museum case study slideshare

National September 11 Memorial and Museum by Snøhetta

Architectural Response to The Journey of Healing, Understanding, and Transformations | September 11 Memorial Museum

The September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion is located at Ground Zero in New York City and is the only built structure in the landscaped plaza of oak trees and the two reflection pools or sculptural voids made of black granite, carved deep into the earth, meant to signify the empty space that cannot be filled. The Museum pavilion covers an area of 53000 sq ft in an eight-acre plaza set within the dense fabric of Lower Manhattan , where the former WTC Twin Tower once stood. It commemorates the 2983 victims from the September 11 attacks and the 1993 WTC bombings. The commission on this pavilion started in October 2004 and opened its doors for visitors in May 2014.

The  stainless steel and glass pavilion  is the entrance to the museum’s interior and embodies the powerful history, the memories and dreams of people around the world , and new hope for the future. Before entering the museum, the visitors first walk past the footprints of the Twin Towers and the cascading granite voids. Craig Dykers, the founding partner of Snøhetta , narrates that the main purpose of the pavilion is to provide visitors with a naturally occurring threshold between everyday life in the city and the remarkable spiritual quality of the memorial .

Design Philosophy  

The central idea of the design and user experience of the pavilion is the journey of healing and understanding . As Snøhetta’s founding partner, Craig Dyker describes how his own experience with the events of 9/11 and the positivity of the people around him helped inspire the design process of the 9/11 memorial museum pavilion .

He recalls in one of his interviews with the Louisiana channel that when one confronts a tragedy, it is always a transformative experience, and the person goes through various stages of understanding. Obviously, the first stage shocks, followed by a sense of yearning and desire that things would somehow have been different. But, as time passes and they move through these cycles intellectually, they realize one day that they are alive and have to present that strength of being alive to those around them. So this building is meant to be a part of that cycle. It is not meant to capture the trauma directly but to allow the users to see themselves at the moment in time. Nevertheless, in today’s globalized and interconnected world, these ephemeral moments are being lost. So this pavilion aims to recapture those moments to allow people to see themselves at this moment in time.

The Design Process: Concept, Site, Form, and Planning | September 11 Memorial Museum

The Site: There was no actual site when the building was decided upon to be designed. The site where the WTC towers fell had been cleared of debris and the bedrock that sits 15-20 meters below the ground level, was the only thing that was available. None of the skyscrapers that are around today existed, and neither of their designs had been published. So in a sense, it was essentially a non-existing site without a ground to stand on, it was undeniably shrouded with trauma and was rather psychologically challenging.

The Concept, Form, and Planning: The idea of a very low, horizontal, and uplifting building geometry that complemented the power and simplistic character of the pools and trees was decided in the very beginning and it did not detract from that. The shape, which is quite horizontal and is very different from the verticality of the surrounding towers, helps break the massive scale of the buildings before they hit the ground and enter the character of the memorial. Also, it is rising above the ground so it feels as though the memorial ground itself passes through the building which gives a sense of continuity. The pavilion is unimposing, visually accessible, and blends into the whole site bridging the world between memorial and museum, collective and individual experiences, above and below the ground, between the light and dark. 

The large atrium built with light and airy materials floods the museum’s various floors with natural light , signifying the pavilion’s vague relationship with the ground, equal parts weightless and hopeful. It houses two structural columns recovered from the exoskeleton of the original WTC towers designed by Yamasaki. They are preserved reasonably well and were among the 8-10 other rescued columns that represent strength. They are dramatic and beautiful, with intriguing aesthetics, almost like a Richard Serra sculpture. The depth of the rust and the patina, the fingerprints of the people who built them, and of those who helped save them are all clearly visible on the surface. 

Beauty and Remembrance 

The reflective, transparent, and inclined surfaces of the structure intrigue the people to walk up close, touch, and gaze into the building. It also allows the visitors inside the pavilion to look out through the atrium and see others peer in and look at them. Then in a tiny fraction of a second, they realize that a complete stranger is a part of their existence and this way, the building reflects the present moment in time. It does not reflect the absence of those who lost their lives at the site but the visitors’ existence in the place. Thus beginning a physical and mental transition in the journey from above to below ground.

The gentle, broad, and meandering staircases , built with two separate materials – The upper levels with lightwood and the lower ones with cast concrete, give the visitors a clear understanding of what is above the ground, what is on the ground, and what is going below the ground. This invokes a feeling of descending into the earth and ascending back into daily life while leaving the museum.

There are no words to describe how bad this tragedy was. The massive debris field and the smell of death completely overtook the whole world. To work out of that to where the world is now was a slow and hard process. As bad as 9/11 was, it reminds people that they do have the capacity to come together and take care of each other with limitless compassion.

Materials, Construction, and Technology | September 11 Memorial Museum

The Pavilion is mainly built in glass, steel web structure, and an ash interior. The jewel-like, striped façade of the Pavilion allows it to have a strong resonance with the visitors and provides a visual and architectural connection to the surrounding urban environment . The alternating reflective treatment of the façade, mirrors the changing seasons, communicating the Pavilion’s differing qualities throughout the year.

It is on target to receive a LEED rating of Gold and features several sustainable elements including optimized minimal energy performance, water efficiency, wastewater reuse, daylight and views, and locally sourced materials and fabricators wherever possible. 

