View of the 9/11 Memorial from the World Financial Center in June 2012 © Cadiomals, Wikimedia Commons.

One of the most significant aspects of the Ground Zero Museum in New York is that it’s located on the site of the former World Trade Center, allowing it to expose parts of the towers’ foundations and make them integral to the exhibition. Since its opening in May 2014, the museum has been extensively analyzed and criticized for how it mobilizes these in situ remains to tell the story of 9/11. The so-called “archaeological framework” chosen for its interior design, however, has received minimal attention to date. While forensic archaeological methods continue to be used to identify the victims of 9/11, the ‘archaeological framework’ mentioned in the museum’s design objectives is different in nature. This presentation explores what archaeology means in this context and the work it does as a rhetorical tool. I demonstrate how this rhetoric works through a staged atmosphere, drawing its affective and sensorial force from an archaeological imaginary, a repository of widely held beliefs about archaeology and archaeological practices. My objective is to examine the meaning-making potential of the atmospheric staging of this imaginary in the museum at the levels of temporality, spatiality, materiality, and memory. 

László Munteán is an assistant professor of Cultural Studies and American Studies at Radboud University. His publications have focused on the memorialization of 9/11 in literature and the visual arts, American cities and architecture, as well as the architectural heritage of Budapest. In a broader sense, his scholarly work revolves around the juncture of literature, visual culture, material culture, and cultural memory in American and Eastern European contexts. László coordinates the RICH research group Memory, Materiality and Affect. He is co-editor of Materializing Memory in Art and Popular Culture (Routledge, 2017), Animation and Memory (Palgrave, 2020), and Materials of Culture (Transcript, 2023). He is presently working on a book project on the afterlife of the ruins of the World Trade Center.

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