- Title: GERMANY: FIRST OF PLANNED 2,7000 CONCRETE PILLARS FOR HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL ERECTED
- Date: 17th August 2003
- Summary: (W6) BERLIN, GERMANY (AUGUST 16, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. SLV MEMORIAL SITE; SLV / LAS CONCRETE PILLARS (4 SHOTS) 0.20 2. MV /SCU ARCHITECT PETER EISENMAN SPEAKING TO REPORTERS; MV REPORTER TAKING NOTES (3 SHOTS) 0.40 3. (SOUNDBITE) (English) PETER EISENMAN, ARCHITECT, SAYING "I hope that the silence of this project causes all Germans to speak again about what this project means. And it will be the German people that will give meaning to this silence." 0.54 4. WIDE VIEW OF EISENMAN SPEAKING; SCU REPORTERS TAKING NOTES 1.03 5. (SOUNDBITE) (English) EISENMAN, SAYING "Its not like an ordinary commission to do something like this and to keep it out of being kitsch. Certainly when you walk in there there is no feeling of kitsch, there is no feeling of lessening what this means or what it should mean, right. I was not interested in expressing anything. I was interested in not expressing something. I want you who are asking the question to go in there when the 2700 are up and tell me what you feel. You're going to feel something. And that's important. I can't tell you what you feel. This is not something where Peter Eisenman says feel this." 1.43 6. SLV REPORTERS; PAN FROM PILLARS TO EISENMAN AND LEA ROSH, HEAD OF THE FOUNDATION FOR THE MEMORIAL TO THE MURDERED JEWS OF EUROPE; WIDE VIEW OF MONUMENT (5 SHOTS) 2.12 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 1st September 2003 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BERLIN, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Reuters ID: LVA99QR0ELR5L96GOFK8A4DJYJAN
- Story Text: Germany has erected the first of a planned 2,700
concrete pillars for a long delayed Holocaust memorial.
Designed by U.S. architect Peter Eisenman, the
memorial will consist of a maze of pillars standing on a
site the size of four soccer pitches, a stone's throw from
the landmark Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag parliament
building in the heart of Berlin.
Due for completion in 2005 at a cost of more than 26
million euros ($29.3 million), the monument will be a grid
of grey slabs of varying heights designed to leave visitors
unsettled and disorientated. From a distance it will look
like a sea of waves.
Eisenman examined the first 10 pillars erected on the
site on Saturday (August 16) to check the quality of the
slate grey concrete before contractors begin mass
production of the
slabs, the architect said the memorial should remind
Germans to face up to their past.
"I hope that the silence of this project causes all
Germans to speak again about what this project means," he
told reporters beneath the pillars.
Lobbying for the memorial started in 1988, but the
project was repeatedly held up by disputes over its
location, design, cost, building materials and a demand by
the German parliament for an information centre to be
incorporated at the site.
Both Eisenman and Rosh, head of the Foundation for the
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, said the site of
the memorial at the heart of reunited Berlin, not far from
the
bunker where Adolf Hitler committed suicide in 1945 and
incorporating the bunker of his chief of propaganda Josef
Goebbels, was perfect.
Eisenman said he could envisage people having picnics
at the
site and youngsters skateboarding around the slabs and said
he was not worried by the prospect of neo-Nazi vandalism.
The pillars are specially treated to protect against
graffiti.
After long deliberations over what material to use,
Eisenman said he had chosen concrete because using marble
or granite would have made the memorial look like a
cemetery.
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