Construction of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, New York City | Britannica

Time-lapse video of the construction of the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion (2004-2014)

©EarthCam (A Britannica Publishing Partner)

Chandni is an architect by profession, a passionate designer and a self-taught writer with a keen interest in travel, photography and baking. She calls herself an avid learner who likes to research, understand and analyze various design-related fields for the communication of comprehensive ideas and development of sensible policies. She is an ardent believer that when creativity melds together with social and global issues, we can bring the world together. Furthermore, she would like to create an architecture to live by, more than to live in.

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Shanghai Astronomy Museum / Ennead Architects

• Curated by 韩双羽 - HAN Shuangyu
• Architects: Ennead Architects
• Area Area of this architecture project Area:  39000 m²
• Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2021
• Photographs Photographs: Arch-Exist
• Lead Architect: Thomas Wong
• Design Team:  Thomas Wong, V. Guy Maxwell, Grace Chen, Wei Wei Kuang, Charles Wolf, Anthony Guaraldo, Jorge Arias, Margarita Calero, Michael Caton, Christina Ciardullo, Eugene Colberg, Regina Jiang, Jörg Kiesow, Aidan Kim, Stefan Knust, Xinya Li, Francelle Lim, Xiaoyun Mao, David Monnar, Nikita Payusov, James Rhee, Yong Kyun Roh, Miya Ruan, Na Sun, Eric Tsui, Stephanie Tung, Charles Wong, David Yu, Fred Zhang
• Client:  Shanghai Science and Technology Museum
• Local Design Institute:  Arcplus Institute of Shanghai Architectural Design & Research
• City:  Shanghai
• Country:  China

Text description provided by the architects. Designed by Ennead, the monumental new museum creates an immersive experience that places visitors in direct engagement with real astronomical phenomena. Through scale, form, and the manipulation of light, the building heightens awareness of our fundamental relationship to the sun and the earth’s orbital motion. At 420,000 square feet, the new astronomical branch of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum will be the largest museum worldwide solely dedicated to the study of astronomy.

“In making this building, we wanted to create a place where the institutional mission is fully enmeshed with an architecture that itself is teaching, and finds form in some of the fundamental principles that shape our universe,” said Thomas J. Wong, Design Partner at Ennead Architects. “The big idea of the Shanghai Astronomy Museum was to infuse a visceral experience of the subject matter into the design and to deliver that before you even enter the building. And at the end of your visit, there is this culminating moment directly with the sky, which is framed and supported by the architecture.”

Winners of the international design competition in 2014, Ennead delivered an architecturally ambitious design – without straight lines or right angles, echoing the geometry of the universe and the dynamic energy of celestial movement. Wong drew inspiration from the classic “three-body problem” in physics, looking to the intricate choreographies created by the gravitational attraction of multiple bodies within solar systems. This is reflected in the winding architectural ribbons of the Museum’s facade. The building’s envelope traces a series of arcing paths that are visibly influenced by gravitational pull: the heart of the central atrium, the forward momentum at the entry, and the planet-like sphere that envelopes the planetarium theater. The Museum and each of the three principal architectural components that define the design – the Oculus, Inverted Dome, and Sphere – act as functioning astronomical instruments, tracking the sun, moon, and stars.

The Oculus, suspended above the main entrance to the Museum, demonstrates the passage of time by tracking a circle of sunlight on the ground across the entry plaza and reflecting pool. At noon during the summer solstice, there is a full circle, which aligns with a circular platform within the Museum's entry plaza. The Oculus creates a veritable timepiece in the civic square.

The Sphere houses the planetarium theater, which is half-submerged in the building. With minimally visible support, it evokes an illusion of weightlessness or anti-gravity. The pure spherical form references the primordial shapes in our universe and, like the orientation we yield from our position relative to the sun or moon, becomes an ever-present reference point for the visitor. The Sphere derives its shape not only from the requirements of the programmatic element it contains but as an abstract manifestation of a primary celestial form. Embedded in the roof plane of the lower Museum wing, as if rising out of the Earth-bound horizon, the sphere gradually emerges into view as one rounds the building, the drama unfolding as though one were approaching a planet from one of its moons, allowing visitors to experience it as a weightless mass from below.

The Inverted Dome is a large inverted glass tension structure that sits on top of the central atrium of the building at the roofline so visitors can occupy the center of the glass dish with an unimpeded view of the sky. The culmination of the exhibit journey, this space cuts the view of the horizon and adjacent urban context and focuses the visitor on the all-encompassing sky – a real encounter with the universe to conclude the simulated experience within. The 720-degree spiraling ramp inside the Museum and underneath the Inverted Dome traces the orbital flow of the visitor sequence throughout the Museum exhibits and launches the eye upward to its apex.

Set within an expansive green zone, the Museum grounds include a host of buildings and programming including temporary and permanent exhibits, a 78-foot solar telescope, an observatory, an optical Planetarium, an Education and Research Center, and a Digital Sky Theater. Programming at the Museum will feature immersive environments, artifacts and instruments of space exploration, and educational exhibitry.

Project gallery

Project location

Address: shanghai, china.

Materials and Tags

• Sustainability

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上海天文馆 / Ennead Architects

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