Described by the media as a bright shining star appearing out of nowhereMr. Arad, a former Israeli soldier (he is a dual Israeli-American citizen) who once considered becoming a lawyer, had been in fighting mode almost from Day 1, publicly battling with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation over creative control and infuriating other architects on the ground zero project, some of whom described him as intransigent and ego driven, without the experience to compromise and roll with the punches. In a recent interview Peter Walker, the landscape architect on the memorial, recalled Mr. Arad “screaming and walking out of a room” in those early days. “It happened many, many times,” he said. (For his part Mr. Arad said there were no tantrums, just “heated discussions.”)
Five years later the memorial component of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum is just about finished, and scheduled to open next Sunday. (The museum is to open next year.) Early reviews have been largely positive; in the view of the Los Angeles architect Thom Mayne, who consulted briefly on the project, the final product “has a solemnness, a simplicity and an otherness which is absolutely perfect.”
Like everything else about ground zero, the story of how the memorial got back on track is complicated, and involves many players. But it is also at least partly the story of Mr. Arad’s evolution from a hot-headed 34-year-old novice whose design bested some 5,200 others to the more sanguine and battle-tested — if still perfectionist — architect he is today. It’s a tale that surprises many of those associated with the project, not least Mr. Arad himself
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/arts/design/how-the-911-memorial-changed-its-architect-michael-arad.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
