Travel Journal: International Holocaust Remembrance Day "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe" Berlin, Germany
{Photo is of the Jewish Memorial in Berlin, Germany.}
On a gray, overcast day in Berlin, I first encountered the sea of slate gray oblong forms that comprise the “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe” designed and created by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold.
The memorial is massive, covering 200,000 square feet, and consists of 2711 concrete slabs of equal length and width but of varying heights.
As I stood looking down into the memorial, I wasn’t sure what the designers had intended the forms before me to represent, but something in the lack of color and the density of the concrete forms generated in me a definitive and immediate sense of pathos.
Rather than trying to clarify what I was feeling, I did what I always do – I tried to capture in a photograph what I was feeling, which proved to be difficult because, despite its size, the memorial is somehow subtle and enigmatic.
As I wandered through the memorial, I began to see that although all the slabs were the same shape, each one seemed to me to be strikingly unique and individual.
Specifically, while from a distance, the slabs appeared to be completely smooth, up close I discovered that the sides of each had a distinctive texture, causing each to absorb or reflect the diffused light of the gray day differently.
As a result, all of the slabs took on various shades of gray ranging from near black on the darkest sides to near white on top, but no two were identical.
Finally, from somewhere deep within the sea of slabs, where the rigid geometric placement of the forms seen from the outside disappeared, I took this photo, which I think captured the pathos I had been feeling.
At that moment, I felt as though I was standing in a crowd of still and silent individuals, the nameless, faceless people I was meant to remember and mourn.
I will not forget.
Travel Journal: International Holocaust Remembrance Day "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe" Berlin, Germany
{Photo is of the Jewish Memorial in Berlin, Germany.}
On a gray, overcast day in Berlin, I first encountered the sea of slate gray oblong forms that comprise the “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe” designed and created by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold.
The memorial is massive, covering 200,000 square feet, and consists of 2711 concrete slabs of equal length and width but of varying heights.
As I stood looking down into the memorial, I wasn’t sure what the designers had intended the forms before me to represent, but something in the lack of color and the density of the concrete forms generated in me a definitive and immediate sense of pathos.
Rather than trying to clarify what I was feeling, I did what I always do – I tried to capture in a photograph what I was feeling, which proved to be difficult because, despite its size, the memorial is somehow subtle and enigmatic.
As I wandered through the memorial, I began to see that although all the slabs were the same shape, each one seemed to me to be strikingly unique and individual.
Specifically, while from a distance, the slabs appeared to be completely smooth, up close I discovered that the sides of each had a distinctive texture, causing each to absorb or reflect the diffused light of the gray day differently.
As a result, all of the slabs took on various shades of gray ranging from near black on the darkest sides to near white on top, but no two were identical.
Finally, from somewhere deep within the sea of slabs, where the rigid geometric placement of the forms seen from the outside disappeared, I took this photo, which I think captured the pathos I had been feeling.
At that moment, I felt as though I was standing in a crowd of still and silent individuals, the nameless, faceless people I was meant to remember and mourn.
I will not forget.