September Eleventh Memorial Museum, New York.
Jeff Goldberg | Esto September Eleventh Memorial Museum, New York.

The National September 11 Memorial Museum and Pavilion will be dedicated tomorrow in a ceremony that will include President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. The 110,000-square-foot museum, which opens to the public on May 21, will hold a week-long dedication period for survivors of 9/11 as well as first responders, rescue workers, families of victims, and residents of lower Manhattan, starting May 15.

Alternating bands of reflective and matte-finish steel clad the entry pavilion's exterior.
Jeff Goldberg | Esto Alternating bands of reflective and matte-finish steel clad the entry pavilion's exterior.
Glazing in the atrium allows light to follow visitors downward into the museum below.
Jeff Goldberg | Esto Glazing in the atrium allows light to follow visitors downward into the museum below.

A steel and glass ground-level pavilion, designed by Snøhetta, marks the entry point for visitors as they start their descent into the Davis Brody Bond-designed museum below. Remnants of the World Trade Center’s twin towers are visible throughout both the pavilion and museum, including a pair of their signature trident columns that stand in the pavilion’s glazed atrium. “Our desire is to allow visitors to find a place that is a naturally occurring threshold between the everyday life of the city and the uniquely spiritual quality of the Memorial,” Snøhetta founding partner Craig Dykers, AIA, said in a release. The pavilion, which is sited between the two memorial pools designed by Michael Arad, AIA, and landscape architect Peter Walker, also houses a 165-seat auditorium as well as a private memorial viewing room for families of 9/11 victims.

Visible through the entry pavilion's glass atrium, two columns from the north façade of the World Trade Center reach upward from the Memorial Museum's bedrock floor.
Jeff Goldberg | Esto Visible through the entry pavilion's glass atrium, two columns from the north façade of the World Trade Center reach upward from the Memorial Museum's bedrock floor.

The museum, 70 feet below grade, houses more than 10,000 artifacts ranging in scale from wristwatches to fire trucks. Visitors descend a series of stairs and ramps —dubbed a “ribbon” by the team from Davis Brody Bond—to reach the museum’s main exhibition halls, which are located at bedrock level and occupy the former footprints of the twin towers, directly beneath the two reflecting pools. The exhibition culminates in the Foundation Hall, which displays the slurry wall of the towers’ original foundation, which was erected to hold back the Hudson River, and a 36-foot steel beam known as the Last Column. “You come from the city ... you cross the perimeter into the Memorial,” Davis Brody Bond partner Steven M. Davis, FAIA, explains in a video produced about the museum. “You’ll peer over and you’ll suddenly be confronted with the enormity of the spaces that you’re about to experience.” • Opens to the public May 21. 911memorial.org

A broad stairway leads into the entry sequence of the museum, transitioning from daylight to darkness.
Jeff Goldberg | Esto A broad stairway leads into the entry sequence of the museum, transitioning from daylight to darkness.
The entry pavilion, designed by Snøhetta, sits between the two memorial pools.
Jeff Goldberg | Esto The entry pavilion, designed by Snøhetta, sits between the two memorial pools.

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