Significant Memorial Buildings

I was browsing the Architectural Digest website and came across an interesting article. Here are some of my favorite pieces of the article. (For the full article, click here)

"The National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center opens on the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the United States. Like other well-known memorials, the fountains designed by architect Michael Arad in the footprints of the twin towers incorporate figurative symbolism, while exploring architecture’s power to express emotion. AD visits the most noteworthy memorials of the modern era from around the world"

Gateway Arch, St. Louis

"Most people don’t think of St. Louis’s celebrated Gateway Arch as a memorial, but in fact it’s the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial built to commemorate the westward expansion of the United States. In the 1948 competition for the memorial design, an unknown Eero Saarinen beat out his famous father, Eliel, with a simple but powerful steel parabola. America’s first modern monument, the 630-foot-high engineering marvel did not begin construction until 1963, two years after its designer’s death."

Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington D.C.

"Just 21 years old and a student at Yale University, Maya Lin was plucked from obscurity and immediately plunged into controversy when her design—a visual scar on the National Mall—won the 1981 competition. The memorial invites the viewer below ground level to read the names of the war’s more than 58,000 dead and missing inscribed on the face of two 247-foot black-granite walls. Decried as an insult to veterans, the simple structure elicited such powerful emotions upon opening to the public that its critics were almost immediately silenced."

Jewish Museum, Berlin

"No museum dedicated to the history of the Jews in Germany can be just a museum. Opened in 2001, Daniel Libeskind’s first major work is arguably his best. Built around the concept of erasure and void, its architecture integrates the meaning of the Holocaust into the consciousness of the city, physically and spiritually. The zigzagging form of its main building, the unusual gradient of the Garden of Exile, and the Holocaust Tower’s claustrophobic container are disorienting, but the architect calls the project an 'emblem of hope.'"

Pentagon Memorial, Washington D.C.

"In a two-acre park near the point of impact of American Airlines Flight 77 on 9/11, the Pentagon Memorial features 184 cantilevered, benchlike “units,” each engraved with the name of a victim, hovering above a pool of water. Somewhat convoluted in its details, Keith Kaseman and Julie Beckman’s design was chosen from more than 1,200 submissions in an international competition."

USS Arizona Memorial, Honolulu

"The USS Arizona is the final resting place for many of the ship’s 1,177 crewmen who lost their lives in the attack on Pearl Harbor 70 years ago. The 184-foot-long memorial, accessible only by boat, sits on the surface above the sunken vessel’s midsection, rising at either end to signify the United States’ ultimate victory. Its designer, Austrian-born Alfred Preis, fled the Nazi takeover of his homeland only to be imprisoned as an “enemy alien” in Hawaii, not far from where his monument now stands."