Archinect - News

Kengo Kuma mysteriously replaces Marlon Blackwell to lead design for the Global War on Terrorism Memorial

2024-10-01T13:13:00-04:00

Kengo Kuma has just been named as the lead architect for the forthcoming Global War on Terrorism Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Stating that his passion for the work stems from the loss of a personal friend on September 11th, Kuma said: "This Memorial will help the entire world contemplate the war of global significance that has followed that day of sorrow and the experiences of those who have participated in it."

The wartime experience of roughly 2.7 million American servicemembers who took part in the conflict since 2001 will indeed play a role, along with a consideration of the war’s impact on the broader society in whose name it was administered. According to a survey of 20,000 veterans and civilians from all 50 states performed by organizers at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation, the following elements were preferred by a majority (80%) of respondents:

More than 60% of respondents wanted green space around the Memorial, and 50% of respondents hop...

MASS Design Group debuts Gun Violence Memorial project at three sites around Boston

2024-09-04T17:37:00-04:00

MASS Design Group has opened a new Gun Violence Memorial Project in the city of Boston that will amplify individual stories of our ongoing collective tragedy nationwide. The firm says the project "aspires to be a catalyst for change and a testament to the resilience of communities affected by gun violence."

Joining the other installations at City Hall and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston is another memorial house created inside the firm's office at 1 Chandler Street. Each of the installations will remain on view until January 20th, 2025. MASS Design Group is inviting all those interested to attend an opening reception on Tuesday, September 17th, at 7:30 pm. You can RSVP for the event here.

Steven Holl and SKUPINA-designed Terezín Ghetto Museum advances

2024-02-02T15:16:00-05:00

Steven Holl Architects is advancing toward the start of their Terezín Ghetto Museum project in the Czech Republic. The firm was named the winner of an international competition to design an extension of the existing museum in 2022 and will deliver the project on the site, which was first constructed as a citadel in 1780. The Schematic Design phase was completed in March.

Commemorating the lives of an estimated 33,000 Jews that were lost under Nazi occupation in Terezín between 1939 and 1942, the Museum is an important tool in the culture sector’s response to antisemitism and will result in a “hopeful new presence” in a country whose social fabric is seen by some as being strained by hate groups and far-right extremists.

Image courtesy Steven Holl Architects

SKUPINA, the 21-year-old studio founded in Prague by Marcela Steinbachová, is included as the co-architect of the scheme. The pair had previously collaborated on a small renovation project for the interiors of the Franz Kafka Soci...

Record-setting 3D printed memorial will light up Super Bowl LVIIl next weekend

2024-02-01T16:14:00-05:00

With the presentation of this month’s NFL Super Bowl LVIIl in Las Vegas, a specially-made design constituting the world’s tallest free-standing 3D printed structure will also be on display inside Allegiant Stadium courtesy of the Kansas City tandem MANICA Architecture and fabrication firm Dimensional Innovations (DI).

The special Al Davis Memorial Torch is made in tribute to the eccentric former Raiders owner, author of the phrase "Just Win Baby," and a favorite among NFL fans for many decades.

Over 50,000 work hours went into the project between 2019 and 2020. When it culminated at 93 feet, it featured 1,148 total aluminum panels robotically painted in silver and supported by 226 individual 3D printed carbon fiber blocks weighing approximately 350 pounds apiece.

Image: © Dimensional Innovations

Each metal component was machined on a five-axis router to an incredible tolerance (approximately the width of a human hair) before DI could take over the installation. The result was a po...

Studio Libeskind unveils preliminary design for Tree of Life synagogue shooting memorial in Pittsburgh

2023-12-08T15:16:00-05:00

Preliminary designs for Studio Libeskind’s long-awaited 10/27 Memorial at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh have officially been announced following a sensitive design consultation with families of the victims of the tragic 2018 mass shooting that left eleven worshipers dead and six more injured.

“The journey to unveiling the preliminary memorial designs has been a long and emotional one, but I am grateful for a process that prioritized our hopes that our loved ones are remembered for how they lived, not solely for how they were murdered,” said Diane Rosenthal, a member of the Memorialization Working Group who lost two siblings in the attack, which stands as the deadliest antisemitic hate incident in American history.

A March 2022 rendering of the Tree of Life project depicting the expanded building. Image: Studio Libeskind

The group, which represents all three congregations included within the 70-year-old synagogue, was also able to visit the memorial to passengers of Flight ...

