Heroism.
The World Trade Center Memorial is all about consequences after the attack. Flight 93 is uniquely about actions and decisions in the heat of battle.
Happenstance.
The Pentagon was a target against whose backdrop its memorial draws resonance. But this one particular, innocuous field in Pennsylvania was anointed by a matter of wind velocity and a few seconds more or less of pitched battle.
Flight 93 is an odyssey, whose narrative lessons of heroism are more telling than the crash site itself, or the aftermath of 9/11.
We designed the entire experience- from the gateway approach through the individual memorials to the impact site, as a story told via words and plants and landscape forms. A story emphasizing the passenger and crew’s explicit decision to take a stand, no matter the consequences. A story to feel in our legs and our beating heart, as well as our head.
A story of The Road Not Taken.
For which we must all be grateful.
2004