Deep emotions welled up in Xaver Wilhelmy as he watched the Twin Towers fall. Wrenched by the great depth of love he felt for his adopted country, he came up with a unique way to honor the lives lost on Sept. 11. As a skilled pipe organ builder from Austria, he designed the first pipe organ—entirely from glass—to give a voice to the thousands of victims that were silenced. The Wilhelmy American Flag Glass Pipe Organ became the first functional set of playable glass pipes.
For centuries, music has been known as the powerful medium to help process painful emotions, trauma, and grief. Mr. Wilhelmy asked, “What if each pipe was designed to give voice and remembrance to one individual who was lost in the attacks?” Each note could represent a life. Like the human spirit, the interplay of light and color on glass is complex and ever-changing. It is a concept that evokes silent contemplation.
The ancient art of leaded glass could be worked to produce both sight and sound. When Mr. Wilhelmy patented his design for a glass pipe, he and his colleagues created several prototypes. Initially, he created an American flag of functional glass organ pipes, but Mr. Wilhelmy’s vision would eventually grow bigger than his small shop could muster.
When the flagpipes were being built in 2002, they did not know it would become part of a much grander scheme. Only a short year later, an unforgettable opportunity would present itself.
Creating From the Ground Up
Completed in 2003, the American flag waves across the 14-pipe façade, alternating between the front and the back. (Courtesy of Dan DeHass)
Pipe organs are immense and complex creations: a blend of wind instrument, mechanical details, and architecture. Before the airplane, they were truly the most complicated machine on earth. They are the only instrument made specifically and tonally for the room in which they will reside—be it a great cathedral or an intimate music room. A pipe organ may have as many as 3,000 pipes—each a distinct note— and historically made of wood and various metals.When the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) set up a competition for a memorial to be built at Ground Zero (beginning April 2003), it became apparent to Mr. Wilhelmy that he needed to take his organ invention to a new scale: His “room” became the city and his organ was composed entirely of glass.
New York was once home to the great Crystal Palace in 1853. Now, Mr. Wilhelmy wanted to create a “Crystal Palace” of sight and sound. As a mutual friend and architectural illustrator, I was asked by Mr. Wilhelmy to help flesh out his designs.
In 2003, we met in my studio where he outlined his project. A few days later, we drove to New York City from Augusta County, Virginia. We went to Ground Zero to contemplate the enormity of the tragic event. The giant caisson that once held the foundations of the great towers were cleared of debris and gaped before us like an immense canyon. Mr. Wilhelmy’s plan was to literally fill the Ground Zero site with his musical tribute to the fallen. My job was to help him create a visual presentation and round out the details.
To demonstrate his design for the memorial, Mr. Wilhelmy used his prototype of the functional glass pipes, made in the image of a waving American flag. Since the attacks were made on U.S. soil, he wanted the flag to undulate across the 14-pipe façade, alternating between the front and the back. This was 10 feet high, but the bass notes of a pipe organ can be much higher. Mr. Wilhelmy described a great instrument that he could build out of pipes of glass, wood, and metal. He would create a representation of the entire skyline of Lower Manhattan—built with organ pipes!
The Versatility of Glass
A detailed photograph showing the variations of colors and textures in the glass pipes (Courtesy of Dan DeHass)
Mr. Wilhelmy formally learned the craft of organ building from Caspar Glatter-Goetz at Rieger-Orgelbau in his native Austria. He further learned the voicing of these great instruments under Jan Roeleveld. Working on pipe organs around the world, Mr. Wilhelmy has brought many old gems back to life—including the pipe organ at Old Post Chapel in Arlington National Cemetery.
As I carefully held one of Mr. Wilhelmy’s glass pipes in my hands—fearing it may break, he reassured me that they are actually quite durable. They are more dimensionally stable than their metal cousins. Properly packed, they can easily be shipped to their installation site, arriving without any deformations and still in tune. From his experience, Mr. Wilhelmy learned that “it is as natural a progression to use glass in pipe making as it was to incorporate copper, zinc, or tin and lead in the past.”
“The variety of colors and textures of glass are limitless, its workability is well researched and documented since millennia, and the natural physics of the creation of sound within the organ pipe encourage the use of glass in the building of organ pipes,” he added.
Even though the instrument is a traditional wind pipe organ, it was designed to be controlled by electronic prompts, enabling it to be played from anywhere in the world. The families and friends of those who died could select music to be played on a given day in honor of their loved one. Someone in any part of the world could play the instrument remotely—being both interactive and healing.
A Design to Remember
Concept for the Wilhelmy American Flag Glass Pipe Organ at Ground Zero in Manhattan. (Courtesy of Bob Kirchman)
Interior concept for the Glass Pipe Organ at Ground Zero. (Courtesy of Bob Kirchman)
From April 28, 2003 to June 30, 2003, Mr. Wilhelmy and over 5,000 designers from 63 countries submitted their entries for the Ground Zero memorial. Mr. Wilhelmy’s original concept was the creation of a living piece of architecture: with glass pipes embedded in the glass walls of a new chapel to be built on the site. The concept was not unlike the design of the rebuilt Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, as pieces of the World Trade Center buildings were retained as ruins from whence a new structure would rise. The result is a sacred space that allows for not only remembrance, but renewal.
The Wilhelmy design was ultimately not chosen, but the plan of it was published along with all of the entries on the LMDC competition website. It was never built.
The image Mr. Wilhelmy and I created has served as an inspiration for other projects closer to home. A center for veteran rehabilitation in Virginia requested a unique design for an outdoor installation with glass organ pipes. It was ultimately not built either, but the glass pipes have found their way into the design of fine churches. Mr. Wilhelmy and his designer wife Carmen create unique designs that bring new life (and a new look) to that ancient instrument.
The design for the installation of Wilhelmy's glass organs at the PNOVS National Center for Veterans in Richmond, Virginia. (Courtesy of Bob Kirchman)
Currently in storage, the glass flag organ pipe set awaits a permanent home. Mr. Wilhelmy anticipates the day when the voices and individual characters of the victims can be remembered in musical interaction, visual beauty, and meaningful architectural harmony. It is a vision yet to be realized—a vision worthy of pursuing.
The great worshipful spaces of the past were created over time—sometimes centuries. Here is a project worthy of that dedication.
You can buy a single glass pipe as a remembrance of a loved one, a set of front pipes for a church or meeting place, or an entire instrument at flagpipes.com.
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Bob Kirchman is an architectural illustrator who lives in Augusta County, Va., with his wife Pam. He teaches studio art to students in the Augusta Christian Educators Homeschool Co-op.
