Thomas Jefferson University September 11 Memorial Labyrinth
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
On the Thomas Jefferson University campus in Philadelphia, the September 11 Memorial Labyrinth honors the university's alumni and community lost in 2001, built as a permanent stone path where the walk itself is the memorial. It is one of the most intentionally memorial labyrinths in the country.
On the Thomas Jefferson University campus in Philadelphia, the September 11 Memorial Labyrinth honors the university's alumni and community lost in 2001, built as a permanent stone path where the walk itself is the memorial. It is one of the most intentionally memorial labyrinths in the country. The Labyrinth Locator's record lists it as a Medieval path; installed September 11, 2006.
Every labyrinth is a walking practice, not a puzzle: a single path winds to a center and back out, and the walk is done slowly, as prayer or meditation. The pattern descends from the medieval pavement labyrinth at Chartres, and the modern urban revival began in the 1990s when Lauren Artress brought replicas of that path to American congregations and public grounds through Veriditas and the Labyrinth Society, whose World-Wide Labyrinth Locator now catalogs thousands. There is no branching and no trick to the path; walkers of every religion and none use it.
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