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Miami's Arquitectonica gets job of designing U.N. memorial

BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI
aviglucci@herald.com

Miami's renowned Arquitectonica has snagged yet another prestigious design job: A beguiling memorial to fallen United Nations peacekeepers at the world body's Manhattan headquarters.

The stone-and-glass memorial, designed by the husband-and-wife partnership of Bernardo Fort-Brescia and Laurinda Spear, will occupy a wooded section of the North Garden. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, in a statement, said construction has just begun and the memorial is expected to be ready for unveiling in September.

The spare modernist design, Fort-Brescia said, is meant to inspire quiet contemplation: Sixty large stones quarried in five continents arranged in an irregular pattern around a bubbling pool, and a translucent glass wall at one end engraved with a message of remembrance in the U.N.'s six official languages.

The words will seem to float in the air before the backdrop of trees: ``Remember here those who gave their lives for peace.''

The U.N.'s selection of Arquitectonica -- which is doing the commission pro bono -- is the latest in a series of major projects for the firm in New York City, where it now seems destined to leave a significant mark.

The first -- a florid new Westin Hotel in Times Square -- has been the most controversial building to open in the city in years. The multi-hued tower, which shoots a light beam into the sky, was derided by some as a garish outpost of Miami Beach, and welcomed by others as an invigorating kick-in-the-pants to Manhattan's staid architectural culture.

NEW MUSEUM

Arquitectonica is now designing a brand-new art museum in the Bronx as well as seven 40-story towers for the giant Queens West residential project on the East River, collaborating on a new master plan for a vast disused rail yard on Manhattan's West Side, and guiding a renovation of the Vivian Beaumont theater at Lincoln Center.

The U.N. memorial, by contrast, is intended as a refuge from the noise and activity of the city, Fort-Brescia said.

''It's one of those few quiet spaces in Manhattan,'' he said in an interview. ``We wanted to create a contemplative type of space, not a monument in the middle of a crowd. This is a memorial, it's the United Nations. It's a tribute to people who sacrificed their lives not for war but for peace.''

The memorial's stones, a patchwork of colors and textures, will be lit from below in a scheme designed by the French firm L'Observatoire, which has worked with Arquitectonica on the AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami and the under-construction One Miami condo project at the mouth of the Miami River.

Some of the memorial's stones will jut up from the ground, providing seating, while others will be recessed or sunken, opening up to a view of the pool and the trees and glass wall beyond it.

The glass is unusual, Fort-Brescia said: Made in Spain, it is coated in a chemical that in effect makes it self-cleaning and nearly invisible.

Fort-Brescia and Spear, who are married, worked on the design for more than a year after being invited to submit a proposal by the U.N., he said. A committee picked their design.

Arquitectonica, whose fame was cemented by the Atlantis condo tower on Brickell Avenue, now boasts built designs all over the world.

The memorial's construction costs will be covered by the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the U.N.'s peacekeeping troops in 1988, Annan said. He did not specify a figure, but the prize that year was $390,000.

NOBEL PRIZE

At the same time, Annan said, he and the U.N. are donating the $1 million Nobel Peace Prize awarded them jointly in 2001 to create an educational fund for the children of U.N. civilian personnel killed while on duty.

''The fund would be a way of ensuring both a living memorial to staff who have made the ultimate sacrifice, and a practical way of helping families left behind,'' Annan said in a statement.