On 7 July, a memorial to the 52 people who died in London in the 7/7 suicide bombings of 2005 will be unveiled in Hyde Park. It has been designed by Kevin Carmody (34) and Andrew Groarke (38) whose architectural practice, carmodygroarke, is barely four years old. Guardian
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Not to discourage memorials or remembering the dead by any means, but the growing prevalence for these sorts of memorials seems strange. Historically, memorials have sought to commemorate the lives of those who died for a cause (soldiers, martyrs) or devoted their lives to something that society holds in high regard (politicians, activists), or even to the groups of people (farmers, laborers, firefighters). There is the other category that commemorates events (battles, demonstrations, tragedies), but these tend to either commemorate something lofty (the signing of declarations of independence) or shameful memories (holocaust memorials, etc).
The growing number of memorials to tragedies doesn't really fit into what memorials ask us to do: consider the lives of people who gave something to society as a group or individuals, lofty or proud events, and past mistakes and injustices to reflect upon. Instead, we have memorials that both commemorate groups of people, who may have been fine individuals and deserve private remembrance but whose actions are not the catalyst for the memorial, and to an event that is seen as an affront from an outside group on the group erecting the memorial. Memorials to tragic or shameful events, I'd argue, have much greater weight when they are the product of reflection by the group responsible. The holocaust memorial in Berlin holds much more weight than the one in Boston, not because it is necessarily a better design, nor even because it is in an historical more appropriate place, but because it was built by descendants of the perpetrators: it is, in essence, an acknowledgement of a very dark part of their cultural past.
Memorials to terrorist acts in the western world seldom, if ever, ask us to consider the relationship between our society and the aggressor, whether it be religious fundamentalists or radical militia groups. They do not ask us to consider what our collective role may have been in provoking the event, nor what we can do going forward. They lack the conciliatory nature of those raised by former enemies, and the recollection of lives willingly and purposely laid down.
I don't want to dismiss these works on their design merit, nor dismiss a whole group of memorials. I just want to point out that they seem to be an outlier in what we ask of our memorials--they seem to be more funerary art than anything else.
Frank,
You bring up an interesting point. One which is touched on in this piece. The author at one point asks the designers what if the memorial is re-appropriated and becomes a memorial not for the victims but for the martyrs. What if it became a pilgrimage site to jihad?? How would the designers react...
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