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...

Giant “unity seesaw” to commemorate 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

2017-06-06T15:20:00-04:00

The German parliament approved plans to build a Memorial to Freedom and Unity in central Berlin, with an ambitious timetable that envisages the monument’s inauguration on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 2019. Designed by the Stuttgart-based architect Johannes Milla and the Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz, the monument will commemorate the protest movement that toppled the East German communist regime and led to the reunification of Germany in 1990.

"The monument is animate and is not to be approached merely as an object for contemplation," Milla & Partner state on their website. "The intention is that people shall actually enter it and walk on it and set it in motion, movement being achieved by visitors working together as a group."

"The design was created in a spirit where, by means of creative action, individuals are enabled to bring benefit to the community and as a consequence shape society. The visitors themselves - the citizens who set the whole in motion - become an active part of the monument. The vision is that it will be an aesthetically ambitious, continually changing choreographic expression of the Peaceful Revolution of 1989."

Images via milla.de.

Archinect - News

Berlin's Unity Monument 'seesaw' finally breaks ground

Giant “unity seesaw” to commemorate 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall