It sounds really over the top to say you're responsible for the city of New York, but I do feel responsibility to the city of New York, to this country, to people everywhere. So many people were affected by the events of September 11, and I feel this is one of the ways that that event will be understood and defined.

I had a dual role: designer and advocate.

How do you design it so that people can form a space of their own, and feel quiet and contemplative?

I pushed the process forward by saying, 'We should do this, this, and this right now. Please find the budget for me to find a structural engineer, a mechanical engineer, a civil engineer, so we can do the preliminary work.

PERFORMING TRIBUTE 9/11 shows the heroism of people who have chosen to respond to devastation and hatred with quiet determination and a belief that they can and will make the world a better place.

For two years nobody talked about anything other than the name arrangement. There was no fund-raising and no progress being made on construction and design.

I think my desire to imagine a future for this site came out of trying to come to terms with the emotions that day aroused.