Pope Benedict XVI visits Ground Zero

Pope Benedict XVI visits site where Twin Towers once stood
The Pope made a historic visit to Ground Zero yesterday lighting a candle and offering a prayer at the base of the site where the Twin Towers stood. The Pontiff can be seen in this image surrounded by the cranes and machinery which are currently being used in the regeneration of the surrounding area creation of the monument to the disaster, Reflecting Absence.

Reflecting Absence, designed by Israeli architect Michael Arad, was chosen in 2004 ahead of 5200 entrants as the competition winner for the World Trade Centre Site Memorial Competition.

The design features two voids or ‘footprints’ where the Twin Towers once stood which will be encircled by a forest of trees and hold waterfalls which will cascade into pools around the edges of each of the voids. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation state that the pools will act to “serve as a powerful reminder of the Twin Towers and of the unprecedented loss of life from an attack on (American) soil.” Reflecting Absence is due for completion by the end on 2009

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