architect: KAMJZ
location: Washington DC, USA
World War I is a worldwide forgotten war. There are no longer living veterans to remind us of the importance of this historic event. They can not speak for themselves. So we need to shout. In the US, as in every countries involved, the WWI had a major influence not only on it’s participants or the American Army in general but the whole society and the overall development of the country. After 100 years blocks of granite or marble with engraved names and numbers will not be enough to present and honor in the XXI century the profound and heroic sacrifice and valor of the servicemen and women that made the above mentioned possible. The situation demands a strong gesture to put the WWI commemoration in line with other ”American Century” national memorials after so many years.
The aim of the proposed project is to visually represent its importance and understand how the memorial interacts with the people and the surrounding. A diaphanous structure, composed by horizontal and vertical elements, mass and density variations, is located in Pershing Park, Washington. The scale and gravity of the intervention rise multiple interpretations: recall the profound magnitude of the loss of life and the same time, recall the importance of the United States in the conflict.
Without affecting the existing structures and morphology, the memorial is placed in the park, seeking a dialogue with it, in order that the park and monument could coexist and merge. The memorial aims to establish a connection with the environment, without competing with other important American symbols in the nearby, but looking for a continuity with the adjacent buildings. Visitors intrigued by the exceptional form, visible from afar, could linger for curiosity, or being attracted to this large green cover roof located in the heart of the city, interacting with the place of memory in an active not contemplative way. As a metaphor of the enormous impact that the war had on the American society, the memorial appears like a dissolved building. It does not follow fashions and temporary trends as well as a memorial site traditional concept. The proposed memorial would be timeless and meaningful for many future generations to come.
CREDITS
Architect: KAMJZ
Location: Washington DC, USA
Main Project Architect: Maciej Jakub Zawadzki
Team:Pablo Otero, Artur Zakrzewski, Lazar Djuric, Sofija Lalovic,Silvia Nigro, Łukasz Wenclewski, Michał Polak,
Client: The World War I Centennial Commission, United States Federation for the Commemoration of the World Wars
Advisory bodies: The National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, the National Capital Planning Commission, and the District of Columbia State Historic Preservation Office
