© WORD

Our friends from WORD [Warren Office for Research and Design] shared their proposal for the Atlantic City Boardwalk Holocaust Memorial. The competition, which attracted over 700 submissions, asked participants to use the existing seaside pavilion at Atlantic City, New Jersey to create a kind of public space that commemorates the Holocaust and continues to bring awareness to the horrific happenings. “Its purpose is to fix our collective memory, to bear witness, to embrace the ineffable sense of loss,” explained the competition brief.  For the Harrow, WORD creates two drastically different environments offering a strong visual to understand the happenings of the Holocaust and a place to calmly reflect.

More images and more about the proposal after the break. read more »

© VeeV Design

The statistics published by the UNAIDS/WHO depicted that during 2004 around 5,000,000 adults and children became infected with HIV and by the end of the year, an estimated 39,400,000 people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS. The year also saw more than 3,000,000 deaths from AIDS, despite the availability of HIV antiretroviral therapy which reduced the number of deaths in high income countries.  With these staggering statistics, VeeV Design‘s AIDS memorial was designed to “experientially jolt and reveal the impact of these massively incomprehensible quantities.”

More about the AIDS Memorial after the break. read more »

Night approach from Land © VeeV Design

For their competition design for the Tsunami Memorial, VeeV Design has blended the built and natural environments to produce a reflective atmosphere.  Contrasting the horrific magnitude of the tsunami, the memorial provides a calming essence for those who visit. “We intentionally propose a gentle recasting of memorial conventions: discrete sites of contemplation modestly submit to the power of the land itself,” explained the architects.

More about the proposal after the break.

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© Gehry & Partners

Last year Frank Gehry won the design competition for the Eisenhower Memorial, which included six other firms (Perkins & Will, Krueck & Sexton, Rogers Marvel Architects, Moshe Safdie & Associates, Natoma Architects and PWP Landscape Architecture). After that, the firm was asked to produce three options for the members of the Eisenhower Memorial Commision to choose from, from which the final design was chosen a few days ago.

LA Time’s Culture Monster has more info about the project:

The design, which Gehry and his colleagues will flesh out in the months to come, combines a grove of oak trees, two parallel colonnades of limestone pillars and loosely piled limestone walls carved with sculptural reliefs — elements common to all three proposals — with a series of woven steel-mesh tapestries that will feature images of Eisenhower and his presidency. There is a gap in the colonnade as it runs along Independence, creating an opening framing views of the Capitol and also marking an informal pedestrian entry into the memorial site.

While the oak trees should provide plenty of shade — along with pockets of contemplative space — the tapestries will give much of the memorial the feeling of an expansive outdoor stage set. Gehry came up with the idea for the steel-mesh panels while exploring the tapestry collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where his firm has been working on an expansion.

More images after the break:
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© John Gollings

Architect: Denton Corker Marshall
Location: Canberra, Australia
Client: Australian War Memorial
Exhibition Designers: Freeman Ryan
Project area: 3,000 sqm
Project year: 2004
Photographs: John Gollings

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© ACME

London-based architecture firm ACME was awarded third prize in a recent competition to design a United Nations memorial.  Initiated by the city of Chungju in South Korea, the selected memorial will rest in the city’s UN Peace Park.  ACME’s proposal is comprised of a 1,500 seating assembly, two conference halls, a theater and exhibition spaces.  The organization of the memorial is metaphorically modeled similarly to the United Nations, where many parts make up the whole.

More about the memorial after the break.

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Architects: Enproyecto arquitectura
Location: Calzada de Calatrava, Ciudad Real, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
Client: Goverment of Castilla-La Mancha. Culture section
Main sponsor: CEMEX S.L
Constructor: FERCOPE S.L.
Structural engineer: Álvaro Leonardo
Budget: $80,000€
Project year: 2007-2009
Photographs: Ricardo Santonja, Emilio Valverde

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Images courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects © Michelle Litvin

The figure of Daniel Burnham has been very important for the city of Chicago as we currently know it,  as he was one of the authors of the Plan of Chicago, also known as the Burnham Plan,  which reshaped Chicago’s central area starting in 1909.  To celebrate the centennial of this plan several events have been held during this year, such as the Union Station 2020 competition and the Burnham Memorial competition. Also, two pavilions by UN Studio and Zaha Hadid have been temporally  installed at the Millenium Park (read our previous article about this), hosting multimedia exhibits on the future of Chicago. The pavilions will be opened to the public until Oct 31st, 2009.

Zaha Hadid Architects´s pavilion merges new formal concepts with the memory of Burnham’s bold, historic urban planning. Superimpositions of spatial structures with hidden traces of Burnham’s Plan are overlaid and inscribed within the structure to create a dynamic form.

Read Zaha´s statement on the design after the break:

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The design team of L. Tuleikis, R. Antinis, K. Vaikšnoras, K. Lanauskas, and P. Vaitiekūnas shared their competition entry for the renovation of Lukishkiu Square in Vilnius, Lithuania.  The competition highlighted “freedom” as the square was established for a memorial space.  The team’s proposal consists of a gently carved out central Freedom Field, surrounded by sculptural compositions and an external flame along the perimeter of the site.

More about the entry after the break. read more »

In addition to the temporary pavilions by Hadid and UNStudio (As we reported earlier)  the celebration of the 100^th anniversary of Daniel Burnham’s Plan for Chicago will also include a permanent memorial.  For the memorial, which will honor the legacy of Burnham and his plan,  Richard H. Driehaus Charitable Lead Trust and the AIA Chicago Foundation funded and organized, respectively, a small design competition consisting of 20 invited competitors.  The jury unanimously selected Chicago-based architect David Woodhouse’s proposal noting, “it has elegance, simplicity and, in the end, it’s a modern solution. It almost looks evitable. It’s that appropriate to the site.”

More images and more about Woodhouse’s  memorial after the break. read more »

Architect: Sergio Kopinski Ekerman
Location: Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Contractor: Eng Construções
Project year: 2005-2006
Construction year: 2007
Photographs: Léo Azevedo

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Paul Murdoch Architects, with Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, won the 2-stage competition for a national memorial and park to occur at the site where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on September 11, 2001, in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The memorial will honor the passengers and crewmembers of Flight 93.

For more information about the memorial, click here.

Architects: oficina de arquitectura – Emilio Marín + Nicolás Norero
Location: Santiago, Chile
Project year: 2007
Photography: Cristobal Palma

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Architects: SO Architecture
Location: Kibbutz Yechiam, Israel
Project Team: Oded rozenkier, Shachar Lulav
Project year: 2008
Graphic Design: Maya Eyal-Rozenkier

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The Pentagon memorial will be inaugurated tomorrow, 7 years after 9/11. This memorial is the result of a competition won by KBAS Studio, who worked closely with the familiars of the victims. Pre fabrication and computer modelling where vital on the design and construction process of this memorial. More pictures after the architect’s statement.

“Like many people, from the moment we witnessed and learned of the horrific loss of life on the morning of September 11, 2001, we simply wished to extend our hearts to those whose lives had changed forever.  Words will never describe how honored we feel to have played such a significant role in the Pentagon Memorial.  It has been a true privilege to be part of a stellar team, and to have worked so closely with so many people who gave the project their absolute best.  Further, we will forever be inspired by the strength and determination that carries all of the family members we have come to know so well over the past 6 years.  Thousands of people contributed to this place so that its contemplative integrity will persist into the distant future and with its dedication, the Pentagon Memorial will take on its own life, attracting meaning and contemplative interpretation from all of those who visit this special place.”

Keith Kaseman
Julie Beckman

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