Much interesting info in the naming of the sculpture that sat in the middle of the Trade Tower Plaza, between the two towers
called
Caryatid "Pillar of Column
cf Masonic tracing board.
>er
which holds up the roof"
A caryatid is a sculpted female figure (usually draped in robes) that functions as an architectural column or pillar, supporting the entablature (the horizontal structure above) of a building. The word comes from the ancient Greek karyatides (καρυάτιδες), meaning “maidens of Caryae” — a reference to the women of the town of Caryae (Karyai) in Laconia, Greece, who were said to have been turned into stone pillars as punishment in mythology.
The most famous surviving examples are the six caryatids on the south porch of the Erechtheion temple on the Acropolis in Athens (built ~421–406 BCE).
They are essentially “human-form columns,” blending sculpture and structural engineering.
middle pillar Sphere survived when the Tower and everything in them, gone after.
Head was to the sky afterward.
It was named after the Kabaa at Mecca, by the archtech who designed the whole complex
The artist nick named it "The Eye"
There are several other single ey references at the site. The scuptor of the centerpiece art object nick named it Cyclops "one eye"
The building complex for the memorial is called "Occulus" which means eye
There's a one eye tiling directly beloe the complex which survive. Since the buildings were dustified above ground the mall in the basements, the sluice wall keeping out the Hudson. and the place in the subway station below which houses the Eye tiling, none were destroyed.
The tiling is also named Occulus.
eye.
To be blunt references to all seeing eye, Preparation for One World.
There's more the architect named the sculpture after the Kabaa at Mecca - kept private , no plaque or announcement.
One event which influenced the creation of the Memorial was the attempt to build a mosque there, right after nine eleven (there's footage of the protests against that)
The tile work in the subway station underneath the site is all under the theme of the One Eye.
Notice how the flat tile work with a center as a n eye, is overlaid on a map of the world.
One World Trade is the name of the new building. It was never named "Freedom Tower" That was the name given out by the Press to the marks / public.
The middle pillar was represented by the Sculpure.
Conceived by the architect of the complex to represent the Kabaa at Mecca with the whirling of people around the centerpiece black cube.
Artist named the Sphere, Caryatid and Cyclops,
Architect named it after the black cube at Mecca
Architect Minoru Yamasaki (who designed the Twin Towers and the plaza fountains) deliberately modeled the circular ring of fountains around the sphere to evoke the Grand Mosque of Mecca (Masjid al-Haram), with the rotating sphere itself standing in the exact central position of the Kaaba. This made the whole installation a modern, abstract reference to the Islamic ritual of Tawaf — the counterclockwise circumambulation (whirling/walking in circles) that pilgrims perform around the Kaaba during the Hajj.
Koenig himself described the sphere as a counterpoint to the towers and a symbol of “world peace through world trade,” but the plaza’s overall fountain layout (the “symbolic setting in the middle of the plaza” you recalled) was intentionally layered with this Mecca/Kaaba parallel by Yamasaki. Contemporary accounts and art-historical sources explicitly note the sphere as “standing in place of the Kaaba” within the Mecca-inspired fountain ring
This doesn’t add a brand-new official title from the artist (the documented names from Koenig remain Brunnenanlage mit Kugelkaryatide, N.Y. → Große Kugelkaryatide N.Y. / Die Kugelkaryatide / personal nickname Zyklopenauge, later popularly shortened to The Sphere). However, the Kaaba/Tawaf symbolism is frequently highlighted in descriptions of the original 1971–72 installation precisely because of the slow rotation + circular fountain “whirling” effect remembered.
Koenig personally nicknamed the polished central disc on his sphere the Zyklopenauge (“Cyclops Eye” or “Cyclops’ Eye”). The sculpture’s “staring” eye was meant to give it a watchful, almost living presence in the middle of the original plaza.
The 9/11 Memorial & Museum building itself doesn’t have a literal architectural “eye” feature in its design. However, the entire rebuilt World Trade Center site (right at the memorial plaza) prominently includes The Oculus—the striking white transportation hub designed by Santiago Calatrava, opened in 2016. “Oculus” is Latin for “eye,” and the building’s most iconic element is its massive retractable skylight/ocular opening that dramatically parts like a giant eye to let in sky and light. After 9/11—literally an “eye” gazing upward from the heart of the memorial grounds.
Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986), the Japanese-American architect best known for the original World Trade Center Twin Towers (completed 1970–1973), drew extensively from Islamic architecture throughout his career. His influences were eclectic—he also cited Gothic, Japanese, Byzantine, and Moorish traditions—but Islamic elements like pointed arches, geometric filigree, courtyard plazas, and ornamental patterning became recurring motifs. These were not superficial decorations; Yamasaki saw them as ways to humanize modernist skyscrapers, create oases of calm, and blend cultural “otherness” with structural innovation. He never heavily publicized the Islamic connections (no plaques or official literature highlighted them), but they appear in his 1979 autobiography A Life in Architecture, project photos, and analyses by scholars like Nezar AlSayyad and Laurie Kerr.
Early and International Work: Saudi Arabia as a Turning PointYamasaki’s direct engagement with Islamic architecture began in the late 1950s–1960s through commissions in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia. In 1961 (just before the WTC commission), he designed the King Fahd Dhahran International Airport terminal. It featured rectilinear modular plans, pointed arches, interweaving tracery in prefabricated concrete, and a minaret-like control tower. The Saudis admired it so much that the design appeared on a 1966 banknote, and they dubbed his signature pointed arches “Yamasaki arches,” copying them in later projects like the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.
slate.com
What a coinkydink
He continued in Saudi Arabia into the 1970s and early 1980s with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency Headquarters in Riyadh, the Eastern Province International Airport, and the King Fahd Royal Reception Pavilion at Jeddah Airport. These works blended high-tech modernism with traditional Islamic forms (arabesques, arches, and geometric patterns), solidifying his fascination. As UC Berkeley professor Nezar AlSayyad (who collaborated with Yamasaki) noted, “The idea of a pointed, ribbed arch was beautifully replicated in the World Trade Center.”
The World Trade Center: The Plaza as a “Mecca”The WTC’s most explicit Islamic-inspired feature was the Austin J. Tobin Plaza (the open courtyard between the Twin Towers), which Yamasaki deliberately modeled after the courtyard of the Grand Mosque of Mecca (Masjid al-Haram). He described the plaza as “a mecca, a great relief from the narrow streets and sidewalks of the surrounding Wall Street area” — an oasis with a circular fountain, seating, greenery, and sculptures where people could pause.
slate.com
The layout replicated Mecca’s vast delineated square, isolated from the city by low colonnaded structures.
The two enormous square towers functioned symbolically like minarets.
A radial circular pattern and sculptural elements (including the central fountain) echoed Mecca’s holy sites: the Kaaba (the cube at the center), the holy spring, and related shrines. The rotating bronze Sphere by Fritz Koenig (which we discussed earlier) stood precisely where the Kaaba would be in this symbolic scheme, with the surrounding fountain jets evoking the ritual circumambulation (Tawaf).
slate.com
At the towers’ base, implied pointed arches (derived from Islamic mosque architecture) created a graceful transition from wide column spacing below to the dense structural mesh above. The towers’ shimmering aluminum-and-glass skin acted as a giant truss wrapped in dense filigree — a direct nod to Islamic traditions of ornamenting geometric forms (compare the inlaid marble of the Taj Mahal or the carved courtyards of the Alhambra). Scholars like Oleg Grabar described this as evoking “a higher spiritual reality,” with the surface shimmering like the veil over the Kaaba; Middle Eastern designers even called the façade a giant mashrabiya (the ornate lattice screens in mosques).
They made two black cube wells, for the Memorial?
passages to the underworld.
death.
wow.
Wonder who all enjoyed the snuff movie and laughed at the rubes.
Just as the nurses, doctors laughing as the gave people the death shot.
Or the laughing an celebration at the killing of Kirk?
>>24696241 (You)
The middle pillar was represented by the Sculpure.
Conceived by the architect of the complex to represent the Kabaa at Mecca with the whirling of people around the centerpiece black cube.