9/11 Memorial Architect Coming to Friends

Michael Arad, architect and designer of the National 9/11 Memorial will be the 2012 Peace Week speaker at Friends Seminary. Arad, a partner at Handel Architects, will deliver a public lecture in the Friends Meetinghouse in Manhattan on Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 7 p.m., preceded by a reception at 6:15 p.m.

Friends Seminary’s annual Peace Week celebration gives focus to the fundamental Quaker testimony of peace. Each year, a theme is chosen to give broad guidance to those in the community in planning lessons, activities or events.

“In this anniversary year of 9/11, we are indeed fortunate to have Michael Arad as our Peace Week speaker,” Principal Bo Lauder said. “This year’s theme, Peace Like a River: Water as Metaphor and Matter, provides the perfect context for examining the healing powers of water that Arad’s 9/11 Memorial references.”

Michael Arad’s design for the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site, titled “Reflecting Absence,” was selected by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation from among more than 5,000 entries submitted in an international competition held in 2003. His design for the Memorial emerged from his own experiences in New York, first as a witness to the events of the attacks and then as a participant in the city's compassionate and resolute response in the days that followed.

The 9/11 Memorial, located at the site of the former World Trade Center complex, and occupying approximately half of the 16-acre site, remembers the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks of February 26, 1993 and September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center site, near Shanksville, Pa., and at the Pentagon. The Memorial features two enormous waterfalls and reflecting pools, each about an acre in size, set within the footprints of the original twin towers and framed by almost 400 swamp white oak trees that create a rustling canopy of leaves over the plaza. Ringing the pools are 76, sculptural bronze panels that bear the names of the victims.

A native of Israel, Mr. Arad was raised in that country, the U.K., the United States and Mexico. He served in the Israeli military from 1988 to 1991 in the reconnaissance unit of an infantry brigade. Following his military service, he came to the United States and earned a B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1994 and a Master of Architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1999. Mr. Arad became a resident of New York City following his studies, taking a position with Kohn Pedersen Fox. After three years with KPF, Mr. Arad became an architect in the Design Department of the New York City Housing Authority and was working in that capacity when he designed the 9/11 Memorial. In 2006, Mr. Arad was one of six recipients of the Young Architects Award of the American Institute of Architects. The award honors architects licensed for ten years or fewer "who have shown exceptional leadership and made significant contributions to the profession early in their careers." To learn more about Mr. Arad and the Memorial, visit  the Handel Architects site.

Peace Week 2005

The Diplomat, the Activist and the Academic

Pierre Schori, Susan Sarandon, and Jessica Tuchman Mathews

Peace Week 2006

Nonviolence in the Age of Terrorism

Arun Gandhi

Peace Week 2007

Environmental Stewardship: A Pathway to Peace

James Turrell

Peace Week 2008

War Letters: Both Said and Sung

Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Elizabeth Palmedo, and Crystal Sikora

Peace Week 2009

In the Presence of Justice: The Politics of Peace

Mary Robinson and Linda Biehl

Peace Week 2010

Beyond the Numbers: The Economics of Peace

Jeffrey Sachs