Design Destiny: A Diary of the World Trade Center Site

At C&G Partners (and Chermayeff & Geismar), we led a creative team that designed signs, maps, exhibits, media and graphics for the 9/11 Memorial & Museum and the World Trade Center site for three decades. (Photo: American Red Cross)
In 1993, the first attack on the World Trade Center occurred. We were enlisted to assist Davis Brody Architects to create interim signage, and were later retained by the Port Authority of NY&NJ to study the site to improve its overall visitor experience.
(1995) This master plan commissioned by the Port Authority of NY & NJ was aimed at improving the visitor experience at the World Trade Center site.
The master plan included an emergency evacuation sign system in response to the 1993 bombing. Unfortunately, this system had not yet been installed when the 2001 attacks occurred.
(Fall 1995) New entrances linking the streetscape to the underground plaza were suggested to improve the retail and visitor experience.
(1997) One of our first projects in the World Trade Center area was Heritage Trails New York, a walking tour of Lower Manhattan connecting points of interest. There were 12 interpretive signs, including one across the street from the World Trade Center site.
A Heritage Trails exhibit was installed in the Observatory level of WTC 2. Originally envisioned as a pop-up exhibit, it remained until the time of the attacks.
The project won an SEGD Global Design Award in 1998.
We designed a wall poster with the trails map and points of interest.
(2001) The sky was a bright, hopeful blue on the morning of September 11, 2001.
(2003) We were commissioned by Lower Manhattan Development Corp. for an architectural study on how best to present the 5,201 entries submitted for the 9/11 Memorial within a temporary exhibition at the newly-restored Winter Garden.
These sketches present the entrants’ 30”x40” submission boards as a walkable labyrinth.
(2007) This early architectural model shows the original scheme with the names commemoration below. The retaining wall at the plaza level, in this model, is where the commemoration is located today, while the underground viewing hallways were eliminated due to security and cost.
(2007) This early rendering by the architects depicts the names commemoration as an underground “crypt," or viewing loge, behind the waterfall. We recommended tilting the panels for better legibility, less chance of sitting on the names and elimination of pooling water, which became part of the final design.
(2007) A full-scale, operable corner of the fountain was built by Dan Euser Waterarchitecture in the back yard of his suburban Toronto home. The flow and character of the mock-up is quite similar to the final iteration.
Three cast-bronze patina prototypes, along with a plexiglas surface to simulate cast glass, were also reviewed in Toronto. The lessons learned from these exercises were invaluable to the Memorial’s final iteration.
(2007) Our prototype rendered the names in a custom prismatic font on rustic, cast-bronze panels with hand-applied patina. This option for the Names Commemoration would have weathered over time, while highlighting human touch-points.
(2011) The final iteration of the victims names commemoration, created by Michael Arad, retains our raised prismatic lettering for FLIGHT 77. The names in Arad's final version were hydro-cut, stencil secured, rendered in Optima lettering (as opposed to the custom font of our prototypes) and illuminated from below on a machined, homogenous-finish panel.
(September 11, 2011) This NY Times front page features a section of the Memorial’s victim names commemoration. The evocative “tearing” surface of the bronze was part of our earliest cast prototypes.
(2013) C&G Partners was retained by the Legends team to develop initial concepts and graphic approaches for One World Trade Center’s Observatory. The visual brand was used throughout the Observatory’s planning stages but only the tagline remains today.
Two applications, a promotional telescope and iPad homepage, played a role in Legends’ successful franchise bid for the Observatory.
(2008) This rendering shows our early iteration of monolithic kiosks for the memorial plaza. It incorporated a digital clock that would subtly acknowledge the times of tower impacts. The LED screen would stream live content and real-time visitor information.
(2014) The installed kiosks are simpler and more compact. They present orientation information, directions to destinations within the Memorial and site rules and regulations.
The kiosks are embedded into the Plaza hardscape and designed to accommodate media applications in future phases.
On the reverse of the kiosks, the Memorial site map is set into context with a broader view of Lower Manhattan, providing visitors with a fuller picture of local sights, transportation hubs and other services.
A closer view of the site map
(2014) The sign program in Snohetta’s Visitors’ Pavilion to the memorial and museum is designed to harness the abundant natural and reflective light.
Our approach was low key and above all, respectful of the context.
The sign program within the museum is purposefully understated and somber.
The clean, receding quality of the wayfinding acts as a counterpoint to the monumentality of the gallery spaces and artifacts.
The Heritage Trails kiosk at WTC Plaza was one of just a few elements that survived the 9/11 attacks largely unscathed. Today the donated kiosk is a centerpiece display in the museum.
Keith Helmetag and Amy Siegel

Few sites in the world have as dramatic cultural, psychological and historical impact as the World Trade Center in New York. The nexus of the U.S. financial market and the symbolic beating heart of the U.S. economy was also the site of a 1993 bombing and the attacks that claimed the lives of 2,977 innocent people on September 11, 2001, leaving an indelible mark on the nation’s history and zeitgeist.

Literally hundreds of designers have been involved in the development and redevelopment of the World Trade Center since it opened in 1973. But two environmental graphic designers from the SEGD community have a unique and longstanding association with the site, both before and after the attacks of 9/11. Keith Helmetag and later Amy Siegel of C&G Partners first worked at the World Trade Center almost 30 years ago as part of an interpretive sign program they created for walking trails in Lower Manhattan. After 9/11, they participated in the development of the site as a memorial, and they also developed wayfinding signage and environmental graphics for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

In an ironic twist of fate, one of the walking trail signs across the street from the WTC site survived the destruction that occurred on 9/11, and is now a centerpiece artifact on display in the National September 11 Museum.

Helmetag and Siegel chronicled their history with the site in a designer’s diary, which we’re sharing with you now.

Images: Courtesy C&G Partners (except as noted)

Note: C&G Partners' work was completed in collaboration with many design firms and public entities, including the National September 11 Memorial Foundation, Davis Brody Bond, Michael Arad and Handel Architects, Snohetta, Peter Walker Landscape Architects and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. When Helmetag and Siegel first worked on the projects noted here, they were with Chermayeff & Geismar.