Today , on entering into the waving field of stelae , one is accompanied by light and sky , but the city ’ s other sights and sounds are gradually occluded , blocked out . From deep in the midst of the pillars , the thrum of traffic is muffled and all but disappears . Looking up and down the pitching rows of stelae , one catches glimpses of other mourners and beyond them , one can even see to edges of the memorial itself . At the same time , however , one feels very much alone , almost desolate , even in the company of hundreds of other visitors nearby . Depending on where one stands , along the edges or deep inside the field , the experience of the memorial varies — from the reassurance one feels on the sidewalk by remembering in the company of others , invigorated by life of the city hurtling by ; to the feelings of existential aloneness from deep inside this dark forest , oppressed and depleted by the memory of mass murder , not reconciled to it .
Where does memory end and history begin here ? As so brilliantly conceived by Dagmar von Wilcken , the exhibition-designer for the “ Orte der Information ”, this site ’ s commemorative and historical dimensions interpenetrate to suggest an interdependent whole , in which neither history nor memory can stand without the other . As one descends the stairs from the midst of the field into the “ Place of Information ,” it becomes clear just how crucial a complement the underground “ information center ” is to the field of pillars above . It neither duplicates the field ’ s commemorative function , nor is it arbitrarily tacked onto the memorial site as an historical after-thought . But rather , in tandem with the field of stelae above it , the place of information reminds us of the memorial ’ s dual-mandate as both commemorative and informational , a site of both memory and of history , each as shaped by the other . While remaining distinct in their respective functions , however , these two sides of the memorial are also formally linked and interpenetrating .
Information Center of the Memorial of the Muredered Jews of Europe , designed by Dagmar von Wilcken
By seeming to allow the above-ground stelae to sink into and thereby impose themselves physically into the underground space of information , the underground Information Center audaciously illustrates both that commemoration is “ rooted ” in historical information and that the historical presentation is necessarily “ shaped ” formally by the commemorative space above it . Here we have a “ place of memory ” literally undergirded by a “ place of history ,” which is in turn inversely shaped by commemoration , and we are asked to navigate the spaces in between memory and history for our knowledge of events . Such a design makes palpable the Yin and Yang of history and memory , their mutual interdependence and their distinct virtues .
Observing Memories ISSUE 1
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