memorial cloud seen here and this entry called gardens of light were arad's toughest competition. >> michael aradthe absent towers which was also evocative of absent people, missing, voids, loss, death, part of the logic in his design was very, very appealing for us. >> mitchell: arad sealed the win by softening his design with the addition of trees to symbolize regenerated life. >> you would go home and you would think about the eight designs that one just kept staying with us because it was so easy to imagine it. >> mitchell: but what followed were years of construction delays and debates about arranging victims' names. >> you had to understand that there was no way you were going to satisfy everyone's wishes and desires. >> mitchell: what you hope folks will take away from this 50, 75 years from now? >> this eight acre clearance in the middle of the city and then these two acre sized voids. are like a moment of silence. and what we do with that moment of silence depends on us. >> mitchell: and stay with cbs news throughout the week for special reports marking the 10th year since the 9/11 attac

. >> michael arad is here, the architect much the 9/11 memorial.sleected to design the memorial in 2004 beating outri five thousand other candidates. arad was then a young andev unknown architect. seven years have massed and the as you view this program it will have opened on sunday september 11 to mark the tenth anniversary of the attack. the memorial embodies the tragedy, heroism and resilience of thatce day.rk paul goldberger of new yorkerop magazine has written people will not come back but the life of the city has to. s when you stand in arad a public ander's pork and read the footprints behind them you field a profound connection between these two truths i'm pleased to have michael arad here as we talk about this memorial. wrel come. >> thank you. >> so tell me how you feel nowfe that this long struggle to do this is completed and bid the time this airs, it will haveha opened in a ceremony involving the president and the mayor and the former mayor and secretary of state and others? >> and most importantly, those family whose suffered loss on

a young guy, michael arad, who worked for the city, submitted a proposal, a design, along with 5 otherhrough this entire process. it g down to the final three, is i was supposed to have a say in picking the final three with governor pataki, we walked in and george said "that's the one." >> rose: (laughs) >> okay, governor. but it happened to be the right one. and i liken the design to mia lin's vietnam memorial in washingt. when she designed that and it was built people said "it's too minimalist, we havto have more grapc stuff, we have to have more individuals." mia's design is that you think about what happened and reflect on what happen and what the lesson is. and her design was so controversial i think they had to put a statue of a soldier there. but her design won over the world when the first soldier or family member walked up and touched the name of somebody who didn't come back. and everybody said "oh, my god." and that's the power of just the names. >> rose: it's a moment of communiowith the past. >> absolutely. >> rose: and this when you see the first family member touch their

when you lookr the footprints reigned by namesn between these o truths.e1 i'm pleased to have michael arade families who suffered loss on that day. >> i feel3w proud and relievedn many ways. with the mayor, former mayor,e1 secretary of state and others and more importantly those families who suffered loss on that day. >> i feel3w proud and relievedn many ways. but also i have the curiosity and expectation toçufamilieshe a memorial opens up. tthroughoutñr theçó construction process.Ñict but peop&the final ingredient ti bring it to life. everythingctrees, the wallse1 te thesg3 aremy all9this memorialm people to the very edget( of the voyage, that line that separates the living from the dead andli letting them have the moment of deep and hopefully profoundÑi contemplation. and that will only happen once we have the public. >> charlie: o as you try to design something tha@ixd would n that place and that separationth betweenÑi what hadcthat halloweh the loss of life and the fact people willÑiy5ç be comin"jforÑa you was what idea. >> there are actually two very clear ideas that drove the desi

i begin my tour in the footprint of those once historic buildings with memorial architect michael arad, this forest of trees will grow 70 feet tall, all of them oak except one, the survivor tree pulled from the rubble at ground zero. >> it looked like it was a dead tree, but, in fact, it was nursed back to health. struck by lightning a few years ago while being nursed back to health, but it's thriving and surviving. >> he beat out 5,000 entrants for a design competition for a memorial. his vision set where the tower once stood. waterfalls dropping into pools of darkness. he called it "reflecting absence." >> what do you want them to think? >> create a place that was built equivalent of the moment of silence. both about emptiness, but an emptiness full of meaning. >> can you show me a glimpse of what it's going to look like? >> yet to be revealed are the victims names, engraved in panels surrounding the pools. >> here's some of the ladder companies. >> while the pools are meant to honor the dead, it's the building towering behind them, one world trade center, that will honor the living.

