VATRAA has opened its Plastic Monument in Milan, which has been created to draw attention to the long-lasting legacy we are leaving future generations. Its monolithic form is inspired by the heritage left by our ancestors – like the Pyramids, Colosseum or Stonehenge – but this is reinterpreted for a world that is marked with plastic waste rather than brick or stone structures.

The installation is the result of a 2019 YAC and National Geographic Italia international competition, which featured 1,681 entries from 86 countries. The initiative was framed in the project "Planet or Plastic?" (National Geographic's campaign to inform and raise awareness on plastic pollution) and aimed at creating an art installation which would become the landmark to raise awareness of the fact that plastics last up to 1,000 years in landfills, some of which might never biodegrade. The VATRAA proposal was selected by a grand jury, including architects Kengo Kuma and Carlo Ratti. 

Built out of 16,000 recycled bottles, the monument takes the shape of one of the oldest and most simple forms of structure inherited from our ancestors: a Stonehenge Trilithon. It poses a stark contrast between something we consider highly disposable and the most ancient of structures that has lasted for thousands of years. The installation therefore becomes an ironic vision of the potential ‘monumental’ disaster provoked by the overuse of plastics. It stands to remind us of the consequences of our actions in the long run, of the fact that what we are doing today might stay on Earth forever.

Bogdan Rusu, founding partner at VATRAA, said: “We had to go back and ask ourselves what is the purest form of construction that our ancestors left to us. All roads led us to the trilithon – the most basic form of structure, the beginning of any construction as we know it, made of two pillars and a lintel, a form that is so elegantly embodied by Stonehenge. The installation is not designed to be a beautiful, but to makes us think about the consequences of our actions in the long run. We hope that this will inspire people of influence or regular plastic users to consider the bigger impact of the decisions they make today.” 

The installation, sponsored by Gruppo Unipol, has been installed in Milan and will take up a residency for the next year. It is hoped that it will be reinstalled in other locations so that this powerful message can be communicated elsewhere.