When in 1966 he began to build the skyscrapers that were inaugurated seven years later and became the tallest rooms in the world, the American architect Minuro Yamasaki He never imagined that one of the steel beams on the 80th floor of the South Tower, fatally wounded by one of the planes hijacked by Al Qaeda on the morning of September 11, 2001, would travel 6,650 kilometers to Pavoda (Padua), a city in northern Italy.
The six-meter beam, suffered, twisted and survivor of the most ruthless attack in recent decades, was part of the labyrinthine structure on which the 417 meters of the Twin Towers that Yamasaki thought of as “representing man’s belief in humanity, the need for dignity, his belief in cooperation among men, and through that cooperation, his ability to find greatness,” as he said. the architect while the towers grew on their way to heaven.
Bin LadenHowever, he had other plans for those 110-story buildings that he managed to tear down.
“Memoria e Luce” is a monument that remembers the victims of the 9/11 attacks / Sindaco de Padova.
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A year after the attack, the beam that managed to be recovered from the rubble was exhibited, for the first time, in the American pavilion of the international architecture exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2002, where the sensitivity of the exhibition was pure empathy with the tragedy.
It is that Padova belongs.
Around it, the Memory and Light monument was born and grew, which the city put into the hands of the inspiration of Daniel Libeskind, the American architect son of Hebrews who survived the concentration camps of World War II.
Libeskind is one of the leading exponents of deconstructivism in American architecture. And he was chosen for the reconstruction of Ground Zero in New York in a contest that took place two years after the attack that turned what was the financial heart of the most powerful country in the universe into a barren land.
“It is the only 9/11 memorial in Europe that ‘contains’ a fragment of the Twin Towers,” he tells Clarion and the intendant of Padua, Sergio Giordani.
“Every year, for the anniversary, we meet here, in front of the monument, to reflect and work together for a world in which there is peace. But peace is not simply the absence of war. Peace also means guaranteeing adequate living conditions for our community ”, says Giordani.
“Every September 11 is a moment of reflection on the world that we want for the future, in light of the frailties and weaknesses that our societies have discovered when facing this unknown virus that is Sars-Cov-2”, adds the mayor from the Italian city where Giotto commissioned, in the 14th century, the famous frescoes of biblical scenes in the Cappella degli Scrovegni that can only be visited, for conservation reasons, taking turns months in advance.
Memory and light shines today between Via Matteotti, Via Giotto, Corso del Popolo and Via Trieste, in an area of the city that was bombed during the Second World War and later rebuilt.
And why did the only twisted piece of steel that made it to Europe end up in Padova?
The monument represents the Book of history.
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It was explained by Deborah Grace, then the US consul and who had to lay the first stone of the monument that was inaugurated in 2005: “Padova is a city with a long tradition of tolerance, which is home to one of the oldest universities in Europe, where it left his footprint the teaching of Galileo GalileiGrace said.
“Padova is the cradle of civility and culture,” he stressed. Since the Middle Ages, when students from every corner of Europe came down these streets, Padova teaches that we should not fear science. Yes, instead, we have to be afraid of ignorance and intolerance that are the main causes of violence and fanaticism. “
Libeskind’s Memory and Light represents the Book of History, as its author likes to call it, which opens to the memory of heroes and martyrs of September 11, 2001.
The spirit of the sculpture is summed up in trying to turn the beam into part of a monument-symbol of universal values.
The spirit of the sculpture is to try to turn the beam into a symbol of universal values / Studio Libeskind
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“It also symbolizes the old ties that unite our land with New York and with the United States ”, said Giancarlo Galan, president of the Veneto region between 1995 and 2010.
“The myth of America pushed many Venetians to emigrate beyond the ocean, but our fellow citizens have the merit of having made a great contribution to make that country great,” added Galan.
The twisted iron, an emblem of the horror experienced in the skyscrapers on September 11, 2001, is embedded in a 50-meter wall of satin glass, with a height that varies between two and five meters necessary to simulate an open book.
The light of the sculpture changes, depending on the angle from which it is observed.
A secret: the best place to appreciate it is from the Corso del Popolo bridge.
“The light of freedom shines through the Book of history. This book is open in memory of the heroes of September 11, ”Libeskind explained about his memorial.
The memorial looks in the direction of the Statue of Liberty in New York.
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“The eternal affirmation of freedom is inscribed in the Statue of Liberty, as it was seen by millions of immigrants who came to the United States,” he commented. Inscribed on the left page is the dramatic beam recovered from the attack on the World Trade Center. The latitude of New York is connected to the center of Padova by the vertical closure of the Book, which is luminous and creates an intimate space for meditation. “
“The Book is delicately balanced between the historic buildings of Padova, the bridge, the watercourse. A space of memory, inspiration and elevation is created. This special place will shine day and night in all seasons of the year ”, was Libeskind’s wish for its creation.
Not in vain does the memorial look in the direction of the Statue of Liberty of New York, that emblem located to the south of the island of Manhattan, next to the mouth of the Hudson River, that France gave to the United States in 1886 to celebrate the first hundred years of its Declaration of Independence.