i begin my tour in the footprint of those once historic buildings with memorial architect michael aradrees will grow 70 feet tall, all of them oak except one, the survivor tree pulled from the rubble at ground zero. >> it looked like it was a dead tree, but, in fact, it was nursed back to health. struck by lightning a few years ago while being nursed back to health, but it's thriving and surviving. >> he beat out 5,000 entrants for a design competition for a memorial. his vision set where the tower once stood. waterfalls dropping into pools of darkness. he called it "reflecting absence." >> what do you want them to think? >> create a place that was built equivalent of the moment of silence. both about emptiness, but an emptiness full of meaning. >> can you show me a glimpse of what it's going to look like? >> yet to be revealed are the victims names, engraved in panels surrounding the pools. >> here's some of the ladder companies. >> while the pools are meant to honor the dead, it's the building towering behind them, one world trade center, that will honor the living. >> you look at th

michael arad designed it. >> when i see this, i just feel in my gut there was a tower here and there were people in that tower. >> absolutely, i wanted to make what was absent visible. it's an enormous void. you see it in your eyes, but you also sense it, right in your gut. if you walk up to it, it feels like it opens up right under you. >> reporter: the 2,981 names in each pool are carved out of specially treated bronze that will be kept warm to the touch in winter and cool in summer. and right next door, the largest skyscraper in the western hemisphere is rising. it's called one world trade center. 84 stories are up. it will ultimately be 104 stories and symbolic 1776 feet. so the work here never stops? >> never stops. >> reporter: so the workers don't have to go all the way down for lunch, they have a subway sandwich shop in a shipping container that moves up as the building goes up. safety is, of course, a massive concern here. unlike the twin towers, this building will have a core made out of concrete that is seven times stronger than the concrete in a sidewewk. the elevator ban

. >> reporter: michael arad showed us the site.s the memorial designer. >> the difficult part of this project was the names arrangement. >> reporter: the new memorial incorporates two, large pools where the towers once stood. around each pool are bronze panels that are inscribed with nearly 3,000 names of the dead. in an extraordinary move, arad says families were consulted how to organize the names. and we were asked not to film them, so they will be the first to see them next sunday. >> it took a year to arrange the names. names relative together would be grouped together. but also the names of friends. and people engaged to be married. and people who went to school together. people that commuted together. people that happened to die together that day. we got the requests to place the name of someone's father next to her best friend. her father was on flight 11. her best friend was in the north tower. and that flight crashed into that tower. >> reporter: next week, the memorial will finally open. and the world trade center site w

joining us now the designer of the september 11th memorial in new york, michael arad.project. it wouldn't have happened without people like the mayor becoming involved and taking this on. >> we're looking at the water falls which you really have to go there to take it in and to feel the way that you have chosen to help remember. what was the hardest part about this process? there was a lot of controversy, obviously a highly emotionally charged issue to get involved in. in some ways, at times, was it too much? >> it was very difficult, but i think the difficulties were also the field that kept you going forward. this is such an emotional project. i think the issue that was most difficult to grapple with that concerned family members the most is how are we going to arrange the names of the victims around these voids. it took a long time to find the right way to do it. what we ended up doing is reaching out to family members and asking them if there are names of other victims which they would like to see next to the name of the person they lost and bring personal meaning

joe" look at the lineup, steve schmitt will be here and former cia director michael hayden and michael aradat did you learn today? >> i learned that tim pawlenty thinks mitt romney might win the general election. he's going to wait and see on perry. >> mike? >> i learned from looking at "time" magazine, this week's "time" magazine the commemorative anniversary of september 11th that september 11th can

. >> reason while, architect michael arad who did a great job described the two pools as as remembranceama bin laden is dead, his eye e idealology is dead on dying and there's a whole new group of people that want to vey relationship with america. >> diane, you spent a lost time over the years with children of 9/11. >> these were children to fathers lost from 9/11, this might be a good time talking about the trees growing, how it is possible to live in the light ofof someone you never met. almost ten years ago, it was an olympic event, corralling the baby, babies born to mothers pregnant on 9/11, babies whose fathers never came home, but we did it. one monumental photograph. >> say cheese. >> all of those babies no more. now, almost 10 years old. now, all grown up. still wearing her dad's firefighter medalliomedallion. >> that's great. you're going to keep that more life. >> hi, i'm kevin. >> my dad's name is kevin, and i'm kevin. kevin kevin. >> this is kevin kevin now. one by one, they poured into the room, bringing the most precious possessiononthey have. dad's lacrosse stick, a biki