‘Tower of Voices’ brings resonance to 9/11 commemoration

This week marks a somber anniversary: 20 years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaida hijackers seized control of four airplanes, killing almost 3,000 people.

Two planes were flown into the World Trade Center towers, one crashed into the Pentagon, and the fourth, United Flight 93, went down in a field in western Pennsylvania after its 40 passengers and crew members fought back against the hijackers, thwarting their plan to fly the plane into the U.S. Capitol.

For UCLA alumnus Paul Murdoch, it will be a particularly poignant anniversary. In 2005, the Los Angeles architect and his team were selected from more than a thousand candidates to create a national memorial at the Flight 93 crash site. Since then, they have worked with the National Park Service, Virginia-based landscape architecture firm Nelson Byrd Woltz and the bereaved families to design and build the memorial and park, which spans a 2,200-acre decommissioned coal mine just outside of Shanksville.

This Friday, Murdoch will speak about the design process at the Flight 93 National Memorial, where visitors will be able to experience the park’s final landmark, the “Tower of Voices,” a sonic gateway to the complex completed in 2020.

The tower is a 93-foot–tall concrete lattice structure from which hang 40 large wind chimes. The aluminum chimes are 8 inches in diameter and range from 5 to 10 feet long. Their haunting, melancholy melodies are meant to commemorate the voices of the passengers and crew members who lost their lives.

“It’s not a set of booming sounds, except in a winter storm,” Murdoch said. “It’s really operating at a more intimate and personal level.”