Michael Arad — partner at Handel Architects and originator of the WTC Memorial design — is the story embedded within one of the biggest news stories of the year. The New York Times has a fascinating account of his role in the process of building the memorial that depicts the transformation of Arad from a young architect aggressively (and perhaps ineffectually) promoting his scheme to a calm, politically-deft actor in a city-wide drama.

Handel Architects have released a new series of images from the memorial, which opened to great fanfare yesterday morning. Read on.

An early study model and sketch of the scheme.

Arad, who once served in the Israeli army, was only 34 when his scheme for the Memorial was selected. That’s young to lead a major construction project in lower Manhattan, and even younger to lead the most contested public memorial project in the history of the United States. Yet according to the Times, the tribulations of the project (aggressors in the form of Daniel Libeskind, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, and even Santiago Calatrava) have provoked considerable political and professional grace from Arad, who found himself with few friends and fewer supporters in the early years of the project.

Arad commented on his politicking, saying, “When I started this project, I was a young architect… I was very apprehensive about any changes to the design. Whether I wanted to or not, I learned that you can accept some changes to its form without compromising its intent. But it’s a leap of faith that I didn’t want to make initially — to put it mildly.” Yet, over time, he made friends with city officials, building “a series of supporters that had my back,” making inroads with the city government and pursuing support “sometimes openly, and sometimes through back channels.”

If the story sounds familiar, that’s because it’s an archetypical one; a die cast perhaps most famously in “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” in which Lincoln transforms one-time enemies into his most trusted allies. Arad’s story is proof that architects can still affect the public realm with political savvy, rather than confining themselves to inter-academic squabbles.

Check out Handel Architect’s images here and here.

All images (c) Handel Architects.

by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

posted in Events

tagged 9/11, handel architects, memorial, michael ara, new york, News, world trade center memorial

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