Clueless Memorial Design

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swampfox

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The designers of the Flight 93 memorial at the impact site unveiled their effort yesterday. In what seems to be a typical case of cluelessness among memorial designers, the site will prominently feature the religious symbol of the attackers themselves (via Michelle Malkin):

Some might argue that the design’s most prominent feature is a coincidence, but the title of it argues against that interpretation:

It will serve as a living tribute. With each wind, each breeze, a set of chimes housed in a 93-foot tower will create a different song in memory of the 40 people who sacrificed their lives trying to save the lives of others.
Four years after United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a reclaimed strip mine near Shanksville, Somerset County, on Sept. 11, 2001, the design that will serve as the national memorial was unveiled here yesterday in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Hall of Flags.

“Crescent of Embrace” will feature a Tower of Voices, containing 40 wind chimes – one for each passenger and crew member who died – and two stands of red maple trees that will line a walkway caressing the natural bowl shape of the land. Forty separate groves of red and sugar maples will be planted behind the crescent, and a black slate wall will mark the edge of the crash site, where the remains of those who died now rest.

{moderator’s note: edited down to 4 paragraphs}
 
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swampfox:
the site will prominently feature the religious symbol of the attackers. Can you imagine the outcry from the multiculturalists and the ACLU had the design incorporated a cross or a Star of David in honor of the victims? Why should we tolerate the Crescent that, inadvertently or deliberately, honors the terrorists?
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There’s no Crescent and Star as part of the Memorial. That blogger is mistaken.
 
It looks pretty clearly like the Crescent and star design to me. Totally inappropriate. It’s like putting a swastika on the memorial to Holocaust victims.
 
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mpav:
It looks pretty clearly like the Crescent and star design to me. Totally inappropriate. It’s like putting a swastika on the memorial to Holocaust victims.
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Where do you see the Crescent and Star? In that link, all I see is a parklike setting.
 
Well, it is called a crescent, and it does appear to be a crescent, but as to whether this is intended to have any religious significance, I don’t know.

flight93memorialproject.org/docs/F93%20Board%2030x40%204-5.pdf

This, by the way, is the screwiest PDF I’ve ever seen, It has several sizes, both normal and inversed, all sandwiched on the same page. If you click around on it though, eventually a large, normal image comes to the front.
 
Joseph Bilodeau:
Well, it is called a crescent, and it does appear to be a crescent, but as to whether this is intended to have any religious significance, I don’t know.
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And, New Orleans is called the Crescent City. Like you, I don’t know that this is intended to have any religious significance.

Maybe it’s all like Rorschach cards; different people see different things in something crescent-shaped.
 
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mpav:
It looks pretty clearly like the Crescent and star design to me. Totally inappropriate. It’s like putting a swastika on the memorial to Holocaust victims.
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I can see a crescent, but not a star. I would no more compare that to the Muslim symbol as I would a banana.
 
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tcay584:
I can see a crescent, but not a star. I would no more compare that to the Muslim symbol as I would a banana.
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I looked over the power point presentation for the Crescent of Embrace. If one wanted to see it, one could. (I wouldn’t have put the two together, fwiw.) Nonetheless, there is an obvious crescent shape that apparently follows the natural topography of the land outlined in Red Maple trees (the landscaping is almost all red, white, and blue all year long). The visitor’s center is sitting in the open space of the crescent in much the same place that the star would sit. It isn’t shaped like a star, but more like a blob. The point of its placement is said to be pointing the direction of the flight’s path. The visitor’s center points down into the bowl or crescent where the plane eventually landed.
 
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Forest-Pine:
I looked over the power point presentation for the Crescent of Embrace. If one wanted to see it, one could. (I wouldn’t have put the two together, fwiw.) Nonetheless, there is an obvious crescent shape that apparently follows the natural topography of the land outlined in Red Maple trees (the landscaping is almost all red, white, and blue all year long). The visitor’s center is sitting in the open space of the crescent in much the same place that the star would sit. It isn’t shaped like a star, but more like a blob. The point of its placement is said to be pointing the direction of the flight’s path. The visitor’s center points down into the bowl or crescent where the plane eventually landed.
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Well you know, stars are born from nebulae, which I guess could be likened to cosmic gas blobs…so the whole star shape may take form in a billion years or so :hmmm: . Sorry, I just can’t help but compare this to the image of our Blessed Mother in a grilled cheese sandwich :rolleyes: 🙂 .
 
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gilliam:
Lots of controversy on the memorial. Michelle Malkin is keeping track:

michellemalkin.com/archives/003513.htm
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I think using the red crescent – even though they are not saying it’s a red crescent – is cultural appropriation. Or more accurately cultural misappropriation.

It would be like erecting a wooden cross at the site of – I dunno – the massacre on the road to Pakistan during Partition.
 
michellemalkin.com/

This graphic shows the crescent pretty clearly. The grove of trees which is situated where the star is with the Islamic crescent is not clear on the graphic. I’ll try to find another.
 
This site has a couple of graphics posted. The trees where the star would be are clearly visible. I keep thinking of the outrage directed at the girders which were in the shape of a cross at WTC. That was very objectionable to some people, yet it’s fine to construct a memorial which pays homage to the beliefs of those who perpetrated the outrage.
 
michellemalkin.com/archives/003513.htm

So, the plan is dismiss those of us whose eyes are not blinded by political correctness as racist cranks with imaginations run wild. But we’re not the only ones objecting. The Tribune-Democrat article quotes a professor of Middle East studies and a local Muslim leader who see the obvious–and reports that jury members who chose the winning design were cognizant of the offensive overtones.

“Given the political ramifications, it’s not an apt name,” Professor Bernard Haykel said Friday, a day after a Somerset County street preacher declared he is considering filing for an injunction to stop the design.
“I could see a Muslim taking offense to this by saying this could be a slight to Islam. It could cut both ways.”

…In Islam, the crescent moon symbolizes the beginning and end of a calendar month. Crescents are prominent on mosques and are used on ambulances similar to red crosses in America.

“It is the symbol of ritual and religious life for Muslims,” Haykel said.

“The name (of the memorial) itself is not bad, but people can read into it all kinds of things.”

Murdoch has said the word is used generically in an architectural sense to describe the walkway around the bowl-shaped depression surrounding the plane’s point of impact. He maintains no religious implications were intended.

But even the second-stage jury that selected the design recommended changing its name to steer clear of religious overtones. Rather than crescent, the jury suggested using circle or arc of embrace instead.

Fouad El Bayly of Somerset, leader of the Islamic Center of Johnstown, has said Muslims immediately would recognize the symbolism in the design.

The crescent is a symbol of Islamic faith, El Bayly said.

“You pick something to be identified with,” he said.
 
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