I just finished reading an excellent article in the June 2014 issue of Wired magazine about designing the 9/11 museum in NYC. What a difficult and delicate design problem to create a space that honors such a tragic series of events without being a traumatic experience in itself. It ends with a poignant quotation by one of the museum’s designers, Jake Barton: “It’s not very hard to be clever […] It’s far harder to be simple, obvious, and meaningful. It’s hard to make something feel like it needs to exist.”
Here’s an interview with museum director Alice Greenwald and designer Jake Barton on the eve of the museum’s opening: