Michael Arad Quotes

A collection of quotes by Michael Arad.

Michael Arad is an Israeli-American architect, best known for being the designer of the National September 11 Memorial in New York City. Born in 1969 in London, England, Arad grew up in Israel and served in the Israeli Defense Forces. He later earned a bachelor's degree in 1994 from Dartmouth College in the United States and went on to study architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, receiving his master's degree in 1999.

Arad's design for the September 11 Memorial, titled "Reflecting Absence," was selected from a global competition in 2004. The design features two pools in the footprints of the Twin Towers, surrounded by a plaza and an extensive forest of trees. The names of the victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania are engraved around the pools.

Following the success of the memorial, Arad continued to work on various architectural and urban design projects. He co-founded Handel Architects in New York City and served as a partner until 2009. He has also taught at several prestigious universities, including Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Arad's work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2006 National Design Award for Landscape Architecture and the 2008 American Academy of Rome Prize in Architecture. His thoughtful and poignant design for the September 11 Memorial has become an enduring symbol of remembrance and collective resilience in the face of tragedy.

For two years nobody talked about anything other than the na

For two years nobody talked about anything other than the name arrangement. There was no fund-raising and no progress being made on construction and design.

Michael Arad

Design

When I started this project, I was a young architect. I was

When I started this project, I was a young architect. I was very apprehensive about any changes to the design. Whether I wanted to or not, I learned that you can accept some changes to its form without compromising its intent. But it's a leap of faith that I didn't want to make initially - to put it mildly.

Michael Arad

Design

I really appreciate artists of the 20th century, and I can s

I really appreciate artists of the 20th century, and I can see a lot of their influence on my work, but to suggest that my design only fits within an 'ism' kind of bothers me.

Michael Arad

Design

We can see the Divine in each speck of dust, but that doesn'

We can see the Divine in each speck of dust, but that doesn't stop us from wiping it away with a wet sponge. The Divine doesn't disappear; it's transformed into the clean surface.

Paulo Coelho


How do you design it so that people can form a space of thei

How do you design it so that people can form a space of their own, and feel quiet and contemplative?

Michael Arad

Design