Appropriate for the 9/11 anniversary, a design has been approved for a commemorative site where Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.
The winning design, announced Wednesday in Washington, D.C., includes what is called the “Crescent of Embrace.” That element of the project calls for two rows of red maple trees to be planted around a bowl-shaped piece of land adjacent to the crash site. The trees, according to the architects, are there to create a physical edge to the landscape and accentuate the topography.
The trees are just a part of the overall site plan.
The design features a tower marking the gateway to the memorial site. The tower holds 40 wind chimes whose sounds evoke the memories of those who are honored. The design embraces the place and memory of Flight 93 with a curving arc of maple trees along a walkway through the Bowl, with a focus on the Sacred Ground. At the western end of the curving landform is a Portal, defined by walls that frame the axis of the Flight Path to the crash site. Adjacent to the Flight Path is planned the Visitor Center that will serve as the interpretive center for the memorial and park. A sloped stone wall forms the edge to The Sacred Ground. The fields of the Sacred Ground will be planted with flowers to bloom from Spring through Fall. A white stone slab and gate, on axis with the flight path, provides entry to the Sacred Ground for family members.
Unfortunately, some folks are sure that there’s a hidden message here, and they’re not going to stand for it.
Mark McMorrow, who runs the Constitutional Conservative blog online, wrote this yesterday: “Didn’t anybody pick up on the crescent/Islam relationship? Didn’t this occur to any of the victim’s family members? Even if it’s an accident, I don’t think this design is acceptable.”
Later, in a phone interview, McMorrow said he was surprised to learn family members of those who died in the attack weren’t offended by the use of the crescent. “It’s like figuring swastikas into a Holocaust memorial,” he said.
So … the design might be an accident, and it doesn’t offend the families of the folks it commemorates, and the guy is still up in arms?
Self-proclaimed bishop Ron McRae, a street evangelist based in Somerset County, has vowed to fight the use of the crescent symbol in the Flight 93 memorial. He believes the architects used it purposely.
“It’s a memorial to the terrorists,” McRae said. “It’s not a memorial to the innocent Americans who died there.”
Um …
The jury that reviewed the design was aware that the crescent can be used as a symbol of Islam.
Eight family members served on the second-stage jury that selected the final memorial design. The jurors recognized there could be some backlash because of the crescent. That’s why, in their recommendations, they wrote: “Consider the interpretation and impact of words within the context of this event. The crescent should be referred to as ‘the circle or arc,’ or other words that are not tied to specific religious iconography.”
And the architects agree.
“You can call it all kinds of things. We can call it an arc. We can call it a circle. We can call it the edge of the bowl. The label doesn’t matter to us in terms of intent.
“We have no objection to calling it something else.”
Murdoch did say they have no intentions of changing the design.
The reason the circle of trees is not completed, he said, is because it was severed by the path of Flight 93. From that opening, visitors will be able to gaze down on what has been called the “Sacred Ground,” where some of the remains of the passengers and crew still rest.
Given the rather limited set of geometric figures that one could use, I don’t see any problem with this, especially given the basic simplicity of the circle (or, in this case, the interrupted circle which forms a crescent). And, to be fair, no doubt had the design incorporated some other basic geometric shapes — a cross, a pentagon, a star, or heck, even a “One Worlder/New World Order” circle, someone would have found something to complain about.
Still … maybe the conspiracy theorists have a point. Those suspicious red crescents are on all sorts of fringe websites these days. And we all know that the Islamic Crescent was the reason that God chose to vent his wrath on the “Crescent City,” New Orleans, right? (Actually, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone argue that one yet, but give ’em time …)
(via J-Walk)
Oh, look — our local fringe Congressman Tom Tancredo is weighing in. Isn’t that just swell:
“The appropriateness of the design has been questioned by many people because of the crescent’s prominent use as a symbol in Islam – and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists,” Tancredo, R-Colo., wrote in a letter to Fran Mainella, director of the park service.
“Indeed, it has raised questions in some circles about whether the design, if constructed, will in fact make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers rather than the victims whose mission the flight’s passengers helped to thwart.”
I suppose it will if people decide to take it that way. The idea that there’s something intrinsic about this one element of the overall design, let alone any of the textual information at the site, that would lead to it being, per se, such a tribute, is ludicrous.
Well, ludicrous to me, at least. Which is a category that seems to encompass more and more these days.
Tancredo said that the use of any religious symbol at the site would be inappropriate and that he thinks average visitors will see a Muslim theme without an art history lesson. “I find it to be anything but innocuous,” Tancredo said in an interview.
“Of all the things that could be created for the purpose of memorializing the people on that plane and that incredible event, I found this (design) to be odd, to say the least.”