[ GALLERY ]

Memoria e Luce. World Trade Center Memorial

On 29th May 2004, Daniel Libeskind presented his proposal for a memorial commemorating the victims of 9/11 - Memoria e Luce - to the Veneto Region and to the press. The monument created by Libeskind revolves around a joist from the Twin Towers that was donated to the Veneto Region, and in turn by the Region to the city of Padua.

The installation has no impact on the topography or vegetation at the site; there is simply a glass wall running zigzag through the ensemble, terminating in a wedge formed by two glass walls that form the leaves of the book. A page detached from the book carries the joist from the World Trade Center and is oriented toward the Statue of Liberty in New York. IGuzzini was involved in designing the illumination for the memorial.

In Daniel Libeskind’s design, colour is used as a way of drawing attention to the two distinct parts of the composition: the joist set against a background of translucent material, and their different modes of interplay with changes in the coloured light. The appliances utilized are Colourwoody for coloured and variable light, and profession Light Up Walk for illumination of the surrounding area. The light sources include metal iodide lamps, and Led arrays. The colour variation cycles have been programmed to mark certain dates important both to a European and to a US public.

The memorial is illuminated normally by white light, with colour and variation introduced in one-hour loops on a number of symbolic dates, naturally including 11th September. Others are 25th and 31st December, 1st January, 25th April (Italian Liberation Day) and 4th July.