The design for a memorial to the victims of the Utøya massecre in Norway is stunning:

[Are_grits_groceries]

Upon the recent conclusion of Norway's July 22 memorial site competition, Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg was unanimously selected by the competition jury to be the designer.

Dahlberg's designs will become the two public-art memorials, each commemorating the 77 victims who tragically lost their lives in the Oslo bombing and Utøya massacre on July 22, 2011.

<snip>
My concept for the Memorial Sørbråten proposes a wound or a cut within nature itself. It reproduces the physical experience of taking away, reflecting the abrupt and permanent loss of those who died. The cut will be a three-and-a-half-meters-wide excavation. It slices from the top of the headland at the Sørbråten site, to below the water line and extends to each side. This void in the landscape makes it impossible to reach the end of the headland.

Visitors begin their experience guided along a wooden pathway through the forest. This creates a five to ten minute contemplative journey leading to the cut. Then the pathway will flow briefly into a tunnel. This tunnel leads visitors inside of the landscape and to the dramatic edge of the cut itself. Visitors will be on one side of a channel of water created by the cut.

Across this channel, on the flat vertical stone surface of the other side, the names of those who died will be visibly inscribed in the stone. The names will be close enough to see and read clearly — yet ultimately out of reach. The cut is an acknowledgement of what is forever irreplaceable."

<snip>
More:
http://www.bustler.net/index.php/article/swedish_artist_jonas_dahlberg_to_design_july_22_memorial_sites_in_norway/

Simple and breathtaking.......

[Fumesucker]

1. K&R

[MADem]

2. Different, certainly. Wonder if it will be hard to maintain?

I also wonder how this will affect the ecology of that chunk of land that people can't get to anymore?

Hopefully any critters trapped on that side can swim?

Alternatively, it might prove to be a great place for animals to hide out and be left alone....

[Doremus]

28. All good points. I hope they've considered them. nt

[LuvNewcastle]

3. Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most poignant.

[DeSwiss]

4. ''Time heals all wounds.''

K&R

[TorchTheWitch]

10. the most untrue and ugliest of quotes I can think of

Not to mention offensive. That's something for people to like to think about other peoples' wounds, not their own. It both trivializes the pain and tragedies we are forced to endure as well as gives offense. As if anyone would say something like that directly to someone who just lost a loved one or survived a tragedy. That quote is nothing more than a more eloquent way of saying "get over it."

[Fumesucker]

16. It's been true for me

Five years ago I was distraught to the point I could hardly function over personal emotional pain, today I hardly think about the issue.

[DeSwiss]

20. Your subject line is nonsensical.

Something is either true or it isn't. If there are degrees of ''trueness,'' they are certainly in the eye of the beholder. As with the concept of ugliness or beauty. Obviously whether it is likewise ''offensive'' is too in the eye of the holder -- and your pointing this out only serves to illustrate this fact more clearly.

To think that you and you alone know what is in someone else's heart is one of the greatest offenses. And yet we humans seem to perpetrate upon one another, ad infinitum.

- People thinking that they know what someone else should say or think is the cause of all our problems. It's why the world is in this fucked-up place to begin with.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

25. No. I'm finding it true in my case. Though lingering pain and scar

May. E there until a person dies, there is no doubt truth to the fact that time and distance does allow the pain to recede.

[Firebrand Gary]

5. Personally, I really hate it...

Destroying nature is something I don't agree with in general, even though this design is clear meant for one to feel as if something is forever gone, out of reach; deep sense of loss. It's so incredibly harsh. Destroying the landscape, to me is a very un-original way of creating a memorial, not to mention its lack of creativity. Point being, there are other ways to evoke what the designer is attempting.

[TorchTheWitch]

8. you and me both

Not only is it ugly as sin it explains nothing and is a horrid scar on nature. I truly believe that the people killed there would never want such a gross remembrance of them. I fail to see how such an ugly desecration of nature is honorable to anyone.

[Bluenorthwest]

13. You do understand that a large sculpture is made from materials cut from the earth

at one place, which is left forever altered, and usually transported to another where it becomes Lincoln in his chair or MLK, whose marble came from China. Mt Rushmore and the in progress Crazy Horse are hewn from mountains.
I'd say Rushmore, Crazy Horse and this design make use of the alteration of nature directly as part and parcel of the piece and the message of the piece, whereas quarried stones taken from one place and moved to 'the memorial' simply exploit the alteration of nature as an unseen part of the process of making the piece, it is a thing done simply to obtain 'materials'. But it sure as hell is done. The place that gives up it's stone is not honored, acknowledged or even mentioned. But the stone is cut from the earth. The 'harm' to nature is forgotten, the 'materials' might come from any number of places, chosen not for place or future location but for appearance and quality.

[Fumesucker]

17. Nicely said, +1

[riderinthestorm]

26. The trees etc that will be removed from that site will be moved to Copenhagen to create

another memorial.

I think its stunning. And I love that the trees, flora and fauna will go to Copenhagen to be incorporated into a memorial there.

[Firebrand Gary]

31. OMG Really? I thought all the memorials you mentioned were made of painted styrofoam.

DU has become an unfortunate wasteland of democrats attacking/insulting one another. It's unfortunate that your entire response is based off the assumption that I am pro granite/marble/stone memorials. Maybe you should read my post again.

I'm personally a fan of the components of Flight 93 Memorial that are based off of planted tree's.

[Martin Eden]

6. Wound the landscape, like Breivik wounded the hearts of the victims family?

Mimicking the act of a deranged killer is not a fitting memorial, IMO.

Breivik was an Islamophobic rightwing extremist who admired the Teaparty movement in the United States. I think the memorial should be something beautiful that extolls peace and the brotherhood of all people regardless of their race or religion.

Don't remember his act of violence with a permanent act of violence on the landscape. Build a monument to what Breivik wanted to destroy.

[CJCRANE]

24. I agree with you.

It would be better to celebrate their lives, maybe with statues or photos or something joyous.

I have the same feeling about the 911 memorial, beautiful as it is, it represents a void.

[Aldo Leopold]

7. Yeah, this sucks.

[Adrahil]

9. I actually love it. Very striking, IMO. NT

[merrily]

11. Anything that helps people heal works for me.

[Brickbat]

12. Love it.

[Bluenorthwest]

14. I like it very much, it speaks of the presence of absence

It is a subtraction rather than addition, and creates a space for experience and emotion to take place without dictating that experience or emotion.

[Paladin]

15. I think it's outstanding. (nt)

[MineralMan]

18. I like it. Negative space and a powerful comment on the

void left by the attack. If there is concern about the habitat, add a small footbridge between the two parts. Bridging the gap is also symbolic.

[Chan790]

19. I think it's brilliantly designed.

I really like it, I think it's a unique and powerful memorial piece.

[Demo_Chris]

21. I think it is both beautiful and brilliant. Perhaps the most moving memorial I have seen. nt

[Hell Hath No Fury]

22. Beautiful.

Very well done. Even just viewing the rendering really hits me.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

23. Very good concept.

Reminds me of the nagative space in WTC memorial with below ground memorial in footprint of towers.

[riderinthestorm]

27. If the Norwegians want this as their memorial, then its their memorial

Personally I think its stunning.

[hunter]

29. Criticisms seem very similar to those of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C. before it was built.

Some public officials voiced their displeasure, calling the wall "a black gash of shame."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial

I think this memorial in Norway is a very positive thing, me, a fairly radical environmentalist.

[deutsey]

30. I like it

I remember the strong reaction against the Vietnam Memorial's design at first; now it's one of the most revered (and powerfully moving) monuments in DC.