“THE PERFECT MEMORIAL”
Memorials can be
art that speaks in silence. The silence that is with the
absence of words. Successful memorials tend to be malleable. They easily
conform to a person's needs and are made to be healing tools by that certain
individual. However, memorials do not claim to possess complete healing. But in
its mute and silent state; it compels the individual to fill in his own reason
for coming.
As
with words, certain truths are imposed on a person that directs the person to
think in a particular line of thought. A successful memorial is the opposite.
An example is the
The memorial posses no point and therefore emphasizes its clear
state. The person in an effort to understand the memorial forms the memorial
through his own made-up and inner feelings of Abraham Lincoln. His feelings
therefore become the memorial. It is his ability to interpret his feelings as
the monument that ultimately creates healing. This is what a successful
memorial does.
The silent characteristic, possessed by
a memorial is important. People respond to a certain element by responding to
the action it produces. But if the element is silent, the individual can then
respond to the action, which in this case is silence. How do you respond to the
silence? Your thoughts are not geared to understand any meaning or action
because there are none. Your thoughts are your own feelings right then. The
memorial allows you to think and question, a process that is reflectiveness in
it’s own self. Carol Blair, professor of America Studies at the
A successful memorial uses it’s presence
to help usher a person into a place of healing. By going to a memorial site, its
designs and settings can either contrast with the surrounding environment or be
in harmony with it. It does so to bring you either back in time to the event or
allow you to continue in your own time but view the past. Like the surrounding
architecture around the Lincoln Memorial, you are brought into the classical
age Abraham Lincoln lived in. An environment created by such a balance in time
helps stir you to think what the memorial stands for and why.
Memorials that are silent impose no
meaning. They gently allow you to read meaning into it. According to Strickland
in his article, “REMEMBERANCE IN BRONZE AND STONE”, he states that “The Vietnam
Veterans Memorial by Maya Lin also doesn’t ask anyone to pass judgment on the
war, just as the Lincoln Memorial doesn’t tell you what to think. Therefore,
successful memorials themselves lack meaning. They are open so that even in the
future, it will have a relevant meaning to future generations. Its cause is
therefore not lost because it has none. It therefore lives on because the
people live on.
As you view the memorial, you try to
figure out what is saying because it does not say anything. By trying to figure
out who Abraham Lincoln was, your own thoughts, feelings and emotions are
brought out. The final result is a memorial that has been interpreted through
the person’s own feelings. The memorial becomes the emotions and feelings of
the person. It is then the person can look at his feelings by looking at a
memorial, and come to terms with it. A successful memorial causes your feelings
to spontaneously come out.
Memorials impose no point or meaning,
that is what makes them silent, and because they are silent, you are able to
reflect. By reflecting, your true feelings are brought out. This helps in
healing process.
World War II Memorial by Friedrich St. Florian
Memorials are surrounded with
controversies. Friedrich St. Florian’s World War II
memorial is one of such memorials. His design for the memorial is considered as
neoclassical and old fashioned. Memorials should be a transition between past
and present. The neoclassical design of the World War II Memorial would have
been considered okay if it had been built a few years after the war had ended.
This is because other buildings had adopted this kind of architecture, and this
architecture could be used to help glorify the war. But in this modern age, the
concern is not a memorial that fed-off the pride of victory of good over evil,
but a memorial remembering war time
“But memorials are a dialogue between
past and present. They have to look forward as well as back to the events they
seek to eternalize- otherwise they are not memorials but epitaphs” (Dodd 3).
The imperial grandeur that once
represented the triumph of laws over tyrants now feels corporate and anonymous.
It resonates with power, but not with the memory of the ordinary citizens who
fought in the war.
(Dodd qtd. In Tolu 3)
World War II Memorial by
Friedrich St. Florian
Vietnam
There is an emphasis to
create new forms of memorials that are able to inwardly move the individual and
not abstract designs. Individuals need to be able to interpret it and read
their own meaning into it. Like all successful memorials, they do not impose
any emotion on you but allow people’s own thoughts to be the guiding factor of
how they feel about tragedy. An example is Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial, which
does not ask anyone to pass judgment on the war, just as the Lincoln
Memorial does not give you
an impression of who Abraham Lincoln was. Memorials should be architecture as
an art that only appeals to the era the memorial eternalizes, but should also
appeal to the era it 8s being built. The views of those who witnessed the
tragedy are different from the views of those in the era were the memorial is
being built. It should, therefore, be an open, clear slate that people can
write on (Strickland 1-4).
“The consensus among architects and
historians surveyed is that effective memorials embody this reticence,
stimulating the viewer’s own thoughts” (Strickland 2).
Architecture
can help us cope with tragedy. There’s an architecture
of reassurance and an architecture of provocation. In this case of a tragedy
like this, we want architecture to reassure us, to define who we are and our
place in this moment. (Robert qtd.
In Strickland 1).
WORK CITED IMAGES
http://bchoi.best.vwh.net/homepage/vietmem1.jpg
World War II Memorial Images:
WORK CITED ARTICLES
Dodd, Matthew. “Remembrance
Days.” New Statesman.
Strickland, Carol. “Remembering
in Bronze and Stone.” Christian Science Monitor