Michael Arad (Hebrew: מיכאל ארד) is an Israeli-American architect who is best known for being the designer of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

[2] London was where his father, Moshe Arad, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States and Mexico, was on a diplomatic mission.

At street level, with the help of landscape architect Peter Walker, Arad proposed a cobblestone plaza with moss and grass and planted with eastern white pine trees.

"This design proposes a space that resonates with the feelings of loss and absence that were generated by the death and destruction at the World Trade Center," Arad said in the statement.

Initially criticized for the starkness of the design and failure to differentiate the civilian victims from those who died in the line of duty, Arad presented a revised version in conjunction with Walker.