Sculptures to mark 100th anniversary
Just over three metres high, 12 markers planned for nine locations significant to story
A series of commemorative steel sculptures are to be erected across the Halifax area, as the city marks the 100th anniversary of the massive explosion that levelled much of its north end and killed nearly 2,000 people.
Just over three metres high, a total of 12 sculptures are planned for nine locations significant to the story of what occurred when a French munitions ship collided with a Belgian relief ship in the narrows of Halifax harbour on Dec. 6, 1917.
The maritime disaster, simply known as the Halifax Explosion, was the worst man-made disaster in Canadian history.
“While the Halifax Explosion was a mass destruction, each of these stories and areas carried with it their own response,” Elizabeth Taylor, manager of culture and events for Halifax’s Parks and Recreation, told Global News.
“We’re looking forward to telling each of them.”
The city has posted tenders for the markers, which will incorporate English, French and Mi’kmaq text along with a Mi’kmaq petroglyph.
Each will tell a story about what happened at that spot.
Rayleen Hill of RHAD Architects, the firm that designed the markers, said the design is meant to blend with any location they are placed in, whether it be a park or a city street. “We proposed this idea of them loosely, abstractly looking like exploded trees, so that they would be very tall and linear,” said Hill.
“And we were hoping too that if we did something like that, it would be distinctive.” Each marker will be made of a pair of metal beams, intended to capture Halifax’s past and its present.
“We have designed them in such a way that they kind of have human proportions and we have tilted and bent them in
a way so that they look like two people having a conversation,” Hill said.
She said one half of each pair would be cut in corten steel — an alloy that gives the appearance of rusted metal — that will contain a laser-cut interpretive section explaining what happened on the site of the installation.