Marlon Blackwell will deliver a new memorial to the Global War on Terror on the National Mall in Washington

2023-07-13T08:00:00-04:00

Marlon Blackwell Architects has been selected as the designer of an important new memorial to veterans and service members lost during America’s decades-long War on Terror on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The Arkansas-based firm was announced as the project’s lead following a search process that began last summer with submissions from 177 different U.S. and international competitors. Its development will be guided by a newly-created Design Advisory Council (DAC) comprised of Gold Star family members, veterans, and "other stakeholders." The project was commissioned by the nonprofit Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation, which was first founded in 2015.

The foundation’s President and CEO Michael “Rod” Rodriguez complemented the designer’s “ability, credibility, and humility to lead the design of an inclusive and reverent Memorial,” adding “Marlon’s proven track record as a world-class designer, combined with his personal experiences in a family with a history of military...

Davidson College unveils plans for a new memorial to enslaved and exploited people, led by Hank Willis Thomas and Perkins&Will

2023-06-01T12:17:00-04:00

Davidson College has unveiled its plans for a new memorial to the enslaved and exploited people whose hands built the 186-year-old liberal arts institution. The design effort of the sculpture titled “With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited” will be led by Perkins&Will in collaboration with Hank Willis Thomas.

The artist of Boston's new commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King will deliver a similar monumental bronze sculpture that emerges prominently from a refuge-like space nearby the campus’s original Oak and Elm buildings.

Thomas was selected for the commission following a two-year search process led by alumni that reflects similar reconciliation efforts at Brown University, The College of William & Mary, UNC Chapel Hill, and perhaps most notably, the Höweler+Yoon project at the University of Virginia spearheaded by alumna Mabel O. Wilson.

MASS Design Group's touching Hank Willis Thomas MLK memorial commission debuts in Boston

2023-01-17T15:57:00-05:00

The wait for artist Hank Willis Thomas and MASS Design Group’s public memorial to Martin Luther King on the Boston Common finally ended over the weekend with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that included the sculpture's design team and a host of local political dignitaries.

They were on hand to witness the unveiling of Thomas’ monumental The Embrace sculpture that now sits at the southern edge of America’s oldest public park in the newly-created 1965 Freedom Plaza, a short distance away from the 236-year-old statehouse and Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ memorial to the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. By rights, putting the legacy of its subjects in proper place alongside the Hub’s other paragons of social justice causes from centuries past.

Image courtesy MASS Design Group

Dr. King met his wife, the late Coretta Scott King, at Boston University’s Myles Standish Hall while the two were both graduate students at different institutions in early 1952. Thomas wanted to create a lasting monumen...

New program created to protect African American burial grounds endangered by construction projects

2022-12-23T11:21:00-05:00

New federal legislation is set to be introduced which will help protect African American burial grounds impacted by new construction. The African American Burial Grounds Preservation Act is part of a series of measures expected to be signed into law by President Biden before the end of 2022 and is the result of five years of bipartisan efforts.

The act will create the African American Burial Grounds Preservation Program, which aims to identify burial grounds ahead of infrastructure projects and commercial development. It is hoped that the program will minimize construction delays on projects, as well as avoid “unnecessary community heartache.” The program will also assist descendants and communities in expressing their histories through grant money to identify, interpret, and preserve historic cemeteries.

“The African American Burial Grounds Preservation...

A new documentary explores the process behind UVA's Memorial to Enslaved Laborers for the first time

2022-11-07T17:42:00-05:00

A new documentary from local filmmaker Erik Duda exploring the process and impact of the University of Virginia’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers has been released, providing insights into the creation of one of the most important public monuments in America since the opening of Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982.

Titled The Lives Between the Lines, Duda’s documentary was included as part of this year’s Virginia Film Festival and offers a look into the implementation, design, and eventual construction of the monument, which, unfortunately, had to open in a subdued ceremony last year owing to health concerns related to the pandemic.

Previously on Archinect: A decade in the making, UVA’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers begins to take shape

The memorial was first commissioned in 2013 as part of the UVA President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, which eventually led to the formation of a Community Engagement Committee comprised of descendants of the enslaved communities ...

UK court blocks Adjaye’s controversial Holocaust Memorial

2022-04-08T11:44:00-04:00

David Adjaye and Ron Arad’s design for a UK Holocaust Memorial has been halted by the country’s High Court following a legal challenge. As reported by UK outlet Building Design, the £100 million ($130 million) proposal was ruled to have been in breach of a one-hundred-year-old law which protected the site from development.

