Memorials for
Sympathy?
Memorials have a great affect on a
person’s state of mind. Memorials can
make a person cry, think, reflect, and reminisce on past experiences. Not every
person feels sympathetic at first. A person can feel angry, frustrated or even
confused about what has happened. Memorials do not have to be for the specific
purpose of making a person sympathize with someone else, or sympathize for the
person who has died. Memorials can help people reflect. They can give a release
of anger and frustration that may be within the person at the time. With the
help of “green landscaping” and “water patterns”, memorials are made to be more
personal, yet allow individuals to reflect on an experience. They can help a
person remember and accept what has happened.
As
Maya Lin said “If you cannot accept death then you will never get over it”.
Memorials help you reflect and accept the fact that your loved one has passed
on, enabling you to move on but not forget. As an example of this was the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial created by Maya Lin. It is outspoken and angry in the way in which it functions as a visual
scar, (the war and people will always be remembered) yet is dignified for the
way in which it carves out an area for a public display of pain and grief. The
emotions of pain and grief is necessary to the healing process, which provokes
others or oneself to have sympathy for the one who has passed, or for someone
else who knows someone who has passed.
While there are structural memorials made of
brick and stone, water plays a large role in the atmosphere of memorials.
Landscape that has water as a background or water that takes part in the
landscape as a reflection site 
can help sooth a person’s state of
mind. Water can help the atmosphere of which you are
standing. Water provides a soothing, relaxing quality. The unfaltering flow of
water can mirror the unfaltering flow of
blood within our hearts.
Joellyn Duesberry
is a landscape artist who creates oil paintings and monotypes that capture a
wide variety of scenery. Joeyllyn Duesberry
did one of her paintings on the 91st floor of the
Maya Lin created scenery with the
same sense of movement and spontaneity. Both these artists try to capture a
person’s mind, body and soul, in a piece of artwork or creation. Both of these
artists are very talented in the way that they can make a person feel emotions
they never thought they had until entering a memorial or looking at a painting
created by either one of these women.
Achievement is unique to and
infinite in every individual, a search for the voice of self that to Duesberry "is the only true originality worth
offering." (Ruthe 22)
Feelings of being successful can
be defined differently to everyone. For Duesberry to
be “you” and for her to be able to express herself through her work is a
success to her, for Duesberry this is only way she
can be original and offer her insights to the world as does Maya Lin through
her landscape creations.
As an example of the below
picture, water can serve as a meditation method, as a release of frustration
and it can also serve as a relaxation 
method. Water can be used during
landscaping to set a specific mood or to create a reflection mood for a person.
The
Parque Ecologico Xochimilco is an example of this
type of water method which uses hydraulics to test the velocity and water
pressure but the Parque Ecologico Xochimilco also wants to create a good
landscape design with good Green Infrastructure. Green infrastructure can be
defined as nature’s natural life support system. Green infrastructure can
encompass a wide range of landscape such as wetlands, woodlands, parks, as well
as public and private working lands of conservation value, such as forests,
farms and ranches. With the hydraulic and green infrastructure method, the Parque Ecologico Xochimilco regulates the amount of water being used, and it
also helps the landscaping in the area to help create better structure and
atmosphere for those who wish to visit.
Sustainable
design is essentially the use of design
and construction methods and materials that are resource efficient and that
will not interfere with the health of the environment or with the associated
health and well-being of the building's, builders, the general public, or
future generations. Sustainable design is also referred to
as "green" or "environmentally-sound" building.
“Environmentalism and the ethic of
“sustainable design”, says Beardsley, now encourage landscape architects to
develop “green infrastructure” for improved energy efficiency, storm water
management, waste water treatment, bioremediation, vegetal roofing, and
recycling”. (Beardsley 100).
Beardsley teaches courses in
landscape architectural history, theory, and writing, including Theories and Practices of Contemporary
Landscape Architecture. Beardsley
explains in his quote that environmentalism helps to encourage landscape
architects to help to develop Green Infrastructure to improve water management
to help create better landscaping, therefore creating better atmosphere and
surroundings for a more peaceful and healthy state of mind.
Quarterly,
Ruthe, Thomas. “The Nature of
Abstraction” American Artist, Nov 2002, Vol.66 Issue 724, p22, 10p, 15c.