TheNational September 11 Memorial Pools and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial are among the mostrhetorically influential memorials in American history.
Making Memorials to the Future Open Access Christine Sylvester Global Studies Quarterly, Volume 3, Issue 4, October 2023, ksad065, https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksad065
In Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision
https://pbswisconsin.org/watch/pov/maya-lin-a-strong-clear-vision-7v5tab/
Micheal Arad
https://news.yale.edu/2012/11/26/designer-911-memorial-speak-saybrook
The waterfalls produce constant motion while simultaneously suggesting endlessmourning.
The continuous downward flow of water symbolizes grief without resolution. Water disappears into a void that cannot be filled, rhetorically representing permanent loss. The repetition also creates meditative rhythm, encouraging contemplation rather than political interpretation.
The rhetoric of nationalism also appears more strongly in the 9/11 Memorial. According to TimGruenewald, the memorial uses “affective rhetoric” to connect personal grief with Americannational identity
The memorial’s landscapearchitecture encourages slow movement and contemplation.
"The 9/11 and Vietnam Veterans Memorials: Interpreting Experience in the Landscape of Loss" https://ecommons.cornell.edu/entities/publication/0aa6f356-62e8-4eb8-ad4c-273dfebb5dce/full
Instead of presenting victims as abstract statistics,the memorial insists upon personal humanity.
"Making of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial" https://daily.jstor.org/the-making-of-the-vietnam-veterans-memorial/