Profile Typology: Memorial

911 Memorial Overland Park

Remember, Educate, and Honor

The 911 Memorial at Overland Park, installed at the entrance to the city’s Fire Training Center, reminds first responders of the ultimate sacrifice their service may demand. The memorial was designed by SFS Architecture and includes artifacts and custom-fabricated bronze and steel artworks provided by Zahner.

A 14-foot, 2.5 ton steel beam from ground zero stands at the memorial’s center. Four bronze panels to beam’s West tell the story of the four downed flights, and a bronze memorial listing the names of those who perished on September 11th sits to the East. A weeping wall fountain, representing survivors, stands to the North while granite tiles pulled from the World Trade Center after the attacks pave the South entrance.

The memorial’s three-fold mission is to remember the victims, educate visitors, and honor the heroism by those who served on September 11th, 2001.

Memorial shows the original I-Beams from the World Trade Center in NYC

The Memorial’s History

In 2009, Overland Park firefighter Trevor Miller and Captain Paul Bishoff submitted an application to the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey for a piece of steel from the fallen World Trade Center towers. After learning of the application’s acceptance, more than a dozen companies and individuals volunteered time and resources to build the 9/11 Memorial.

Pro Patria Mori

December 14, 2016/in Art & Sculpture, Landscape Architecture Memorial, Passive Security, Public Art Kansas City Ellen Driscoll M 2006 /by cmorris

Pro Patria Moria: Security gates for WW1 Memorial

Pro Patria Moria is a permanent artwork by Ellen Driscoll made using Zahner art fabrication services. Completed in 2006, the public work consists of two panoramic gates that form the entrance to the Liberty Memorial Mall and The National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri.

Driscoll worked collaboratively with team at A. Zahner Company to design, engineer, and fabricate the gates. Each of the massive gates have a frieze inlaid with mosaic tiles. Beneath the frieze, laser cut steel panels depict soldiers marching, creating a panorama viewable from inside and outside Liberty Memorial Mall. The museum archives inspired the gates’ imagery while a line in Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” inspired the name for the work.

When the gates are open, they create an 80’ long panorama; when closed, they form two separate panoramas, visible from both the approach to the site, and when leaving. The archives of the museum provide the main source for the glass mosaic imagery, along with images of the artist’s two grandfathers who fought in World War 1, and trench maps from their scrapbooks.

Detail of the metal gate system with ceramic inlay by the artist Ellen Driscoll.

Detail of the metal gate system with ceramic inlay.

Detail of the laser-cut stainless steel gate system.

Detail of the photomosaic and perforated metal.

Concept drawing from the artist Ellen Driscoll.

Related System

911 Memorial Overland Park

Ohio Holocaust Memorial

December 9, 2016/in Art & Sculpture Memorial, Sculpture Columbus--Ohio Studio Libeskind Brown, Red M 2014 /by cmorris

The Ohio Holocaust and Liberators Memorial

This Ohio Holocaust and Liberators is a Daniel Libeskind-designed memorial which was manufactured and built by Zahner. The memorial was conceived to serve the millions who lost their lives in the Holocaust and the American soldiers who liberated those in concentration camps. The design by Studio Daniel Libeskind provides a space of contemplation, a place where ideas and values cut across generations, ethnic identity, and creed.

Approaching from the Statehouse, the visitor walks on a limestone walkway between inclined, graduated stone walls and two stone benches towards a pair of large 18-ft-high bronze panels. Embossed with a story told by a survivor of Auschwitz, the panels are also irregularly angled at their inner edges. The planes meet in the center, the jagged edges forming a cutout in the shape of a six-pointed star.

“The bronze book achieves an incredible sense of dynamism as each surface twists and turns, leaving no two surfaces parallel… In many ways, this project comes as much from Libeskind’s heart as from his hand.” — Architect’s Newspaper

The Ohio Holocaust and Liberators Memorial is a welcome place for reflection on public ground. Upon one of its stone walls, this line honoring the camp liberators is engraved: “If you save one life, it is as if you saved the world.”

Fabricators at Zahner place panels on the Ohio Statehouse Holocaust Memorial

Detail of the mockup for the Ohio Statehouse Holocaust Memorial

Detail of the metalwork prior to patination for the Detail of the mockup for the Ohio Statehouse Holocaust Memorial

Detail of the finished Memorial at the Ohio Statehouse

The Ohio Memorial after dusk on the lawn of the Ohio Statehouse

The memorial nears completion at the Ohio Statehouse

Winged Refuge

August 15, 2016/in Art & Sculpture Government, Memorial, Sculpture Colorado Springs--Colorado John Lajba Silver M, S 2011 /by cmorris

Winged Refuge at the Colorado Springs Air Force Academy

Artist John Lajba came to Zahner with a machined cast-bronze model in-hand, which was used to accurately define the art fabrication of the commissioned monument to the United States Air Force.

