In class this week, we discussed how the architects in "Postcards from the Trenches" utilize empty space to create a sense of absence at war memorials. According to the article, the presence of absence sufficiently represents the lost lives of dead and missing soldiers by visually demonstrating their literal absence from daily life. At the 1919 Peace Celebrations festival in Whitehall, England, absence had a visual and auditory presence when bands stopped playing as they passed the Cenotaph, marking the "place where a million British voices belonged". However, regardless of the thoughtful planning architects put into strategically creating a sense of absence, the effects do not always resonate accordingly with the viewer. A classmate who visited the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, Germany, reported that he did not even realize that the sight was in fact a memorial until he saw a sign labeling it. In this case, the architect's logical planning failed to emotionally touch the viewer. Therefore, despite the trend of constructing war memorials with the presence of quiet absence, I think that war memorials should represent the dead with colorful aliveness. Instead of names on walls and empty coffins, war memorials should display photographs, soldiers' handwritten letters, the pens they used to write those letters, their tattered clothes, mission plans--anything real and alive that forces the viewer to feel the human presence of the soldiers, in order to make their death just as jarring to him or her as it was to the soldier himself. War memorials should let life contradict death.
picture of Holocaust Memorial
I agree with you! Memorials are meant to represent the life of the missing or deceased soldiers, but they only represent the solemn time in their lives. They should represent the happier times as well by adding pictures, messages, notes, and their belongings.
ReplyDeleteWow, I never thought of it like that, but I without a doubt agree. I feel that if they did put more personal things in the memorial it would serve more of a purpose. The purpose of a memorial in the first place is to be a place for family and friends of a deceased loved one can come and remember his or her life. By including personal items, rather than just a wall or statue, it would be easier for people to remember the brave people who sacrificed their lives.
ReplyDeleteI agree, memorials should be more of a celebration of lives rather than a reflection upon what their life used to be. By adding pictures, items, and memories to memorials it will allow the visiors to recognize each individual as a person with a past rather than just a bunch of names on the wall.
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