Essay 4: Monuments, Testimony & Memory
History, past important events or people who are to be remembered for their sacrifice and giving's for the world peace today can be embodied or emblematized in different manner and different approach's.
Architecture has its own way of communicating to the people and the surroundings around them, most of the beings of the past which are to be remembered dearly for its contribution to the present and the future, speak to us through architecture, although not verbally but visually in a very abstract sense with an intimate and deep meaning behind it.
memorials, museums or monuments are object's which serve as a focus for memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event. it relieves us of the burden of remembering who or what we once loved dearly or the reasons and doer's for our present, being what it is today.
The Jewish museum in Berlin is one of the museums which from my perspective is successful in commemorating the dead and the past happenings, why?? the way the Architect Daniel Libeskind portrayed and integrated the happenings of the past in a simple architectural space is amazing. "If the intellectual narrative which generates Libeskind’s work is complicated and inaccessible to the uninitiated, the building itself should stir emotion in even the most casual visitor" (http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/jewishmuseum) .According to article and my own findings i think that the design is based on a rather involved process of connecting lines between locations of historic events and locations of Jewish culture in Berlin. He has used the concepts of absence, emptiness, and the invisible expressions of the disappearance of Jewish culture in the city to design the building.
Daniel Libeskind expresses different spaces with light, materials openings, lines,shapes, volumes, nature, principles, sounds, views and names which would take back any casual visitor back in history and remind him/her of the past happenings,heroes and sacrifices.
The Holocaust museum is powerful because as a record of life rather than a monument to death, it does not seek to encapsulate the unimaginable, but it also is a little kitsch with its Holocaust void and Garden of Exile. Libeskind even gives the stairwell meaning. As Amnon Barzel says, "there is no form of art that can express the holocaust," which is one reason why the Holocaust memorial project is floundering (http://wso.williams.edu/~mdeean/berlin/libeskind.html)
'I believe that this project joins architecture to questions that are now relevant to all humanity. To this end, I have sought to create a new Architecture for a time which would reflect an understanding of history, a new understanding of Museums and a new realization of the relationship between program and architectural space. Therefore this Museum is not only a response to a particular program, but an emblem of Hope." quoted by Daniel lebiskind.
From a visit to the national monument in Kuala Lumpur. I would say that yes it does reflect or bring me back to the past or the happenings of the past, and also represents or symbolizes the sacrifices made by the heroes of this country in patriotic manner. But it does not have the same effect as the Jewish museum, why??...because the national monument is a very straight forward trip to the past and its happenings, but does not have that feeling or touch to it that the Jewish museum has. The museum expresses the past in a very abstract manner which literally brings back its viewers or visitors to the beings of the past. It expresses the past by materials,light,shadows, lines, volumes and so on. all this abstract meanings produce intimate feelings on its viewers.
The National Monument stands at 15.54m high, and is made up of a diorama of seven bronze human figures, atop an oblong base; each figure denoting one of seven qualities: courage, leadership, sacrifice, strength, suffering, unity and vigilance. instead of using figures and flags, the heroes of Malaysia can be commemorated by simple architecture that denotes all this seven qualities, and the names of the heroes that sacrificed their lives, which are of the utmost importance can be commemorated in a calm and peaceful pool with pebbles with their names engraved on the pebbles, the calmness and peacefulness underwater would represent that the heroes of Malaysia are finally at peace and away from all the commotion and torture endured in their past.
In conclusion, ... ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.John F. Kennedy .
If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday. we have to understand why and how we became who or what we are, search for the source that made today....what today is. Always remember the past and keep it alive in the present by gaining from it and respecting it. realize what shall be remembered and what shall be forgotten. so as to make a brighter future for the ones to come. for they shall remember the happenings of the past like we did.
Architecture has its own way of communicating to the people and the surroundings around them, most of the beings of the past which are to be remembered dearly for its contribution to the present and the future, speak to us through architecture, although not verbally but visually in a very abstract sense with an intimate and deep meaning behind it.
memorials, museums or monuments are object's which serve as a focus for memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event. it relieves us of the burden of remembering who or what we once loved dearly or the reasons and doer's for our present, being what it is today.
The Jewish museum in Berlin is one of the museums which from my perspective is successful in commemorating the dead and the past happenings, why?? the way the Architect Daniel Libeskind portrayed and integrated the happenings of the past in a simple architectural space is amazing. "If the intellectual narrative which generates Libeskind’s work is complicated and inaccessible to the uninitiated, the building itself should stir emotion in even the most casual visitor" (http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/jewishmuseum) .According to article and my own findings i think that the design is based on a rather involved process of connecting lines between locations of historic events and locations of Jewish culture in Berlin. He has used the concepts of absence, emptiness, and the invisible expressions of the disappearance of Jewish culture in the city to design the building.
Daniel Libeskind expresses different spaces with light, materials openings, lines,shapes, volumes, nature, principles, sounds, views and names which would take back any casual visitor back in history and remind him/her of the past happenings,heroes and sacrifices.
'I believe that this project joins architecture to questions that are now relevant to all humanity. To this end, I have sought to create a new Architecture for a time which would reflect an understanding of history, a new understanding of Museums and a new realization of the relationship between program and architectural space. Therefore this Museum is not only a response to a particular program, but an emblem of Hope." quoted by Daniel lebiskind.
From a visit to the national monument in Kuala Lumpur. I would say that yes it does reflect or bring me back to the past or the happenings of the past, and also represents or symbolizes the sacrifices made by the heroes of this country in patriotic manner. But it does not have the same effect as the Jewish museum, why??...because the national monument is a very straight forward trip to the past and its happenings, but does not have that feeling or touch to it that the Jewish museum has. The museum expresses the past in a very abstract manner which literally brings back its viewers or visitors to the beings of the past. It expresses the past by materials,light,shadows, lines, volumes and so on. all this abstract meanings produce intimate feelings on its viewers.
The National Monument stands at 15.54m high, and is made up of a diorama of seven bronze human figures, atop an oblong base; each figure denoting one of seven qualities: courage, leadership, sacrifice, strength, suffering, unity and vigilance. instead of using figures and flags, the heroes of Malaysia can be commemorated by simple architecture that denotes all this seven qualities, and the names of the heroes that sacrificed their lives, which are of the utmost importance can be commemorated in a calm and peaceful pool with pebbles with their names engraved on the pebbles, the calmness and peacefulness underwater would represent that the heroes of Malaysia are finally at peace and away from all the commotion and torture endured in their past.
In conclusion, ... ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.John F. Kennedy .
If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday. we have to understand why and how we became who or what we are, search for the source that made today....what today is. Always remember the past and keep it alive in the present by gaining from it and respecting it. realize what shall be remembered and what shall be forgotten. so as to make a brighter future for the ones to come. for they shall remember the happenings of the past like we did.
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