Winged Refuge was manufactured using a semi-mirror stainless steel surface. The connection edges include both TIG-welded corners, as well as broken edges with Radius Reduction for the sharpest possible corner and edge connections. The two sculptures were fabricated in the Zahner shop, wrapped in blue-plastic netto, and shipped to the job site where each sculpture bolted into a raised stone section. The stone and concrete contractors then completed the rest of the ground surface.

Related System

Winged Refuge

September 11 Museum

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Memorial, Museum New York City Handel Architects, Snøhetta Silver L 2014 /by cmorris

National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion

The National September 11 Memorial Museum resides in the space between where the Twin Towers once stood in New York City. Designed by Snøhetta with Handel, Zahner manufactured the custom facade skin for the building. The architects worked with Zahner engineers and designers in the Design Assist team to develop the facade system. Zahner unitized the metal systems in Kansas City and then shipped everything to the job site for installation.

Related System

911 Memorial Overland Park

911 Museum with waterfall at the WTC Memorial.

Striating stainless steel panel system used on the 911 Museum facade.

South facade for the National September 11th Museum.

Developing the 911 Museum Metal Facade

The panels were tested for wind loads and water permeability at a special facility. The panelization method used for the project required welding studs to the reverse of each panel. Zahner-trained fabricators welded the hardware at ideal penetration so that the stud-welds wouldn’t show on the face of the metal panels.

The surface of the metal shell alternates between GB-60 polish and a No. 4 polish on stainless steel. The No. 4 polish has greater reflectivity along a linear grain, while the GB-60 surface scatters light for a more diffused look. This alternation repeats itself as a motif in not only the stainless steel facade, but also across the fenestration surface.

Detail of the 911 Museum facade in New York City.

Zahner's NS11 mockups were tested for high moisture and winds.

Zahner fabricator installs studs on the backs of NS11 Panels.

National September 11 Museum during construction

Detail of the National September 11 Museum stainless steel surface

LAPD Memorial

August 15, 2016/in Art & Sculpture Memorial Los Angeles--California Gensler Gold M, S 2009 /by cmorris

Los Angeles Police Department Memorial to Fallen Officers

The new LAPD Memorial to Fallen Officers stands as a testament to the strength and courage of the Los Angeles Police Department. The memorial is dedicated to the police officers and families who have sacrificed for the community of Los Angeles.

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We focused on the object most sacred to the LAPD: the brass badge.

David HerjeczkiPrincipal,.atcategory

The project began after David Herjeczki and Christopher Keough of Gensler won a design competition for the new memorial. Working with a multi-layered concept, they developed meaning in both its design as well as its context.

“When you approach it from a distance, it will appear as a wall, reflecting the unity of the police force,” explains David Herjeczki of Gensler. “As you get closer, you will see it is an assemblage of individual pieces, each one paying tribute to a fallen officer. When contemplating an appropriate material for the memorial, we focused on the object most sacred to the LAPD: the brass badge.”

Los Angeles Police Department Memorial at the LAPD Headquarters.

The Memorial prior to installation at the LAPD Headquarters.

The LAPD Memorial dedication in Los Angeles, California.

Designing and Fabricating the Brass Memorial

To fabricate the 32′ long by 12′- 3” tall brass memorial, Kansas City-based fabricators at Zahner were enlisted to develop the team’s concept into reality. Of the 2000 shimmering brass plaques, 201 were engraved with the name, the rank and the date that each officer gave their life for a common cause.

Each plaque is staggered and set in relief. This both draws attention to the individual whose name is inscribed while allowing light from behind to illuminate each plaque. The memorial also features an abstracted badge design in the center of the memorial. The remaining plates are left blank. These plates are removable should additional names need to listed on the memorial.

The memorial’s presence was felt throughout Kansas City. After the wall was manufactured and prepared for shipment, the Kansas City Police Department escorted the delivery truck to the city limits to begin its 1,600-mile journey to Los Angeles.

“Several of us here got choked up when we found out Kansas City Police would be escorting it to city limits,” said Linda Wagener CEO of the Los Angeles Police Foundation. “In law enforcement, we really are a brotherhood.”

KCPD Officers escort the Memorial to Kansas City limits.

Los Angeles Police Officer sees the LAPD Memorial for the first time during its arrival.

The wall is set in the public plaza which is adjacent to the new police headquarters. This space, that both the police and community share, was formally dedicated on October 14, 2009. Open 24 hours a day, the memorial allows visitors to show their respect and remember the officers who have given the ultimate sacrifice.

Brass plates adorned during the dedication in Los Angeles.

Design Engineering the Los Angeles Memorial

To intelligently build the project with the small available budget required some efficient choices in the design process. Zahner began working with Gensler early on to come up with a series of solutions that did not compromise the integrity of the design or the quality of construction. The solution for this is Design Assist, a service which provides custom design solutions.

Design Assist is the process of translating the architects model to a production-ready scheme. The Design Assist process is often a collaborative re-design of the project, an essential process to ensure the constructibility of the project later down the line.

In the case of the LAPD Memorial, the architects had several web meetings with Zahner, where they were able to digitally rotate and discuss the model, tearing parts away, and streamlining the design to its core structure. The resulting design is a sustainable and flexible memorial that will stand the test of time.