then gave the postcard origimai-like inward folds, as if to keep a personal message private. The twin postcards can be seen as a reference to the Twin Towers. He placed the postcards side by side, close together at the entrance to form a compressive space. The space widens and releases towards the harbor and the open sky. A view of lower Manhattan is framed by the high walls. He softly bent the upper edges at an angle, transforming simple rectangles into abstractly organic forms in which some see wings of a dove or biomorphic shapes.

To individually memorialize those who died, Sono designed reachable rows of rectangular granite 9"x11" plaques, or "commemorative stamps", for the interior walls. In addition to a name and other facts, each white granite "stamp" bears a silhoutted profile, name, birth date, and place of work facing the harbor. When the sun strikes a profile, it casts a shadow on the recessed granite box behind it. When the wall is shaded, an open slot behind each profile will backlight the profile with daylight. At night, spotlights will substitute for the sun. Shifting light and shadow on the profiles will enliven the surface of the memorial as they mark time and change.