-
Architects: 1100 Architect
- Area: 16320 ft²
- Year: 2001
-
Photographs:Peter Aaron
-
Manufacturers: Vectorworks, Kilkenny Limestone
Text description provided by the architects. To create a memorial commemorating the Great Irish Hunger of 1845-1852, the Battery Park City Authority selected a team consisting of 1100 Architect, landscape architect Gail Wittwer-Laird, and artist Brian Tolle. Located in Battery Park City on a site adjacent to the Hudson River, the memorial is a contemplative space where visitors explore the famine and its connections to world hunger today.
On a base of Irish limestone and illuminated glass, the team re-created a rugged landscape that comprises abandoned potato fields, various species of native Irish plants, and walls made of stones from each of Ireland’s 32 counties. The monument’s base is inscribed with text that recounts the history of the Great Irish Hunger and that frames the tragedy within the wider context of hunger world-wide. From the base’s west side, visitors enter and ascend through a passageway that opens into a ruined famine-era cottage from County Mayo, donated to the project and reconstructed into the memorial. Leaving the cottage, visitors may wander through the fields and overgrown potato furrows. The landscape cantilevers out over an illuminated stone and glass base structure, rising from street level at its southeastern corner to a height of 25 feet at its western end, where it provides visitors with views of the Hudson River, the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island.
