The Moment of History

International Competition for Vietnamese war Memorial

Honorable mention at First Phase of Competition

Duration : 2016.08

As a method of conveying "deep gratitude" , an artifact or architecture may be not enough.

The proposal recreates the experience of giving gratitude through designed spatial sequences. The memorial is a viewer participatory theater set. The stage elements include perforated metal screens, sound poles, bamboo trees and the visitors.

The journey of mourning begins in the bamboo forest. A bamboo forest, not common in Louisville, isolates the site from the rest of the park. Sounds of wind blowing and footsteps from "sound poles," silhouettes of people passing through the "perforated metal screen," and the "bamboo trees" create a landscape of memory. The proposal creates an atmosphere of unfamiliar nature for the visitors, evoking the experience of the veterans in the beginnings of Vietnam.The visitor becomes a participant and an observer at the simultaneously. Walking through the shaded path of the bamboo forest, viewers are placed momentarily in Vietnam's deep forests. They recall the anxiety and uncertainty that the veterans would have experienced walking amongst the shadows and silhouettes. Engraved on the upper portion of the metal screen is a written history of the Vietnam war and the events that have taken place since then. The top of the structure is designated as an observatory for visitors to view the bamboo forest from atop, where one comes to the sky to tribute and remember those in the light. The proposed projects is a capture of a moment in history that is also a sacred space of mourning and reverence.