The design is poignant in its intent to communicate a void, like the absence left by the nearly 3,000 people who died in the terrorist attacks ten years ago. On Sunday, the National September 11 Memorial will be formally opened at the tenth anniversary ceremonies at the site of the destroyed World Trade Centre, with US President Barack Obama expected to be in attendance during the day.
Two enormous waterfalls cascade down the walls into twin square reflecting pools, each 0.4 hectares in area. The water in each pool finally disappears into a void - a hole at the center. The architect, Michael Arad, has said he wants visitors to remember the sound of running water.
"The design, unlike most places in New York, is about emptiness and nothingness," Michael Arad once said. "But it's an emptiness that's full of meaning, the same way a moment of silence is filled with intentions." The pools are surrounded by hundreds of swamp white oak trees, whose rustling sounds will punctuate the silence.
This is where the country will memorialise the nearly 3,000 people killed by Islamic fundamentalist terrorist attacks against the symbols of US financial and military might - the World Trade Center's twin towers and the Pentagon in Washington - and in the failed attack that crashed a plane in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The names of the 2,983 people killed by terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and of the six people killed in the February 1993 bombing attack also by Islamic fundamentalists are inscribed onto bronze panels surrounding the outside walls of the two pools. The memorial cost more than 700 million dollars and will require 60 million dollars to maintain annually. It is thought to be one of the world's most expensive monument.
The two pools mark the exact locations of the footprints of the 110-storey twin towers. The towers were hit each by a terrorist-hijacked commercial airplane that caused massive explosions in the towers, and finally collapse. Dozens of people jumped to their deaths as they realised there was no escape.
The waterfalls, reflecting pools and white oak trees are intended to inspire peace and meditation, even as they are surrounded by one of New York's most concentrated business areas and crowded traffic hubs. "Its design conveys a spirit of hope and renewal, and creates a contemplative space separate from the usual sights and sounds of a bustling metropolis," the official website of the 9/11 memorial says.
The memorial will be open to the public for the first time on Monday and a museum at the same location displaying thousands of artifacts related to 9/11 will be opened a year later. The grove of oak trees, grown across the Hudson River in New Jersey, is expected to create a rustling canopy of leaves over the space, which is considered the most eco-friendly site in Manhattan outside of Central Park. The trees were chosen for their display of seasonal colours. Already tens of thousands of people have received free tickets to visit the memorial.
The museum, as part of the memorial, has already received some of the most vivid items with direct connection to 9/11. A firetruck that was the first to reach the World Trade Center immediately after it was hit by the suicide attacks was the first item.
The firetruck was from the New York Fire Department's Ladder Company 3 in mid-town Manhattan. The 11 fire-fighters on the truck were all killed when the burning towers crumbled to the ground. They were among the 343 fire-fighters killed on 9/11.
"We will never forget the heroism of the hundreds of fire-fighters and other first responders who rushed into those burning towers on September 11," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg during the ceremony to lower the 27,000-kilogram firetruck into the museum. Included in the museum is wreckage of an American Airlines plane that was hijacked and used to destroy the twin towers.
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