Description
The Memoria e Luce monument is a contemporary work by the architect Daniel Libeskind, in the area of the Porte Contarine in Padua, along the Piovego canal. It commemorates the victims of the attack of 11 September 2001 and holds a beam from the Twin Towers of New York.
The structure is a frosted glass wall 50 meters long, from 2 to 5 meters high, that rises into a 17-meter wedge. The wedge is made of two glass walls shaped like an open book. At night the glass lights up from inside like a lighthouse.
Set into one of the two walls is the World Trade Center beam, a twisted fragment almost six meters long. Libeskind imagines it as the left page of the book, with the light of freedom shining through the Book of History.
The work changes light and appearance depending on the angle from which you look at it. The best spot is the Corso del Popolo bridge, which crosses the Piovego. From there the opaque glass speaks of the difficulty of communicating, the vertical wedge is "shouted" and the internal lighting is a torch of hope.
The architect, an American of Polish origin, is among the best-known names in world architecture and won the competition for the reconstruction of Ground Zero in New York.
The beam had been exhibited in the American pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2002. Then the city of New York donated it to the Veneto Region, which wanted to give it a worthy setting and entrusted it to a famous architect.
Why Padua? At the laying of the first stone the American consul Deborah Grace explained the choice by the city's long tradition of tolerance, its university, one of the oldest in Europe, and the teaching of Galileo Galilei. The monument was inaugurated on 11 September 2005.
The place has a history of its own. Here the Bacchiglione flowed into the Piovego, toward the port and Venice, and the inner Naviglio branched off, bringing goods to the center. From the thirteenth century a system of locks protected access to the city and boatmen worked here.
During the Second World War the area was bombed, and the reconstruction left an eclectic profile. Along the water you can still see stretches of the sixteenth-century walls, rediscovered with the project.
Don't miss
• The World Trade Center beam.
• The glass wedge.
• The Corso del Popolo bridge.
• The sixteenth-century walls.
Did you know?
• In Libeskind's design the vertical hinge of the book connects the latitude of New York with the center of Padua.
• The frosted glass was designed specially for the work: it is velvety to the touch and resistant to the elements.
The structure is a frosted glass wall 50 meters long, from 2 to 5 meters high, that rises into a 17-meter wedge. The wedge is made of two glass walls shaped like an open book. At night the glass lights up from inside like a lighthouse.
Set into one of the two walls is the World Trade Center beam, a twisted fragment almost six meters long. Libeskind imagines it as the left page of the book, with the light of freedom shining through the Book of History.
The work changes light and appearance depending on the angle from which you look at it. The best spot is the Corso del Popolo bridge, which crosses the Piovego. From there the opaque glass speaks of the difficulty of communicating, the vertical wedge is "shouted" and the internal lighting is a torch of hope.
The architect, an American of Polish origin, is among the best-known names in world architecture and won the competition for the reconstruction of Ground Zero in New York.
The beam had been exhibited in the American pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2002. Then the city of New York donated it to the Veneto Region, which wanted to give it a worthy setting and entrusted it to a famous architect.
Why Padua? At the laying of the first stone the American consul Deborah Grace explained the choice by the city's long tradition of tolerance, its university, one of the oldest in Europe, and the teaching of Galileo Galilei. The monument was inaugurated on 11 September 2005.
The place has a history of its own. Here the Bacchiglione flowed into the Piovego, toward the port and Venice, and the inner Naviglio branched off, bringing goods to the center. From the thirteenth century a system of locks protected access to the city and boatmen worked here.
During the Second World War the area was bombed, and the reconstruction left an eclectic profile. Along the water you can still see stretches of the sixteenth-century walls, rediscovered with the project.
Don't miss
• The World Trade Center beam.
• The glass wedge.
• The Corso del Popolo bridge.
• The sixteenth-century walls.
Did you know?
• In Libeskind's design the vertical hinge of the book connects the latitude of New York with the center of Padua.
• The frosted glass was designed specially for the work: it is velvety to the touch and resistant to the elements.