On  9.11.01, while on-route to its target in Washington, DC, United Airlines Flight 93 was abruptly forced to earth by a passenger insurrection.

Their decision saved countless lives and untold damage to the nation's capital.
Their bravery demonstrated the power within each of us to make a difference through our own initiative and resolve.
They took the road less taken.

A national memorial honoring the story of Flight 93 is planned for the crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Our memorial echoes the theme of a "Road Not Taken" amplifying its resonance into a journey though a landscape of decisions and memory.

This Flight 93 Memorial proposal honors that odyssey, creating new memories for visitors as 911 fades into the past, and perhaps inspiring a few brave souls to greatness.

In the midst of great uncertainty and knowing they would surely die, the passengers fought back and changed history. The passenger and crew's decisions are made tangible by symbolically retracing the plane's path upon entering the park. The plane's cabin is re-imagined as an allee of trees; a memorial hall - honoring each passenger and crew member with their own stone monolith. Visitors pass through the allee to an earthen maze, symbolizing the decisions we make every day and every tomorrow. Finally, the visitor' path brings them to a stone amphitheater, overlooking the Sacred ground, where they can pause, leave a memento, and incorporate all they have experienced into a new perspective on life.

Overtime, the memorial will change with the seasons and the years, softening as the landscape fills in, expanding as later generations install sculpture, and growing in resonance as the full context of 9.11 emerges.

Please navigate through the submission by clicking on the links above. You may also downloading a 1.2 MB Adobe Acrobat file of the original poster by clicking here.

Clicking on the "Road Not Taken" title at any time returns you to this page.

This submission to the Flight 93 Memorial Competition was not selected as a finalist, but you may view those finalists here.

Registration #1168: Stage I entry 05-88