The case was brought to court by the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust, who appealed a previous decision by the UK government that the project could proceed. Opponents of the scheme included senior religious figures, local community groups, and some Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors.

The scheme was due to be constructed in London’s Victoria Tower Gardens. Those who filed the legal challenge claimed that the plans did not comply with the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900, which prohibited Victoria Tower Gardens from containing an...

Beirut port explosion survivors are pushing to have the remaining silos preserved as a memorial site

2022-02-24T13:45:00-05:00

Last August, Swiss engineering firm Amann Engineering GmbH concluded that the iconic grain silos are at risk of collapsing as they slowly tilt. The Lebanese government, notably Economy Minister Amin Salam who is in charge of the silos, has echoed similar sentiments, which has angered the families of the devastating blast’s victims.

The structure was comprised of 42 individual reinforced concrete cylindrical silos and is credited with preventing the blast radius from further impacting the heavily-populated western portion of the city, which could have killed into the thousands. The remaining portion has since become a de facto memory site to those lost in the blast (and its survivors) similar to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial that was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.

Back in May, Beirut issued an international call for proposals for a port renewal competition that includes the silo site. Many Lebanese citizens have responded favorably to the restoration of the silos in support of victims’ families who have become fed up with the controversial judicial investigation into the blast’s root causes. The struggle has drawn parallels to the failure to hold certain parties accountable after its devastating Civi...

The de Blasio administration failed to live up to some of its monumental promises

2021-12-31T09:04:00-05:00

Early into his second term, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a $10 million initiative, led by his wife, that would break the bronze ceiling by introducing seven new statues of historical women to New York City’s commemorative landscape of mostly men. It was to be one of Mr. de Blasio’s signature marks on the landscape. Days from the end of his administration, with only $1 million dedicated, none of those sculptures has yet materialized.

The failure mirrors de Blasio’s much-hyped but ultimately fruitless promise to remove some $1 billion from the police budget, which critics say was an insincere attempt to assuage the Black Lives Matter movement at a time when activists were taking to the streets nationwide to protest the killings of unarmed Black men.

The monuments were another area of unfulfilled administrative posturing about groups of people and neighborhoods that are not the benefactors of effective public spending. This came at a time when state officials were dedicating successive monuments in areas more often associated with financial services such as Battery Park City. The issue comes down to funding priorities, according to Stony Brook University historian Michelle H. Bogart.

“The problem is that maintenance and conservation are not sexy,” she told the New York Times. “Works in those communities don’t necessarily have ready constituencies who will raise money for the upkeep of older monuments.”

...

David Adjaye selected to design Barbados Heritage District dedicated to memorializing slavery

2021-12-06T18:27:00-05:00

Last Friday, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley announced the development of the Barbados Heritage District with Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye leading its design. The cultural center will be located at Newton Plantation, located just outside the country’s capital Bridgetown.

The announcement arrives in the wake of Barbados’ transition to a Parliamentary Republic, which saw the removal of Queen Elizabeth as its head of state and the induction of Sandra Mason as its president. According to the country’s statement, the district will be “dedicated to accurately recounting the historic and contemporary impact of slavery on Barbados and on the lives of individuals, cultures, and nations of the Western hemisphere.” It will include a major global research institute, a museum that will house the largest collection of British slave records outside of the United Kingdom, and a memorial located at the Newton Burial Ground, the largest and earliest slave burial ground in Barbado...

Artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg's moving Covid memorial opens on the National Mall

2021-09-17T17:49:00-04:00

On one small, white rectangle is the name of a 29-year-old engineer, on another the name of a World War II veteran, and on a third, that of a 15-year-old -- just three of more than 600,000 flags on the National Mall reflecting the devastating impact COVID-19 has had on American lives and the country.

The installation, "In America: Remember," was originally conceived by American artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg at the beginning of the second wave of the pandemic in October last year.

"Taken holistically, this is a physical manifestation of empathy," the artist said at today’s opening ceremony, which was attended by DC Mayor and new Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch. The exhibition is open to the public today and will be on view through October 3rd.

The full weight of history: Daniel Libeskind's brick memorial to Dutch Holocaust victims opens Sunday

2021-09-17T17:12:00-04:00

Daniel Libeskind will have the memory of an entire lost city on his mind at Sunday’s official unveiling ceremony of the National Holocaust Memorial of Names in Amsterdam.

“I grew up in Poland in Lodz, a city that had hundreds of thousands of Jews. There was nobody Jewish left. It taught that you should never give in to authoritarianism. You should never bow your head to fear,” the 74-year-old architect said in a recent interview about his forthcoming memorial for the victims of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018.

