Silvia's blog: researching through architecture: The wall

Tuesday, 4 February 2014

The wall

From the beginning of my research I know that the wall will be a very important part of the columbarium. When I say wall I'm talking about that wall/element that will house the ashes or just the memorial paques. That wall is the main element of the columbarium because it's the place where you are going to find the name of a dear person, the place where you are going to stop to cry, pray, think... It's also the place where people put flowers or other stuff beside to their dear person plaque. So it must be an elemnt well designed because it is going to carry the love of lots of people.

Talking about the wall, I thin about the project "Memory and light" by Daniel Libeskind, in Padova, Italy.
This projet is a memorial design for the victims of the 9/11 attacks on New York City.

SOURCE: http://daniel-libeskind.com/projects/memoria-e-luce-911-memorial/images
Photo by Bitter Bredt

As you can see from the first picture we can find again the element of water, in fact the project is nearby Piovego river. The design is composed by this big book open in the direction of the Statue of Liberty in New York. So we can find a kind of a historical relationship between the region Veneto and New York due to the emigration of italians in America, in the past.
The light is the main character of the design that we can find both in the "book" and on the wall. The shape of the wall accompany visitors towards the main memorial element where we can find a piece of a beam from the World Trade Centre attack. When it's dark this wall becomes illuminated and acquires a new strenght full of meanings.