Flight 93 Crescent Memorial - The Designer’s Own Words
The proposed design for a memorial to Flight 93 in Shanksville is a “Crescent of Embrace,” formed by Red Maple trees around the impact site. See the official Flight 93 Memorial site.
Many conservative bloggers (see below) have seen Islamic symbolism in the “Crescent of Embrace.” The leftie bloggers — and some conservatives — have derided this as wingnut paranoid fantasy. So … do architects infuse meaning into the forms of their designs? Here are some excerpts from the designer, Paul Murdoch Architects, own website.
Philosophy: A primary task of this generation is to create new patterns of development that sustain human habitation on this planet. Towards this end, the principles adopted for our practice are intended to ensure that each project contributes to an overall goal of environmental responsibility while striving for design excellence. As architects, we are uniquely qualified to help formulate and translate policy into tangible form; mitigating pressures of urbanity with the need to heal the natural environment. Each design solution is seen as a contribution to the human condition; as it exists today and evolves into future generations. Our goal is to define and study problems both in terms of clients’ direct needs and relative to long term effects on natural and man made surroundings. More than problem solving however, we aspire to emotionally affect and uplift our lives through poetry and beauty.
Council District 9 Neighborhood City Hall The $8 million project occurs on Central Avenue in South Los Angeles and will provide forward-looking environmental features to enhance building performance, to demonstrate urban development innovations to the public and to form a context for expressing compositions that echo the community’s jazz history.
Malama Learning Center The surrounding building spirals out from the high school buildings in an opening gesture to the landscape and community.
Korean Cultural Museum: The design recreates a fragment of a traditional Korean temple compound; where gardens provide the setting for a temple-like main building.
Sustainable Design: We believe in the essential role of design in reforming the natural and built environments for the long term health of life on this planet. As architects, we must recognize the interrelationship of design at all scales; from urban and regional design to that of intimate detail. Paul has researched and publicly presented a wide range of ideas including: livable urban communities; ecological city planning principles; poetic and practical examples of recycling; and the relationship of architecture to the environment. Paul Murdoch Architects’ involvement with varied projects noted for their environmental sensitivity demonstrate this range of issues and our use of design as a means for their exploration.
Tons of you are stunned, outraged, and sickened by the new Flight 93 Memorial, the “Crescent of Embrace.” I called the architect responsible for the redesign, Paul Murdoch of Los Angeles, yesterday for comment. He did not return my call, but he did speak with the Johnstown, Pa., Tribune Democrat, as quoted in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
Captain Ed: Flight 93 Memorial Intended To Offend, suggests an analogous device at Pearl Harbor:
I think it should symbolize the re-emergence of the US in the Pacific after the devastating attack on our fleet at Pearl. It should represent the national effort to come out of the East to reclaim our position and to establish a beacon of freedom and prosperity.
A rising sun would perfectly symbolize that.
It should also represent how we used thatas a launching point to liberate the many islands in the East Pacific that suffered under the brutal Japanese occupation. Several sunrays could symbolize our efforts across the vast ocean to bring freedom to the oppressed in faraway lands.
Mark Coffey calls it An Appalling Lack of Sensitivity
Flight 93, you may recall, crashed near Shanksville, PA on 9/11, on its way for a suicide run into Congress. You may also recall that the hijackers of the plane were radical Islamic terrorists. Naturally, then, the memorial for Flight 93 is in the shape of…an Islamic crescent.
Rusty Shackleford on the Memorial to the Religion of Peace
So, they want to shape the Flight 93 memorial like a crescent? Fitting. Why don’t we pour some salt on our wounds and buy an industrial sized barrel of KY while we’re at it? CDR Slamander has some more great…
AJ Strata: Crescent Of Death Over American Graves
I know what Al Qaeda will do with this. They will say it is a sign that fanatical Islam will win. They will say Allah placed his sign over those of the dead Americans who fought back as symbol of victory. They will use it to rally the forces of Jihad. They will use this as a rallying point against us. They will take a memorial that was supposed to honor our dead heroes and use it in such a manner that will mean we probably will have many more memorials to build in the future.
Allah proposed an alternative, on display at Ace o’ Spades.
Cdr Salamander: NYC to build Mosque at WTC site
OK, I made that up, but stick with me on this. If I was to tell you that on the site of the crash of Flight 93 they were going to build a memorial in the shape of the Islamic Star and Crescent, would you tell me that I should have gone to snopes.com? Would you tell me that I get my news from ScrappleFace and TheOnion? Well, what do you see here?
I don’t get it. Why this shape? The designers had a blank slate. They could have designed anything. And they chose the symbol of the perpetrators. They essentially claim that the shape is a coincidence. That’s an absurd claim. Architects design things for a reason, with intent; every part of an architectural design serves a purpose. A wall holds up a building; a pipe carries water; a gravestone marks a person’s final resting place. To pretend there is no symbolism here is beyond “disingenuous.” It’s ridiculous. All you have to do is look at it. I skimmed through several Leftie blogs. They are convinced it’s a coincidence, that only wingnuts would see a connection.
I have a hard time accepting that it’s a coincidence. But what is their point? Their message? The symbolism? Is it a Rodney King-ish “Can’t we all just get along” message? Is this some gesture of appeasement to the Muslim world? But that makes no sense. Such an attempted message would be both futile and cowardly.
I honestly don’t get it. Maybe “sometimes a crescent is just a crescent.”
Footnote: There’s a fair amount of discussion about the crescent also forming a qibla, pointing to Mecca. See this image. I’m not sure. But, note this comment from Ace: “Look at the ends of the crescent, not the ends of the fattest row of trees. Yes, the midpoint of the fat row of trees does not point to Mecca. But the entire crescent does.”
Call the Superintendent of the Flight 93 National Memorial at (814) 443-4557. Or fax (814) 443-2180.
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