Image courtesy Studio Daniel Libeskind © Kees Hummel.

Libeskind took the memory of his birth city into his design for the Jewish Museum in Berlin, one of the architect’s first major commissions when it opened in 2001.

Image courtesy Studio Daniel Libeskind © Kees Hummel.

Now, 20 years later, Libeskind’s latest project pays tribute to the memory of the Dutch Jewish, Roma, and Sinti populations that fell victim to the Holocaust.

Image courtesy Studio Da...

Displaying more than 600,000 white flags, a powerful Covid memorial is coming to the National Mall

2021-08-03T09:00:00-04:00

More than offering a bold visual, the art will connect people who have grieved the deaths of loved ones in isolation, perhaps without an in-person funeral, Firstenberg said. It’s visualizing the vastness of loss. And it’s allowing people to participate — digitally or in person — whether or not they know someone who died of COVID-19.

A new installation will bring the cost of the Covid pandemic to one of Washington, D.C.’s most sacred public spaces this September in a heartbreaking display of 610,000 individual small white flags placed in the National Mall by local artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg.

The flags are part of a national memorial organized by Firstenberg and planned initially for President Biden’s inauguration in January. The Parks Service eventually got around to approving the artist’s request in the spring, and she will now begin work on September 14th planting the flags in 142 different sections with the help of online and in-person volunteers.

Digital mapping support for the project was provided by a tech company called Esri. Their team was connected to Firstenberg by George Washington University professor Sarah Wagner. Wagner, a researcher in the memory of mass casualty events and collective loss, heard about the Colorado-based firm because of the work software engineer Jeremiah Lindemann did cr...

David Adjaye's controversial UK Holocaust Memorial gets final approval

2021-07-30T08:00:00-04:00

David Adjaye’s proposed UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Westminster, London is going forward after gaining approval from the Minister of State for Housing Christopher Pincher this week.

The memorial has drawn a considerable amount of backlash in the Commonwealth since being announced in 2017. After a campaign against it by non-profits like the Royal Parks charity, the plan was officially recalled by Pincher’s predecessor in November of 2019 and rejected unanimously by the Westminster City Council four months later over its supposed intrusiveness and unsettling tone.

A public inquiry into the project was then held by an independent planning inspector whose recommendations were thus handed to Pincher’s office for approval in early spring. Adjaye said before the inquiry process that he felt anti-Semitism was behind some of the criticism of his £50 million ($70 million) plan.

Previously on Archinect: UK Holocaust memorial plan faces resistance from Royal Parks

Adjaye Assoc...

New York City is moving its planned COVID memorial from Battery Park after protests

2021-07-09T16:55:00-04:00

Ten days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed plans to build a new monument in Lower Manhattan honoring New York's essential workers who served on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state is now working out a new plan after protesters detoured construction in Battery Park City.

The state had already broken ground on the project late in June before backing out this week thanks to an incredible amount of public backlash against it. The governor’s plan for the monument was so fast-moving that it had initially been slated to open on Labor Day before this week’s pause.

A petition drive had garnered over 8,000 votes online before the announcement. There will be a committee meeting to discuss a potential new location on Wednesday. Gothamist has more on the protest and relocation effort here.

Fallen Journalists Memorial: AECOM and Paul Goldberger will help materialize a new site of remembrance to commemorate journalists who made the ultimate sacrifice

2021-07-01T08:00:00-04:00

On June 24th, the Fallen Journalists Memorial (FJM) Foundation announced its partnership with global engineering and infrastructure firm AECOM, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger, and the Levinson Group on a new site that pays homage to journalists worldwide. The FJM Foundation commits to memorializing and amplifying the work of these individuals whose lives were lost while in service to pursue the truth.

The memorial is "the culmination of dedicated work by the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation to honor the reporters, photojournalists, producers, editors, and others in the field, who have died while performing their jobs as journalists," shared Claire Sale, AECOM's project manager overseeing the memorial project. "We are honored to have a role in bringing this memorial to life."

The initiative stemmed from the Fallen Journalists Memorial Act that Congress passed in December 2020. The bill authorized the planning and development of "a commemorative work...

The Pulse Nightclub site is now officially a National Memorial

2021-06-29T08:00:00-04:00

President Biden formally signed H.R. 49 into law this weekend, officially recognizing the now-vacant site of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting as a national memorial in a historic move that clears the way for a new permanent monument in Orlando.

