Hans Butzer

The Oklahoma City Memorial Foundation was established to choose an appropriate memorial for the federal building in Oklahoma City. A design competition resulted in 624 entries from all fifty states and twenty-three countries that were winnowed down to five finalists. A committee of fifteen people— which included survivors—chose the winning design submitted by a Berlin-based architecture firm. Hans Butzer, his wife Torrey Butzer (a native of Oklahoma), and their colleague, Sven Berg, were the principal designers.

Hans Butzer explained his design at a congressional hearing to determine whether a bill—authored by Oklahoma Representative Frank Lucas—should be passed to establish the memorial as a national memorial in the National Park Service. The memorial is composed of several parts—empty chairs for the victims; gates to mark the passage of time; an orchard of fruit...