Memorials
By Ruth Jones
For designers, architects, and artists charged with creating memorials and memorial spaces, the negotiation of individual and collective narratives presents a challenge. A memorial, after all, has a dual role: it must make a place for loss in a world moving forward around it, lingering on a tragedy felt and experienced as communal, and it must enable the healing of wounds and the comforting of sadness for those for whom that tragedy is personal, those who may desire a place to hold their memories but who are in no danger of forgetting their loss. How do you confront wrongs without amplifying trauma? How do you make space for both the parent mourning their child and the stranger for whom that child exists as a name engraved on a piece of stone?
Perhaps this is why memorialization can feel so fraught, both for the architects, artists, and designers tasked with answering these questions and the communities that bestow that task on them. In their permanency, memorials fix moments of grief, an emotion of unpredictable duration: unceasing for one, brief for another, intermittent or even surprising for a third who finds it always sneaking up on her, waiting around corners, lurking in the shadow of joy. They make choices about sorrow, about death, about the life or lives that preceded it, and these choices change who the memorial is for, making space for a kind of grief that might not be mine or yours or anyone’s. Writing about her experience designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.—famous as much for the controversies it stirred as for the stark line it cuts in the Mall—Maya Lin describes her first attempt at a memorial space: a class project commemorating an imagined World War III, a kind of tomb that was more protest art than place of mourning, “a political statement that was meant as a deterrent.” She remembers her professor’s reaction, the emotion of it, “coming up to me afterward, saying quite angrily, ‘If I had a brother who died in that war, I would never want to visit that memorial.’” That anger, the intensity of it—“If I had a brother,” her professor says, “I would never want to visit.”— echos through her essay, transforming into the quietude of the memorial for a real war she would eventually design. A place where the power of multitude tries to find balance with the need of every individual that walks along it, looking for a single name carved in stone.
The memorials included here, with reflections by their designers and custodians on the role that healing plays in their purpose and in the processes that created them, respond to these questions in different ways. Some of these differences have to do with the forces behind a particular project. A government-sponsored memorial will draw on different resources and position itself differently in relation to a collective experience than one called into being by those more intimately connected with an act of remembrance. Others have to do with what they memorialize. An earthquake or natural disaster feels somehow different than violence wrought by human hands. The meaning of past suffering depends, in part, on the destinies of its survivors. But it is more than that. The emotions guiding these memorials offer subtle variations on grief and the feelings that come after it, from emptiness to hope, longing to happiness, feelings that are reflected in the way each one fits into a site, its context, the space it makes, whether it is designed to be seen from a distance or to reveal itself only up close. What does it feel like to shepherd a memorial into being from the outside, we wondered. How does anyone approach someone else’s grief?
Arc of Memory, digital rendering. Image courtesy of Paul Raff Studio
ARC OF MEMORY, OTTAWA, CANADA
STATUS: IN PROGRESS
COMMEMORATING: VICTIMS OF COMMUNIST AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES AROUND THE WORLD
DESCRIPTION: AN ARC OF OVER 4,000 BRONZE RODS
DESIGNER: PAUL RAFF STUDIO
PARTNERS: GOVERNMENT OF CANADA, TRIBUTE TO LIBERTY
PAUL RAFF, PRINCIPAL, PAUL RAFF STUDIO
The Arc of Memory functions as a tangible physical acknowledgment to the victims of communist authoritarianism, and I see this recognition as a prerequisite to healing. The Arc tries to express the immensity of the number of victims impacted, the range of crimes and of geographies implicated over the course of decades, yet it is important too for a monument to heal that it not only be a grim reminder of dispossession and suffering, but that it be uplifting also. The bronze rods that compose the monument each point to a unique angle of the sun, one for each hour of the day across one year, and so they reach upwards like plants towards the sky. Thus, while also being somber and grounded, it still brings our gaze and our focus upwards. Moreover, the monument allows passers-by to engage individually with the victims of the crimes against humanity committed by communist regimes, to read each rod as a distinct and personal moment in the past. When we think of these victims we may think of the Holodomor, we may think of the genocide by the Khmer Rouge, but it is also reflected in one family’s farm being taken away, by the moment someone’s privacy was stolen by state surveillance. The Arc of Memory seeks to remind us of those small instants as well as those that are almost incomprehensibly vast.