The bill, named to honor the tragedy’s 49 victims, designates the club’s former space as an official unit under protection of the National Park Service along with 36 other planned and completed national memorials that include the Washington Monument and Pearl Harbor.

“May no other president ever have to sign for a monument like this,” Biden said at the Oval Office ceremony.

Winning design for the proposed memorial campus. Image credit: Coldefy & Associés with RDAI/onePULSE Foundation.

A team of designers including Orland-based HHCP was announced before the pandemic as the winners of a two-pronged memorial design competition hosted by the onePULSE Foundation. Their design would feature a spiraling flower-like museum and garden space that is...

SWA Group helps plant 300 blooming trees in tribute to late Congressman John Lewis in Atlanta

2021-02-23T12:31:00-05:00

Through its master planning effort for Atlanta’s Freedom Park, SWA Group is participating in "Flowering Forest – A Tree Tribute to Civil Rights Leader John Lewis," a collaborative, living memorial to the late Congressman and Civil Rights leader, to be located in the park. John Lewis was instrumental in establishing Freedom Park, which is located at the heart of where the national Civil Rights movement was born.

The living memorial to Lewis is the culmination of a three-day volunteer planting project that took in mid-February in which 300 blooming trees were planted at his namesake plaza in Atlanta. The Freedom Park Conservancy, Trees Atlanta, and The National Center for Civil and Human Rights all participated in the event.

Freedom Park Master Plan. 1. John Lewis Plaza; 2. Lake Lewis; 3. “Flowering Forest” Tree Tribute; 4. John Lewis Freedom Parkway Garden. Courtesy SWA Group.

SWA assisted with the overall vision of the tribute. Landscape architects at SWA also assisted with the selec...

Pop Architecture's Korean War Memorial Park for Civil Victims earns honorable mention

2021-01-06T13:55:00-05:00

The New York-based architecture studio POP Architecture honors civil victims of the Korean War with a design submission for an international design competition seeking to create a national memorial.

Organized by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety of the Republic of Korea and the local government of Dong-gu district in South Korea, the competition brief asked for a "sensitively-designed Park and a Memorial Hall that is spiritual while offering visitors an opportunity to deepen their understanding of Korea's darkest hour. This competition seeks to identify the very best design talent to create Memorial Park as a national symbol and a home to the local community."

After receiving submissions from 42 countries and 109 firms, the competition jury placed POP Architecture's "Korean War Memorial Park" in the top ten and earned itself an Honorable Mention.

Image courtesy of POP Architecture

According to the team from POP Architecture, "Our concept for ...

Students from Harbin Institute of Technology create a memorial design to pay homage to those impacted by Covid-19

2020-12-01T13:21:00-05:00

DesignClass created an open call for designers to create a local memorial that honors those affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The competition brief explained, "This incredible loss is compounded for many families who were not able to say goodbye to their loved ones in person due to hospital safety measures or hold proper funerals because of the incredible scale of the situation."

According to DesignClass, the competition brief was inspired by Brazilian architect Leonardo Dias and his design entry that he later turned into a real life memorial for his town. Image courtesy of DesignClass

"In the face of these tragedies, how may a local community memorial honor those who have passed and bring solace to families [...] This is your challenge, design a local memorial that honors those who have been lost to Covid-19 and brings solace to your community."

The competition received 145 project entries worldwide, and through public voting, the top projects were nominated. To learn more about th...

Frank Gehry shares his thoughts on the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial and why he 'fell in love' with the former president's history

2020-09-21T17:39:00-04:00

In a recent interview with Boston's NPR station, WBUR, 91-year old architect Frank Gehry discussed his thoughts and perspectives on the "complicated" Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial. With the dedication ceremony that took place on Sept 17th, the famed architect has expressed much irritation over criticism the design has faced in the past few months. Archinect's latest coverage of the memorial highlighted Gehry's frustration with critics and their design expectations. Gehry shared with The Guardian's Rowan Moore that critics are focusing on "arbitrary bullshit" and expecting the site "should be classical architecture."

Image courtesy of Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission

The completed design, set to be a summation of Dwight D. Eisenhower's legacy, features bronze sculptures of young American soldiers, a presidential advisor, and sculptures of the former president throughout his life. The site's centerpiece is a stainless ...

Gómez Platero unveils design for world's first large-scale memorial to the victims of COVID-19

2020-08-21T11:27:00-04:00

Urban design and architectural practice Gómez Platero had unveiled designs for the world's first large-scale memorial to the victims of COVID-19, due to reside on the edge of a section of urban waterfront in Uruguay. Dubbed the "World Memorial to the Pandemic,"the monument will be an environmentally conscious construction that uses pre-fabrication and on-site assembly to minimize the impact on the environment.

