"Crescent of Embrace" wasn't the design that best interpreted on the landscape the violent narrative of Flight 93, but it may be the design that best transcends it.

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The memorial -- its winning design announced yesterday -- leaves most of the storytelling to its visitors' center and focuses instead on comforting families, friends and anyone else touched by the tragedy and heroism of United Airlines Flight 93.

The healing intent is advanced by its title. The "Crescent of Embrace" wraps and defines "the bowl," the existing landscape depression that contains the sacred ground of the crash site.

Of the five finalists, the design by Los Angeles-based Paul Murdoch Architects is the most formal and monumental in traditional terms. Here, however, the great crescent is not marble or granite, but a living one of maple trees, long an essential part of the heritage and economy of Somerset County.

While the memorial's design doesn't assimilate or communicate the horrific nature of the Sept. 11, 2001, event, the walkway to the bowl subtly traces the plane's flight path, flanked by textured concrete walls that frame the sky. At night the path is illuminated with recessed lines of blue light.

"Crescent of Embrace" was a safe choice, one with which families, design professionals and community representatives could feel comfortable because of its timeless quality and accent on healing and spirituality. That begins with a "Tower of Voices," 40 metal chimes, one for each of the passengers and crew members who died, set in a curved concrete tower at the gateway to the memorial park. The outside will be clad in white glass mosaic tiles to create a sparkling, luminous, ephemeral effect; the inside will be coated in blue plaster to evoke the sky.

Anyone who has been to the crash site, especially in the winter, knows that wind is one of its defining elements. Yet the Murdoch team's entry was the only one of the finalists to harness the wind and put it to use in a poetic way.

While a wind-chime chapel at first seemed to me a sappy, sentimental assault on the ears, over time I found myself thinking about it more and more, wondering what it would sound like in high winds and gentle breezes, what it would be like to stand inside or pass by on the road. I began to think of it in the spirit of chance music and in the context of the Lincoln Highway's historic roadside attractions, like the Shoe House and the Coffee Pot. I wanted to see it built and hear its random chorus tolling random deaths.

Illuminated at night, the Tower of Voices will become what its architects call a beacon. Think of it as a lighthouse on that rugged, rural landscape, calling to the lost souls of Flight 93.