The healing power of places that embrace pain
Cities, spaces and places hold on to trauma. Design can turn that pain into hope says Daniel Libeskind, the architect who breathed life back into Ground Zero after 9/11
Solidarity. Ultimately, that’s what draws us to public spaces. A sense of belonging and connection.
As a species we crave togetherness and nothing brings people together more than places that honour trauma and remember pain. Why? Because they are a stark reminder of what it means to be human.
So says architect Daniel Libeskind. And he should know. There are few people who understand the power of reactive placemaking better than the master planner behind the redevelopment of Ground Zero in New York following the 9/11 terror attacks.
A scheme that was not pre-planned as part of a wider, strategic urban regeneration, Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind’s Ground Zero masterplan was instead born out of unanticipated pain and grief. But it was this project, he says, that made him realise just how cohesive and healing the right approach to city design can be.
“When you are rebuilding after tragedy, you have to face the trauma head on,” he says. “You can’t hide a city’s scars. There will always be memories. You have to turn them from something negative into something positive.”
Here, Libeskind reveals how public spaces can, and should, evoke deep human connection and discusses why they have never been more important in a post-pandemic world “full of conflict and violence”.
Faith, hope and solidarity
“There are more people living in Lower Manhattan now than there were before the terror attacks,” says Libeskind. “That’s faith for you.”
Faith and a lot of hard, carefully considered work. Brought on board by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in 2003 to masterplan the 16 acres that had been damaged or destroyed after 9/11, Libeskind admits that the recovery effort seemed futile in the first instance.
“When I first started working on the scheme, people had lost all hope,” he says. “Most of the companies had moved out of the area by the time I arrived, and there was a genuine assumption that this part of the city would never come back to life and that commercial space would have to be given away for free. Everyone had left and people thought that would be the end.”
It wasn’t. When I last spoke to Libeskind in 2019, the area was well on its way to becoming one of New York’s most thriving business districts having attracted high-profile tenants including Conde Nast, Zurich and Spotify. Now, post-pandemic, there are different issues to be addressed. The area’s midweek hustle and bustle has diminished, says Libeskind as businesses fight to bring people back to offices in city centres across the globe.
What is interesting, he adds, is that none of that has impacted footfall around the site’s public spaces. This includes the “Memory Foundations” masterplan which includes the two memorial pools marking out the footprint of each of the original towers surrounded by the new World Trade Center skyscrapers. If anything there has been an uptick in visitation.
“Hope has grown,” he says. “It's just unbelievable. This is one of the parts of New York City which has attracted even more people post-pandemic.
“It comes down to this sense that public space has become more important than private space after Covid. People flock to be with others in places they feel safe. And that is certainly part of the resurrection of Ground Zero after the total catastrophe of 9/11. It has come back to life.”
The area forces a connection. A feeling of togetherness hard to capture in private buildings. “We don’t just pass by spaces like these,” says Libeskind. “We are not voyeurs. We are not consuming these sites in some sort of virtual way. We are really present with the other people there. And we feel that solidarity. I think that's what makes a great public space.” And we need more of them, he adds. Especially now.
A world full of “conflict and violence”
The pandemic changed the world says Libeskind. “Our lives are different, the way we work is different, our downtowns and city centres have changed because of it. Real estate development has changed. It is kind of like a war that is over, and we are now in the recovery phase.”
A phase that should put public space at its heart. The first step is to move beyond plans on pieces of paper to create spaces “imbued with memory and emotion.” Too many public spaces are cold and sterile, says Libeskind. “Devoid of humanity.”
But what if the memory and emotion isn’t built into a place from the outset? This is by no means a bad thing given the magnetic pull of Ground Zero stems from a devastating act of terror and violence that no one would ever wish to see repeated. So, how can a sense of human connection be created in places that mercifully don’t have such significant emotive histories?
For Libeskind it is about creating a sense of hope for the future, wherever that might be. And that comes from delivering what people - rather than governments - want, he says.
“You can’t create a truly human-centred space off the back of somebody saying ‘do it like this’ as part of an authoritarian society,” he adds. “Successful public places need to be created through a democratic tension and dialogue. You need to navigate through all the complexities to come up with a space that people truly see as something they want. There has to be discussion and consultation to ensure our public spaces represent the democratic spirit of people.”
