Somber Design

Unity. Rhythm. Scale and proportion. Pattern and texture. Illusions of space and motion. Design encompasses all of these terms, and every work of art displays them in some way. One powerful work that comes to my mind when these properties are mentioned together, however, is sobering yet unforgettable, and that is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. The topic may be horribly depressing, but the very fact that it has stuck in my mind since I studied it over a year ago shows just how much of an impact even images of it makes on its viewers.

An overview of the memorial show a view which not many are able to experience:

What the average visitor would see would be something more on the lines of this:

(Images both from Wikimedia Commons)

The memorial is composed of hundreds of concrete stelae. There is no writing on them; they are simply large, thick, grey, and unyielding. Although on a grid and of similar shape, their height varies, creating an undulating wave of somber motion. People are expected to pass through the grid but the stelae were placed so close together that any movement is an uncomfortable squeeze, especially when the height of the stelae climb above eye level. It was designed by Peter Eisenman, who built it to purposefully feel awkward, for it both to loom over you than sink into the ground. It’s meant to be uncanny, to give the viewer the feeling that something is wrong without screaming in their faces how atrocious the Holocaust was. It represents both the people who were lost, who sank down into the fog of war, as well as the literal feeling of being trapped in a strange and awful situation. It forces the viewer to feel at least a shadow of the horror of the Holocaust.

Certainly, it’s a somber memorial. But it’s also simple and abstracted with its grid and hundreds of concrete stelae, and this simplicity makes it universally identifiable. Everyone can relate to the serious mood, whether or not they were effected by the Holocaust. Everyone can relate to it, because it was built to drag out the emotions for remembering such an event. This monument reminds us that design can used not only for fashion or graphics, etc. but is mainly meant to illustrate an idea. Good design can be found even in the most serious of settings, but as a society, this design is essential so that we are able to remember what should never be forgotten.