bologna shoa memorial
2015
The proposal refuses to convene the living memory of a particular human community to its special and local identity, looking instead to «(…) address the living memory of all men, to remind them of the events that put into question their status as human» (F. Shoay).
We understand the existing railway platform as a counterpart, seeking to build with it – through the mystery of art process – the language of the symbol. As Romano Guardini quotes «(…)the symbol, while satisfying the condition to reflect a positive and precise state of mind, should – conforming here to the general law of artwork – rise above the particular. He will not only be responsible for expressing an accidental physical content unique in time, but he will also be invested with a general message addressed to the soul and to human life. Thus constituted he will be accessible to all and saturated with universality».
The new structure look for spaces to linger, accepting and interacting whit the existing site:
(i) the square´s outline will not be trespassed; (ii) the external fencing system, towards the railways, will not be replaced; (iii) square’s existing floor will not be changed and will not be damaged by any kind of holes or assemblies.
Two elevated metallic structures involve, without touching, the existing ventilation walls. Both sides of the square will be separated by a continuous structure of wood ‘patch work’, which stresses the idea of an imprisoned mutilation. The six meters high modular metallic fence guides the weave of mutilated tree brunches.
The proposal underlines the character of the in between walls, emphasizing the transition between both sides of the existing square. The six meters diameter cylinder space, open towards the sky, – built whit recycled wooden trunks and painted in sky blue -, embraces, inside, a circular bench.
«Inscrutably involved, we live, says Buber, in the currents of universal reciprocity». The blue sky wall and the circular bench, underline, together, the idea that we all are the sky: «All real living is meeting: (…) every person born into the world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique» (M. Buber).
The presence of a permanent light within the mutilated tree branches, – connecting the sky space with the southwest square-, updates, beyond space and time, the idea of a eternal light.
«The work of memory, here, (…) possible only by the exclusion of (…) utilitarian or everyday function has to be understood in the horizon of the future as a (…) task to be continued in the conscious fulfilment of our condition as men» (F. Shoay).
Ficha técnica
Arquitectura
– Bernardo Pizarro Miranda
– Dina Gonçalves Ferreira
– Susana Rego
– Anat Falbel
– Pedro Saraiva
Imagem 3D
– BPM Arq
Bologna, 2015
