My name is Kirk Savage.
I have been studying
and thinking
about public monuments
and memorials
for longer than I
care to remember.
And therefore, I'm very
happy to be moderating
a panel of professionals
who actually design and make
monuments and memorial spaces.
We have talked a lot at
this conference, I think,
about how to engage publics
in the work of history
and in the work of memory.
We've talked about the different
roles of scholarship on the one
hand, and what we might
call, on the other hand,
the imaginative and effective
and sensory work of novelists,
performers, curators, and so on.
I think this distinction,
though, to my mind,
ultimately breaks down.
Because even the simplest
historical narrative,
I believe, is ultimately
an act of the imagination,
even if it is an imagination
that's been impoverished
in various ways.
So instead of asking
how is public history
an active imagination, I'd like
to flip the question around
in this session and
ask instead, how
is the imaginative
work of architects
and landscape architects
an act of public history?
And I think that we're in an
ideal position, in this panel,
to maybe begin to
address that question.
So I'd like to start by
introducing the three panelists
that we have today.
And I'm going to introduce
them all in a row here from up
at the podium.
And then they'll come
and speak at the podium.
We will all sit in the front
here and gather afterwards
for discussion.
So our first speaker
today is going
to be Rodney Leon who
trained at Pratt and Yale
and founded his own firm Rodney
Leon Architects in New York.
His career has focused on
culturally contextual design,
especially in public spaces.
Some of his recent projects
include a master plan
for the Museum of
Contemporary African
and Diaspora Arts, MoCADA--
is that what this
is referred to--
in Brooklyn, New York,
and a sustainable housing
development in Haiti.
He is best known as the designer
of the African Burial Ground
Memorial in lower
Manhattan, which
we heard about
this morning, which
is both a commemorative and a
spiritual space designed for--
and I'm quoting here--
"acknowledgment, contemplation,
meditation, reflection,
healing, education, and prayer."
In the memorial field,
his most recent honor
is winning a large international
design competition sponsored
by the United Nations
for a memorial
to the victims of slavery
and the transatlantic slave
trade located on the
U.N. plaza in New York.
His winning project,
The Ark of Return,
was unveiled there
just last year in 2015.
Sara Zewde is a designer working
with the landscape architecture
firm of Gustafson Guthrie
Nichol based in Seattle.
She trained in landscape
architecture at the Harvard
University Graduate
School of Design
and also received a master's
of city planning from MIT.
She's received numerous
awards and fellowships.
And for several years she has
spearheaded the design effort
for a very complex and
politically-difficult project
in Rio de Janeiro, working
with the mayor's office
and a local
Afro-Brazilian community
to create a circuit
of African heritage
in the city's downtown,
which we'll be hearing
a lot more about I think.
And finally, we are
very happy to have
Pascal Berthelot, who is an
architect based in Guadeloupe.
He trained and worked
initially in Paris
before returning to Guadalupe
and forming the firm
Berthelot [INAUDIBLE] in 1992.
He and his firm have done
work master planning, housing
projects, and various
design competitions
and public commissions
across the French Caribbean.
In 2007, he and his
team won the competition
for the design and
implementation of the Memorial
Act, which we've also heard
about at the conference
and were introduced
to yesterday.
He was the main coordinator
of the project, which
was completed in 2015,
along with 10 other firms
that he was working with.
He is also passionate
about jazz,
and is the General Secretary
of the Cocoon Jazz Club
recently created in Guadalupe.
So without any
further adieu we'll
have Rodney up to the stage.
And I look forward
to hearing more.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Good afternoon.
I'm very excited
about being here.
Unfortunately, they
only give us 10 minutes.
So I'm going to try to read,
and at the same time pace myself
through the slides.
Because I wanted to present
both the Ark of Return
and the African Burial
Ground Memorial as part
of the presentation today,
but talk a little bit more
specifically about process
and conceptual frameworks
for how we approach the
projects themselves.
Bear with me.
I'll see if I can get
this light turned on.
Much of my academic
and professional career
has been engaged in a process
of attempting to understand how
culture helps to form the
basis of my modern identity,
and in doing so, searching for
formal architectural language
expresses of this belief.
The design of memorials
in urban spaces
are unique and ideal type
typology through which
to explore these ideas.
Through memorialization
it becomes obvious
that culture and history are two
of the most powerful catalysts
in the evolution of our
collective identity and memory.
