überwältigt

i. general

there is a lot going on in berlin. every site has a past. to your right, you´ll see a fragment of the wall. and here, this is where karl liebknecht was killed. behind me and to my left, one can see the brick foundation of the SS-headquarters, the ´topography of terror.´

i don´t know very much about architecture, but i have been thinking about it a lot here. space has a memory, a past that must be somehow confronted, dealt with, integrated into the present. what do we want to remember? what do we want to forget? are we going to put a sign up that says ´under this parking lot is the bunker where hitler committed suicide and where his body was burned´? are we going to put a sign on the side of the finance ministry that says ´this was the air force headquarters, where hermann göring had his office´? there is a monument for the murdered jews of europe. should there be one for the gays and lesbians that the third reich massacred with equally malicious intent?

in an anthology i brought along on this trip, the editor j.d. mcclatchy introduces the poet may swenson saying that ´she was aware that description is itself a moral commentary.´ so this is about the past, but specifically, it seems, about how to reprsent the past - how should a community describe its own memory - to visitors and to itself. architectural choices seem to be one of the ´practical´ facets of dealing with a past that speaks to us whether or not we want to hear.

ii. specific

»The enormity and scale of the horror of the Holocaust is such that any attempt to represent it by traditional means is inevitably inadequate ... Our memorial attempts to present a new idea of memory as distinct from nostalgia ... We can only know the past today through a manifestation in the present.« (Peter Eisenman, 1998)

in may 2005, berlin´s holocaust memorial was opened to the public. constructed according to peter eisenman´s design, the denkmal für die ermordeten juden europas is comprised of a visitor´s center underneath the 19.000 square meter ´field of stelae´ - 2711 concrete slabs of varying height, arranged in a grid. because of their different heights (from a few inches up to 4 or 5 meters) and because the are placed on an intentionally uneven surface, together the slabs create a the impression of a wave or ripples on a liquid surface. i learned on my walking tour wednesday that peter eisenman was inspired by wheat blowing in the wind. take it or leave it.

http://www.holocaust-mahnmal.de/en

the monument is open day and night. one can walk along the axes of the grid, seeing the blocks rise up around, some leaning slightly away. one can sit on the low blocks around the edges. i went back thursday evening and jotted down a few notes about what i saw. this is what i wrote:

iii. this is history

yuuuu-lee! yuuu-leee! juuuu-leee!

a young couple murmuring in french emerge from the stone, then fade again into a valley. walking side by side is a tight fit between the slabs.

3 guys my age jump from block to block toward the center of the field. they have gotten the attention of some official, who holds his arms out and pushes his palms toward the ground. Down! the one wearing a visor and camoflage shorts is embarassed. that´s nice.

to my right, another group has climbed up. leaping to the next block, they look through the LCD screens on the back of their pocket cameras. a boy sprints by, chased by his older sister. the french couple reappears at the edge. beyond the crest of the wave i can see the umbrellas outside the café.

yuuu-leeee! juuuu-leeee!

a young woman in a tanktop and playfully short bangs is pacing along the edge of the monument, peering down the rows. her 7 year old son jogs ahead, helping. she whistles between her fingers and anxious calls out juuuu-leeee! juuuuu-leee! she has lost her julie in there.