Along with being incredibly powerful, Liam Kanno's September 11 memorial made in Second Life (video tour above) is a landmark in immersive design:
"Watching the massive towers fall was unlike anything I've ever seen," Liam continues, explaining his design. "The scale was immense, and I wanted to give as much scale to this build as possible... still, at the same time I had the intention of making it as intimate and private as possible, and wrap the visitor in the space."
Unlike Maya Lin's Vietnam memorial, which this evokes, the names of the fallen remain at a close remove, just out of reach. "Personally for me, when I saw the people fall from the towers... the biggest thing for me is that I could do nothing ot help them... they were there, but no one could catch them. So in the design I have in-world there is about a three foot gap between the names and the walkway."
Read more about it here from my original 2007 post, and the story of how Kanno came to create the memorial:
Liam Kanno was in downtown Manhattan on a perfect morning, when the sky ripped apart. He was three blocks from the World Trade Center when the planes went scything in, and as the buildings and ended lives collapsed around him, he stumbled into a stranger's house to survive. Shortly after 9/11, he quit his high paying advertising job, abandoned his luxury apartment several blocks from Ground Zero, and returned to school, to study humanities. He traveled the country, visiting remote monasteries, and painted.
In this striving, Liam submitted a design in New York's official memorial competition.
Liam went out to recreate the real world design in Second Life, where it was visited by thousands. Sadly the memorial no longer exists in Second Life, but hopefully others might be inspired by what Kanno created.
There is, by the way, another live 9/11 memorial event today -- go here to pay your respects. (Hat tip: Patchouli.)
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