Winner Chosen
For WTC Memorial

NEW YORK -- A pair of reflective pools marking the footprints of the destroyed World Trade Center's Twin Towers are at the heart of a design selected yesterday as the Ground Zero memorial to victims of the 2001 terror attacks.

The design, "Reflecting Absence," was selected from among 5,200 submissions that were vetted by a 13-member jury that included Maya Lin, architect and designer of the Vietnam Veterans' memorial, and the wife of a victim of the attacks.

The original design, by Michael Arad, a New Yorker raised in Israel, the U.S. and Mexico, includes a landscaped plaza at street level with the reflecting pools set 30 feet below. The design includes passageways leading past curtains of water flowing down to the pools.

However, in its announcement Tuesday, the panel, known as the World Trade Center Memorial Competition Jury, cautioned that Mr. Arad's design "has evolved significantly" and that his team has added a landscape designer. The jury said updated designs would be unveiled next week.

"While the voids still remain empty and inconsolable, the surrounding plaza's design has evolved to include teeming groves of trees," the panel said.

Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society of New York, a leading civic group, said Reflecting Absence was the only one of the eight finalists to evoke a passionate response in workshops and Internet discussions conducted by the society. Proponents "really liked the fact that the design respected and highlighted the footprints," he said.

Those critical of the design used words like "cold, stark, bleak, lifeless," he said.

View 1 - REFLECTING ABSENCE: A Memorial at the World Trade Center Site

Michael Arad - New York, New York

Two reflecting pools, bordered by sloped buildings, are fed by a constant stream of water cascading down the walls that enclose them. A short passageway linking the pools underground contains an alcove where visitors may light candles.

View 2 - REFLECTING ABSENCE: A Memorial at the World Trade Center Site

Michael Arad - New York, New York

Two reflecting pools, bordered by sloped buildings, are fed by a constant stream of water cascading down the walls that enclose them. A short passageway linking the pools underground contains an alcove where visitors may light candles.

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