Lessons from memorials around the world
Memorials are prone to attracting controversy, writes Steve Meacham as Christchurch’s earthquake memorial is unveiled today.
In January an unusual internet controversy began to rage over Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Designed by architect Peter Eisenmann and engineer Buro Happold, the Holocaust Memorial was dedicated on the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Hitler’s Third Reich. Close to the Brandenburg Gate, it consists of 2700 concrete slabs a place of quiet contemplation.
But last month ‘‘Yolocaust’’ (YOLO as in You Only Live Once) was created by Shahak Shapira, a Berlin-based Israeli artist and satirist, angered by disrespectful selfies being posted from the memorial on social media.
He snared 12 of the most outrageous images and workshopped them.
In his Yolocaust versions, the selfie stars appear to be celebrating in front of Auschwitz skeletons or similarly murderous backgrounds. His spoof proved effective. Just 10 days after his doctored images went viral, some 2.5 million online viewers had seen them, all 12 selfie takers had apologised, and Yolocaust was withdrawn.
Which brings us to Christchurch’s new $11 million memorial – designed by Slovenian architect Grega Vesjak following an international competition that drew 330 entries from 37 countries.
The new memorial is a three-minute walk from its 20th-century equivalent, the earthquake-damaged, recently repaired arch on the Bridge of Remembrance, which is dedicated to New Zealanders who lost their lives in battle since World War I.
Yet their proximity has a poetic symbolism. They bookend an architectural debate that has endured for millennia.
As Dr Jacky Bowring, professor of landscape architecture at Christchurch’s Lincoln University and one of the world’s leading experts on memorial architecture, explains, mankind has always explored different ways of mourning those who died in an event of national or international significance. Raise an obelisk, or plant a garden? Build a pyramid, or a series of seats symbolic of the dead to be enjoyed by the living?
According to Bowring – author of A Field Guide to Melancholy and a member of the team which chose the location – many sites were contemplated for Christchurch’s new memorial after the earthquake of February 22, 2011.
‘‘We considered others, particularly the site of the CTV building,’’ Bowring said, referring to the six-storey Canterbury Television headquarters which collapsed, killing 115 victims. ‘‘But that would have excluded relatives whose loved ones died elsewhere.’’
After families of victims and the local community were consulted, a consensus emerged, Bowring explained. ‘‘People wanted the memorial to be associated with water and greenery.’’
So a neutral site was chosen – a previously nondescript inner-city bend on the Avon River.
The design brief stipulated that the 9800-square-metre site encompassed both contrasting banks of the river. The design challenge was that the south bank is steep and sunny, forming a natural amphitheatre, while the much larger north bank is flatter, with mature shady trees.
Several of the final six focused mainly on the larger north bank, but Vesjak’s winning entry features a memorial wall on the south bank separated by the Avon from a garden of reflection capable of comfortably holding 2000 people for large events.
Listing the names might seem easy. Alphabetically, right?
But Bowring explained why that wasn’t appropriate: ‘‘These victims spoke many different languages, and wrote in a variety of scripts. Sometimes the family name comes first, sometimes last. Sometimes family members who died together have different names.’’
After lengthy consultation with the victims’ families, it was decided to group the names of family members, workmates, students and friends who died together in separate clusters.
Those who died elsewhere were spread randomly across the wall, Bowring explained, ‘‘because the earthquake selected its victims randomly’’.
Each of the 185 names on the wall are inscribed in English, the language of the country where they spent their final hour. But those whose families and countrymen read a different script are also acknowledged in the language of their birth.
That presented ‘‘a huge challenge’’ for the stonemasons, Bowring said. ‘‘How do you ensure the engraving of the names is fair to all? With no particular names standing out? While accepting that a typography as delicate as the Thai script is vulnerable to damage?’’
‘‘Every small town in New Zealand or Australia has its war memorial – usually an obelisk, a cross or a roll of honour,’’ Bowring explained. ‘‘Throughout history, we’ve had memorials in the form of cenotaphs, statues, temples and burial mounds.’’
So what recent designs have helped shape the Canterbury Earthquake Memorial? 1. Washington DC – The Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial:
‘‘[Designer] Maya Lin arranged the victims’ names in order of the date they died,’’ Bowring explained. ‘‘She described it as an epic poem.
‘‘As you walk along her wall, you get an idea from the volume of the names how the war is escalating until it widens out into this truly daunting bulge. Then it starts dwindling again as the war comes to its conclusion.’’ 2. Paris – Memorial Des Martyrs De La Deportation:
Built in 1962, it commemorated the 200,000 Jews, gays and other ‘‘disreputables’’ who were deported from Vichy France to Nazi concentration camps in World War II.
‘‘It’s on the Square de l’Ile de France near Notre Dame Cathedral. You step down into it so the city landscape disappears and you are enclosed by what happened.’’ 3. New York – National September 11 Memorial and Museum:
Built to commemorate the 2977 people who died in the terrorist attack that destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on 9/11, it is regarded as a suitably evocative triumph of democracy over insurgency. 4. London – The Princess Diana Memorial Fountain:
The Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park is not a traditional fountain, but a vaguely heart-shaped water course on the hill above The Serpentine lake.
‘‘Running water goes through a number of changes as it goes in this big oval,’’ Bowring said. ‘‘There are periods of turbulence, periods of still water – just as there is in any life.’’ 5. London – Two Anzac memorials:
Australia’s boomerang-shaped memorial is made out of granite slabs inscribed with the names of the 23,844 Australian towns that sacrificed their sons and daughters in both world wars.
New Zealand’s 2006 memorial consists of 16 individual (Kiwi-made) steel girders deliberately placed for visitors to stroll through and explore. They have been likened to 16 All-Blacks performing a haka or 16 makeshift battlefield graves – each one adorned with different symbols of New Zealand.