Memorials serve as landmarks commemorating a specific historical event or individuals; Museums help humanity capture and preserve the important timeframes across all the branches such as natural history or art. Together, they invite the people to pause, reflect, appreciate and remember. Learning about any built memorial reveals a lot about the society; The event/person chosen to commemorate, the site selected, the symbolic value of the memorial, the artistic freedom it has, its size and the material used, etc.
Collective Commemoration & Unity
In their book “Memorials as Spaces of Engagement Design”, Quentin Stevens and Karen A. Franck talk about how memorials are becoming public spaces. These new memorials are built in a way that allows people to loiter and interact while doing the activities for which the memorial was built. They invite people very close allowing them to engage in a variety of tactile and auditory experiences. This openness of a memorial has allowed its visitors to be proactive participants and not just viewers. Formal memorials even offer a permanent place where one can carry out commemorative ceremonies – both official and personal.
The authors continue by telling how contemporary memorials allow people to occupy a memorial as an urban landscape element. Here people may or may not commemorate and could even engage in an activity which the designer did not even account for. Examples of how people move within a memorial include observations made on Diana Memorial Fountain in London’s Hyde Park and Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The observation illustrates the arrival of visitors to the site, entry to the memorial, and how they move within, and pause at particular points. They interact with other visitors, posing for photographs, gathering various information and giving attention to memorials. A memorial’s rich sensory stimuli, especially touching; their varied affordance to different body sizes; their physical openness as public spaces; their lack of prescribed functionality etc. help in engaging a visitor’s attention.
Architectural Elements That Make Memorial Complex Designs Effective
To talk about architectural elements that create an effective atmosphere, the best literature one can refer to is the one by Peter Zumthor. In his book, “Atmospheres” he has described what really constitutes an architectural atmosphere and how one can produce it. Peter is passionate about the creation of buildings that produce this kind of effect and says that it has a sensual effect on him created by the anatomy of architecture “…it (architecture) collects different things in the world, different materials, and combines them to create a space like this.” While talking about the structure, he describes material compatibility. Compatibility in such a way that the pair give rise to something unique and radiant. But it’s not only compatibility that matters, proximity & proportion are two other aspects which one needs to keep in mind. “…there’s a certain point where you’ll find they’re too far away from each other to react, and there’s a point too where they’re too close together, and that kills them.”
Another aspect involved is “Between Composure and Seduction” where Peter while designing, lets people have control over their movement “It was incredibly important for us to induce a sense of freedom of movement, a milieu for strolling, a mood that had less to do with directing people than seducing them…there is also the gentler art of seduction, of getting people to let go, to saunter, and that lies within the powers of an architect.” “The Light on Things” is the name of the book’s next prospect. Zumthor’s favourite idea of creating light and shadow involves: taking a pure mass of shadow and adding light as if one is hollowing out the darkness, as if light is the new mass seeping in. When we talk about light, daylight in comparison to artificial light gives out a more spiritual quality, and hence the former is a thousand times better than the latter.
Apart from all the aspects mentioned above which significantly contribute to creating a sensory design for a memorial, material artefacts such as personal quotations from the victims and survivors or prized souvenirs, give visitors a visceral experience. It helps foster a strong emotional connection to the past and enforce empathy in the minds of the visitors. Textual arrangements such as engraving of names, factual data, maps and various other pictorial displays build a strong narrative which otherwise would be difficult for the visitors to grasp. These intentional design decisions transform a memorial into a space for recollection, reflection, and profound significance.
Memorials thus can serve as important cultural hubs that have the power to unite individuals on a communal level. People express a shared identity through collective commemoration. Memorials through architecture, evoke emotions and foster empathy which encourages individuals to pause and reflect. Along with that, memorials educate the upcoming generations which helps transform the future. Connecting with the past will help them to make better decisions in the present and create a better future. Hence, not only serving as a landmark, memorials remind us of the values that must be upheld to create a better society, one that is compassionate and peaceful.
Reference:
Stevens, Q. and Franck, K.A. (2015) Memorials as spaces of engagement, Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315747002.
Zumthor, P. (2006b) Atmospheres: architectural environments. surrounding objects. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA77504088.