The massive circular structure will span 40 meters in diameter and hold an open center void that will stretch 10 meters in diameter. The memorial will be able to welcome up to 300 visitors while adhering to current social distancing guidelines, allowing the community safe moments of shared grief and solidarity.

"Architecture is a powerful tool to transform the world," said Architect Gómez Platero in a statement. "It is, above all, a collective and historical reality, made of small fragments which survive over time and become culture. It is a way to show who we are on this pl...

Adjaye Associates designs Cherry Groce Memorial in Brixon

2020-07-07T13:45:00-04:00

Adjaye Associates has designed a memorial in Windrush Square located at the center of Brixton, South London to honor Cherry Groce, who was shot in her home by the Metropolitan Police in front of her children on September 28, 1985. Becoming paralyzed from the incident, Groce passed away in 2011, 35 years after the shooting.

Adjaye's vision for the memorial aims to create awareness and understanding of the life, strength, and experience of Sherry Groce and her family. Lee Lawrence, Cherry's son said, "not only will this memorial acknowledge the terrible injustice to my mum Cherry Groce but it will also act as a beacon of hope. It will symbolize that lessons can be learned and, more importantly, applied to create the positive change we need for the benefit of us all."

The memorial also acts as a pavilion for the community and builds on the existing features of Windrush Square, pulling from the angular forms of the surrounding landscaping and lawn areas. The single column represents Che...

Berlin's Unity Monument 'seesaw' finally breaks ground

2020-05-29T18:21:00-04:00

A groundbreaking ceremony has just taken place for the Monument to Freedom and Unity, in central Berlin. The 50m-long (164ft) bowl will move gently up and down when enough people stand on it, and it should be completed by the end of next year. In a guide to the design, architects Milla & Partner, who won a competition called "Citizens in Motion", say "freedom and unity aren't static conditions, they require participation and interaction".

The monument, nicknamed "unity seesaw" by Berliners, is conceived as an enormous bowl-shaped kinetic platform that invites people to interact with each other.

Image courtesy of Milla & Partner

Stuttgart-based practice Milla & Partner in collaboration with choreographer Sasha Waltz created the "Citizens in Motion" monument proposal as part of a design competition.

View this post on Instagram A social sculpture in the heart of Berlin: the Unity Monument is designed as a kinetic object, a platform enabling people to interact with each other. Its appearance will be shaped by visitors through their #participation and interaction. Construction started this week. #einheitsdenkmal #experiencedesign #millaundpartner
A post shared by Milla & Partner (@millaundpartner) on May 20, 2020 at 8:36am PDT

Originally intended to open on November 9, 2019, the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the project faced multiple setbacks, and construction was repeatedly reschedu...

UK Holocaust memorial plan faces resistance from Royal Parks

2019-02-11T15:04:00-05:00

A Holocaust memorial proposed for outside Parliament would have a "significant harmful impact" on the area, the Royal Parks have said. The landmark is planned to be built at Victoria Tower Gardens on Millbank, alongside the River Thames. Royal Parks, which looks after the space, said it could not support the plans as the Grade II listed park was a "highly sensitive location".

A star-studded design competition ended in October 2017 with the selection of Adjaye Associates and Ron Arad Architects as the winning team to plan the UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre.

"Adjaye himself said last week that 'disrupting the pleasure of being in a park is key to the thinking' of the project," writes The Observer architecture critic, Rowan Moore, in his commentary published by The Guardian. "Certainly a memorial to the Holocaust should have impact. It should not slip by unnoticed. But there is a difference between the intended disruption of a work of art and the clumsiness of a bad brief."

Landscape architecture firm Gustafson Porter + Bowman, Plan A, and DHA Designs also contributed to the winning scheme which is now being rejected by the Royal Parks charity.

New memorial at World Trade Center site to honor those affected by 9/11-related illnesses

2019-02-04T16:09:00-05:00

The New York Post reports that the 9/11 Memorial and Museum plans to open a section dedicated to those who’ve died or have grappled with 9/11-related illnesses—first responders, survivors, and New Yorkers who lived close to the World Trade Center site during the recovery efforts among them.

According to the New York Post, the designers of the landmark Reflecting Absence 9/11 Memorial, architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker, were also in charge of planning this new memorial which is expected to be finished by May 30.