AIDS Quilt unfolded at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa, as part of World AIDS Day activities with the AIDS Committee of Ottawa, December 1, 2019. Photograph by Kelly Puddister
CANADIAN AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT
STATUS: ONGOING SINCE 1987
COMMEMORATING: PEOPLE WHO HAVE DIED OF AIDS
DESCRIPTION: OVER 600 3’ X 6’ PANELS, EACH REPRESENTING A SINGLE INDIVIDUAL, SEWN TOGETHER IN 12’ X 12’ SECTIONS
DESIGNER: COMMUNITY PROJECT
PARTNERS: CURRENTLY CARED FOR BY THE CANADIAN AIDS SOCIETY
GARY LACASSE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CANADIAN AIDS SOCIETY The Quilts are folded in a lotus shape. You start off with two or four people holding a Quilt section, because you have to understand each Quilt is twelve feet by twelve feet. Then there’s somebody on a microphone, talking about who’s on the Quilt and the information that was submitted with each Quilt panel—who they were, that they’re important to their loved ones who submitted the panel. And when we start opening up the Quilt, and people are joining us to hold the Quilt up, unfolding it from this really precise way of folding up a Quilt, unfolding it as a flower, and opening it up and getting bigger—you end up having about 30 or 40 people holding this Quilt section up. It is extremely impactful and extremely healing for a lot of people around the world to experience that, touching the Quilt itself with your own hands. It’s as if the histories of these people that are on the Quilt are being transmitted to you, and the movement is alive.
And today, even today, a lot of officials say, well, it’s no problem. It’s only like having diabetes. It’s not, it’s a deadly disease. It’s chronic, but can still be deadly. When we think of the strides that the HIV movement has made over the years, we have to also acknowledge these people who died of AIDS and who are on the Quilts, and ensure that their ultimate sacrifice is not forgotten. They were the ones who demanded that they be at the centre of any research about them. It’s one of the first times that advocacy changed the dynamics of health care in Canada and in the world.
Detail of the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers inner wall, with names and memory marks honoring members of UVA’s enslaved community, after the rain. Photograph by Höweler + Yoon Architecture
MEMORIAL TO ENSLAVED LABORERS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, CHARLOTTESVILLE, USA
STATUS: COMPLETED, INAUGURATED BY THE COMMUNITY AUGUST 2020
COMMEMORATING: ENSLAVED MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN WHOSE LABOUR BUILT AND SUSTAINED THE UNIVERSITY FROM ITS FOUNDING IN 1817 UNTIL ABOLITION
DESCRIPTION: A BOWL-LIKE ENCLOSURE INCLUDING A WATER FEATURE, ITS SIDES ENGRAVED WITH THE NAMES OF THOSE ENSLAVED, WITH MARKS INDICATING THOSE WHOSE NAMES COULD NOT BE FOUND. ON THE OUTSIDE WALL, A PORTRAIT OF ISABELLA GIBBONS.
DESIGNER: HÖWELER + YOON ARCHITECTURE; DR. MABEL O. WILSON, STUDIO& (CULTURAL HISTORIAN AND DESIGNER); DR. FRANK DUKES (COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT FACILITATOR); GREGG BLEAM (LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT); ETO OTITIGBE (ARTIST)
PARTNERS: UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, THE CHARLOTTESVILLE COMMUNITY
ERIC HÖWELER AND MEEJIN YOON, CO-FOUNDERS, HÖWELER + YOON ARCHITECTURE
While the architecture of Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia is associated with the ideals of democracy, it was built on the labour of the enslaved. From its founding in 1817 until 1865, the academical village depended on the labour of nearly 4,000 enslaved people who built, worked, and lived at the university. The traces of their enslavement are legible in the material of the architecture and its landscape: their fingerprints pressed into the faces of the bricks, the landscape of the Lawn terraced to conceal their labour.
The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers lies on the University Grounds, a few hundred yards from Jefferson’s rotunda and along a path linking the campus to its surrounding community. It takes the form of a clearing, a circular patch of grass surrounded by a stone berm that is tapered to create a bowl-like enclosure, rising up eight feet at its highest point. Entering the Memorial, the visitor descends gently into the earth, while the stone wall rises up to create a new horizon line. Occupying the Memorial, the context is screened by the stone berm, masking the sounds of the nearby street and focusing attention on the intimate interior space of the memorial and its contents.
During the course of the Memorial’s design and construction, we engaged with community members and descendants to inform the design process. Now that the Memorial is complete we realize that the project was not only to recognize the buried history of the University, but also to rebuild trust with the community. The completion of the Memorial coincided with the national outcry over the racialized violence against Black Americans. The Memorial has become a site of spontaneous gatherings for the Black Lives Matter movement. As a site of commemoration, it acknowledges past wrongs to take first steps towards building a more just and equitable society.
Famine, Custom House Quay, Dublin, Ireland. Photograph by Liam Blake. Courtesy of Rowan Gillespie
FAMINE, DUBLIN, IRELAND; THE MIGRANTS, TORONTO CANADA; FOOTSTEPS; HOBART, AUSTRALIA
STATUS: COMPLETED, INAUGURATED 1997 (FAMINE), 2007 (THE MIGRANTS), 2017 (FOOTSTEPS)
COMMEMORATING: THOSE IN IRELAND DISPLACED BY FAMINE AND FORCED MIGRATION IN THE 19TH CENTURY
DESCRIPTION: THREE SCULPTURAL GROUPS DEPICTING INDIVIDUAL MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN
DESIGNER: ROWAN GILLESPIE
PARTNERS: NORMA SMURFIT, THE SMURFIT FOUNDATION (FAMINE); ROBERT G KEARNS, IRELAND PARK FOUNDATION (MIGRANTS); THE FOOTSTEPS TOWARDS FREEDOM COMMITTEE (FOOTSTEPS)
ROWAN GILLESPIE, ARTIST
My late father begged me not to make Famine, the sculpture which now stands on the quay in Dublin, saying it would be the remembering of shame. Later, when it was installed, he refused to even go and see it. Yet for me it was a time of maturing, learning how to depict with empathy and without judgement.
Seeing the steady stream of visitors walk among those bronze figures over the years, it seemed that, more by luck than judgement, the spacing was somehow inviting people into an environment of contemplation. So naturally Famine became the template for what was to follow.
The Migrants in Toronto traced individual stories—one is my own great-grandfather who emigrated to Montreal, not, as I later discovered, as one of the starving but one of the privileged few, leaving me uncomfortably aware of life’s great inequities.
Footsteps in Hobart depicts convict women who were transported to Australia, and I chose to work from descendants of convicts as my models. They became my conduit to the past; as I sculpted these vibrant, beautiful women I thought how proud their ancestors would be to see themselves today. I saw how much good has come from that dark and shameful past.
