Adjaye Associates has released a design for The Martyrs Memorial, a monument commemorating those who lost their lives in the fight against terrorism along Niger's southern and western borders.
Located at the heart of Niamey, Niger, the memorial brings a new urban plaza and multi-use civic gathering space to the region. The memorial sits on a raised triangular base, creating a sense of separation and sanctuary.
Upon arrival, visitors will be immersed in a grid of 20-meter-high pillars, situated at the back end of the triangular plot. A secondary grid of trees anchor the two rear ends of the site. Each one of the concrete pillars symbolize lost individuals. At night, an array of light projects from the pillars. further emphasizing the monument's status as the civic heart of Niamey.
At ground level, the civic space will provide a multi-use environment that also functions as a cooling cavity, providing air to the main space with each column acting as a thermal chimney to release heat build up.
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The memorial design is nice, though it needs some kind of particular reference to individuals -- the genius of Lin Vietnam memorial was the balance between abstraction and each individual name listed. Without some reference to individual humanity, memorials become academic exercises. Same problem with the MASS design lynching memorial, which stripped the people of their individuality, and abstracted the way the people died as the sum total of their nameless humanity.
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