This is far easier said than done. “Nobody said that democracy is an easy thing,” he says. “That's why so many people drift towards authoritarian solutions, not only in politics but also in architecture. Often a building is built because there was money and power to build it. But a building that is big and valuable doesn’t necessarily equate to being a valuable part of a city.”
This is where what he describes as “the art in architecture” comes into play. As with a poem, a painting or a novel, Libeskind believes that the success of a place comes down to how it speaks to the end-user.
“To feel a connection people need to see spaces as more than just a collection of physical objects,” he says. “You can communicate to them through the materials and the light. You know, the right light can transform your sense of who you are. And anywhere that makes you feel different or transformed will become emotionally charged because you feel alive.”
That, in turn, gives us hope for the future. “Particularly now,” he says. “When we are living in a world full of conflict and violence.”
Spaces that evoke that sense of hopeful togetherness could also go some way to tackling what Libeskind sees as a worldwide loneliness crisis fuelled by technological advances and society’s growing obsession with living on a screen.
“Technology and AI could lead to people withdrawing into lonely shells,” he says. “To counteract that, we need spaces where people actually want to go. That’s why streets, public places and places of culture are vital because people are not just sitting at home on a screen. They are looking into the eyes of strangers, seeing what they might have in common with that person. It is incredibly important that spaces are not just abstract objects – the sort of thing that you can see on a computer - but that they're shaped by the human longing for being together.”
A jewel in a parking lot
There are few places that evoke emotion and that need for human connection more viscerally than healthcare facilities.
Maggie’s Centres are a prime example of how buildings can be used to lift people up at the most difficult times in their lives. A network of drop-in centres to help anyone affected by cancer, each one has been designed by a leading architect including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Richard Rogers. Most are located near, but detached from, NHS hospitals in the UK.
Earlier this year, Libeskind’s own Maggie’s Centre opened at the Royal Free Hospital in London. It is a place where he hopes joy can be found, even in times of great darkness.
“It’s a very sad thing when somebody discovers they have a bad diagnosis,” he says. “But Maggie’s Centres are not institutions that affirm the darkness around you. They provide light for your future.
“We are all mortal. We are all vulnerable. But what I tried to do at this Maggie’s Centre is show that there is a sense of life to be found, whatever your circumstances. This is a space that I hope offers something mysterious, something interesting, something vivid, something that is unique for each person. Even if you have a dire diagnosis, there is still a world out there that you are part of.”
As with most of the Maggie’s Centres, the setting was a challenge due to its proximity to a grey, looming hospital building. “I had to shape a very modest building in a parking lot at the back of a very large hospital,” says Libeskind. “Yet I wanted to create a sense of intimacy so that when you're there, your world has changed into something positive. I did that with the shape of the building and also by designing it in a particularly domestic way. It has a scale that is palpably real. It became this kind of jewel in that parking lot.”
A jewel he adds, that has inspired the hospital to make better use of the space it has available. “The parking lot will no longer just be a parking lot,” says Libeskind. “The hospital has discovered that it’s actually a great place to have another medical facility close to Maggie's. And they're rethinking this asphalt space to turn it into something that people will benefit from.”
For Libeskind that is the epitome of human-centred design. A place, inspired by people and their needs, which brings light, joy and connection - often in the midst of trauma.
It can be simpler still, he adds. “We have developed a very illusory society because so much of our connectivity now exists in abstract spheres that are increasingly distant from the truth. It would be so much nicer if, when we talk and connect, we could sit together with a cup of coffee and look out of the window.
“We are not alone. That’s what a site like Ground Zero reminds us when we flock, with so many others, day after day to visit. We share this world with billions of others and human-centred design is about being with those people. It’s sharing their problems, sharing their longings and sharing their dreams.”
Emily Wright is a real estate and technology journalist contributing to titles including WIRED, GQ, The Spaces, The Evening Standard, The Times and The Telegraph. She spent 12 years of her career at EG where she worked as both tech editor and then head of content. She has interviewed major players from both within and outside the property industry including Zaha Hadid, Sidewalk Labs' Dan Doctoroff, Lord Richard Rogers, Daniel Libeskind, Donald Trump and Sir Terence Conran.
Emily is now head of content at CREtech where she specialises in curating content and interviewing speakers from across the built world with a focus on innovation and sustainability. She is also a freelance journalist, contributing editor, moderator and keynote speaker focussed on design, development, cities, innovation and ESG.
