Keith Kaseman had the vision for a while.
Just 165 feet from where Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, Kaseman and Julie Beckman envisioned 184 pools
glowing in a calm, shady park as a memorial to the 184 victims killed in the terrorist attack. Plans for the memorial were due at the Pentagon last September.
This week, they looked forward to the day they will see that vision become a reality. “It could be the most overwhelming day of my life,” said Kaseman.
Defense Department officials announced the selection of the Pentagon memorial design Monday, March 3. Created by New York architects Beckman and Kaseman, the “Light Benches” design calls for 184 benches, each engraved with the name of a victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon.
Benches will be arranged in “age lines,” beginning with the youngest victim and proceeding to the oldest. Each bench will be mounted over an illuminated reflecting pool that will glow bright enough to be visible from nearby roads at night.
The memorial will encompass a nearly two-acre plot of land by the Pentagon’s South Parking lot, directly beneath the path American Airlines Flight 77 took on its final descent into the Pentagon.
CLUSTERS OF MAPLE trees around the benches will create a park-like atmosphere where visitors can feel comfortable lingering to contemplate on the tragedy.
“It’s a place where two people can be, or where thousands of people can be,” said Kaseman. “It lets you think, it asks you to think, but it doesn’t tell you what to think.”
Kaseman, 31, and Beckman, 30, said they intended the design to tell the story of Sept. 11 while still allowing contemplation and individual interpretation.
Even their selection of materials reflects that balance of hard facts and soft contemplation. Stabilized gravel will compose the floor surface. Beckman said the material is solid enough to provide wheelchair access, yet “soft and crunchy enough to hear your own footsteps.”
Layers of meaning unfold throughout the design. What appears at first to be random placement of benches is really part of the story of the hijacked airliner.
Benches honoring the 125 servicemen and civilians who died in the Pentagon are positioned with the building in the background, while those honoring the 59 passengers and crewmembers who died aboard the plane would be viewed against the background of the sky.
BECKMAN AND KASEMAN’S design was one of the 1,100 designs submitted as part of a worldwide competition. Officials narrowed the field to six finalists. Each of those six then presented their design to the Family Steering Committee, a panel of family members of victims of the September 11 attack.
“They simply wanted a place that the nation could be proud of,” Beckman said, recalling her October meetings with the committee.
Wendy Chamberlain, one of the committee members, said the winning design went beyond making the nation proud. “It really satisfied the needs of the families for a place of comfort and beauty, yet it also satisfied the needs of those around the world and our nation by explaining what occurred there,” she said.
Jim Laychak said that described how he felt when he first saw the winning design. “It was a collective memorial, it was an individual memorial, yet it told the story of what happened that day,” he said. “I look at this as a gift to the people who are left behind.”
Laychak, like Chamberlain, served as a judge in the design contest in order to honor a family member lost on Sept. 11 – in his case, brother David Laychak. The process yielded many emotional moments, he said. “It brings back a lot of fond memories” of his brother
“He’s probably looking down at me and saying, ‘Why are you taking so long with this?’” Laychak said. “But you want to make sure it gets done right.”
GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONIES are expected to take place by mid-June, following the selection of a construction company, which is set to happen by March 16. Mike Sullivan, director of the Pentagon Renovation Project, said officials will pay close attention to construction to make sure Beckman’s and Kaseman’s design is realized. Sullivan he hopes to unveil the completed memorial on Sept. 11, 2004.
Officials estimate construction of the memorial will cost between $4.9 million and $7.4 million, all of which will come from donations and non-appropriated funds. No taxpayer funds will go toward the memorial.
Beckman and Kaseman are professional architects who met on the first day of class in the Master’s program at Columbia University. They were both in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001.
Designing the memorial proved to be a way of dealing with memories of that day. “We just had to enter this competition,” he said. “I think we basically just transferred our energy into focusing on the project, and that helped us definitely.”