A new memorial on the island of Utøya (Norway) serves as a reminder of the victims of the terror attack by Anders Breivik. The inauguration took place on 22 July 2015, the 4th anniversary of the incident.
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The design by 3RW Arkitekter symbolises an organic process that creates a clearing – an open room for a new beginning. It shapes the open space between the big pine trees as a major, unifying circle. The circle is set into the landscape on a slope that is slightly flatter than the surrounding terrain. The site still slopes down towards the water, however, creating an amphitheatre-like setting. A heavy metal ring containing the names of all the victims hangs from tall pine trees surrounding the site. The names become visible due to the light that shines through the ring. Moving around the hanging ring, one can read all the names.
Photos: 3RW Arkitekter
Read the full article in Topos 92 – Landscape Identity
This place is a graveyard, but hardly anyone who comes to fish in the former harbour or cycle along the part of the Berlin-Copenhagen Bikeway that runs along the opposite bank of the Hohenzollern Canal knows anything about its history. As of 20 April, however, this is no longer the case. A memorial for the Lager Klinkerwerk (Brickworks Camp) designed by Dörte Eggert-Heerdegen and Kamel Louafi was inaugurated in time for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Until 1945 thousands were murdered here; were worked to death during the production and shipping of bricks for Hitler’s Germania project.
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The result is a quiet place that draws the observer in and provides information without attempting to transfer the unimaginable cruelty that occurred here into metaphors, thus simply allowing visitors to reflect on what happened. And although Corten steel has been used for other memorials as well, it fits this site perfectly because it is here that cranes were used to load bricks onto ships. It is an elegant detail that both of the heavy steel walls do not rise out of the ground, but from the far side of the quay wall, as if out of the water.
Photos: laview
Read the full article in Topos 91 – Urban Projects, Squares and Promenades