Digital rendering of New Haven Botanical Garden of Healing, August 2018. Image courtesy of Svigals + Partners
NEW HAVEN BOTANICAL GARDEN OF HEALING, NEW HAVEN, USA
STATUS: CONSTRUCTION, OPENING LATE FALL 2020
COMMEMORATING: VICTIMS OF GUN VIOLENCE IN NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
DESCRIPTION: A GARDEN WITH ROLLING BERMS AND PLANTINGS, ORIENTED AROUND A WALKWAY BEARING THE NAMES OF VICTIMS OF GUN VIOLENCE
DESIGNER: SVIGALS + PARTNERS
PARTNERS: NUCLEUS GROUP (MARLENE PRATT, FOUNDER; PAMELA JAYNES; CELESTE FULCHER; WINIFRED PHILLIPS), URBAN RESOURCES INITIATIVE, AND THE CITY OF NEW HAVEN
MARISSA MEAD, DIRECTOR OF ART INTEGRATION, SVIGALS + PARTNERS
Gun violence in New Haven has a disproportionate effect in communities of colour. The mothers involved in this project have lost children and many of their friends have lost children. But it's not just the loss of individuals—it’s the loss of their legacies, of the future children and grandchildren who will never be born. It’s a generational gutting of communities.
In the community design process, it’s really important for us to set aside any preconceived notions about what the project should be before we hear from the community members. This is important for people who are sharing their stories—they need to know there isn’t something already sitting on the table for design and that their input is vital to the project.
Marlene Pratt, who was the spearhead of the whole project, had this little sketch: a tree, surrounded by a brick walkway. And so those two components really stayed in the design, from beginning to end, because there’s a central tree that’s in the heart of the garden, surrounded by gardens and a round seating area, and some low stone walls that sort of embrace this heart of the garden, the tree of life in the centre. And leading to that, of course, are these walkways that have the engraved bricks. And when you’re standing in the walkway, you really are, I think, going to be affected by just the sheer quantity of lives.
The mothers described this project as being the last gift for their children. There’s this labour that you put into it, this labour of love that makes it really truly feel like what it is, which is this gift, and this devotion to preventing more loss.
THE GUN VIOLENCE MEMORIAL PROJECT, CHICAGO & WASHINGTON, D.C., USA
STATUS: ON DISPLAY FROM SEPTEMBER 2019 TO FEBRUARY 2020 AS PART OF THE CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE BIENNIAL, MOVING TO THE NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM IN WASHINGTON, D.C., IN JANUARY 2021.
COMMEMORATING: VICTIMS OF GUN VIOLENCE
DESCRIPTION: A SERIES OF FOUR HOUSES, EACH MADE OF 700 GLASS BRICKS, CONTAINING REMEMBRANCE OBJECTS DONATED BY THOSE WHO HAVE LOST A LOVED ONE DUE TO GUN VIOLENCE.
DESIGNER: MASS DESIGN GROUP
PARTNERS: SONGHA & COMPANY, PURPOSE OVER PAIN, EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY, HAROULA ROSE, CARYN CAPOTOSTO, STORYCORPS
MICHAEL MURPHY, FOUNDING PARTNER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MASS DESIGN GROUP
At sites of violence, we see makeshift memorials. Left, contributed, donated, constructed. The necklace in need of a neck, the shirt in need of shoulders, the stone in need of a strong hand. Each object is the punctum to a life. These objects invite us to consider why, from the universe of objects, this specific one was chosen to represent this specific person. This is the realm of the intimate.
Architects often use space to memorialize individuals. Cemeteries, mausoleums, graves. But some loss is too traumatic, too violent, too incomprehensible to be defined by such spaces. To address wounds left from generational and cultural injury we must do more than witness, we must become part of the story. We need spaces to facilitate these linkages. Across time, across culture. Spaces that reconfigure publics, launch shared journeys, enact rituals, and demand participation. This is the realm of the infinite.
Successful memorials must accommodate the infinite and the intimate. In that flicker a pathway reveals itself. Into the individual life, the story, their spirit. And yet we surrender to the magnitude of shared loss, we feel each loss is also our loss. If, in this process, we are given the tools to engage, the rituals to enact, the stories to hear, and the spaces to hear them, we may find, memorials are living actors in constructing cultural transformation. And in this way, architecture can be healing spatialized
Bio
Ruth Jones is a co-editor-in-chief of -SITE Magazine. She holds a PhD in French and Francophone Studies from UCLA, with research focusing on literary subjectivity, perception, and urban space. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Canadian Architect, and Quebec Studies.