However, prior to
instilling and initiating
the formal process
the design, it
is important to establish
specific goals and objectives
as a kind of manifesto.
Architecture of memorialization
must communicate and educate.
As a timeless teacher, the
architecture of memorialization
must communicate history
for generations to come.
We also believe
that a memorial must
have a significant and a
powerful urban presence,
especially in the context of
the large buildings when you're
dealing with urban environments,
which can often overwhelm
the significance
and the sensitivity
and the significance
of a smaller project.
The form, function, and
ritual behind the elements
also constituting a design
should be inspired or derived
from precedents or concepts
of historical and cultural
relevance.
The design must also utilized
recognizable iconography
and images that are
symbolically transformed
in order to identify the sight
universally in people's minds.
We believe that
memorial sites must also
be a place of
pilgrimage designed
as sacred sites and the
memorial of sacred object,
dealing with the issues
of death, loss, tragedy,
and triumph.
It's design shall be a place
of collective acknowledgement
and reflection.
It must speak to all people.
It's beauty, meaning,
and power should
be expressed in a
formal language that
transcends differences.
Through the
expression of ritual,
visitors can become
active participants
through verbal and physical
action and movement.
One should be able to see,
touch, feel, and even listen
as part of the experience.
For the Ark of Return, which
is our design for the United
Nations permanent memorial
to the victims of slavery
and the transatlantic
slave trade,
three distinct phrases
were established
as a theme the competition.
Acknowledge the tragedy.
Consider the legacy.
Lest we forget.
These are three multiple
points of inspiration,
and the Ark of
Return is organized
around this three-part theme.
The primary formal
element uses the triangle,
which references the
triangular slave trade.
The maps of the
slave trade, which
show the exchange
of human beings
and the routes taken during the
Middle Passage are shown here.
The triangles come together,
eventually collectively to form
a shape, reminiscent
of a vessel or a ship,
meant to acknowledge
the fact that it
was the physical ships
that transported millions
of African people to
the Western hemisphere.
We also were
inspired by the Door
of No Return at the House
of Slaves in Goree Island
off the coast of the
Dakar in Senegal,
which I recently visited.
In manifests the
reality of people
being taken against their
will through a door,
never to return.
As a counterpoint to
that, the Ark of Return
proposes a spiritual
vessel and a sacred space
that psychologically
and ritualistically
is meant to transport
visitors and ancestral
spirits to a place where
the historic tragedy can
be transcended through
acknowledgement and reflection
so that a process of
healing can take place.
Upon one's arrival at the Plaza
in the north of the United
Nations General
Assembly building,
one is greeted by the image of
a large, glowing, white, marble
form, prominently placed on
a central axis in the plaza.
These are some of
the sketches which
form the inspiration for the
design of the Ark of Return.
You can see that,
in the distance,
a triangular window at
the side of the monument
starts to call out to you and
draws one towards the object.
On axis with this
opening, if you
are able to move
closer to it, is
featured on the
interior of this space
a map of the Western hemisphere
with the African continent
prominently featured
on this map.
It is the first element in
acknowledgment of the tragedy.
You can kind of slide
slightly make it out
in the window on the
image on this screen.
As you kind of are
drawn closer, you'll
be able to look and
see that engraved
on our locations of
transshipment points
where people were known
to have been taken
to different parts
of the world, it
depicts the global scale
complexity and impact
of the Triangular Slave Trade in
acknowledgment of the tragedy.
Through the window,
you can also grasp
the image of a second element--
a full-scale human figure
lying horizontally.
These elements are meant
to entice and pull visitors
into and through the
space of the memorial.
A triangular opening serves
as the primary entrance point
to this memorial.
That illuminated
triangle opening
is a space that one is
invited to pass through.
And this illuminated
portal is somewhat
reflective of a
new door of return
that becomes the entrance
to the Ark of Return.
And it's on axis on the
north and south and east
and west of the plaza.
The approach reveals the
multiple interactive elements
that exist within the space.
You can almost make out
the outstretched hand
of the Trinity figure,
which reinforces
the invitation for visitors
to seriously consider
the legacy of the
transatlantic slave trade
and the physical
conditions endured
by millions of African people
during the Middle Passage.
The figure represents
acknowledgement
of the men, women, and
children who perished,
and their spiritual return.
Once you're within the space,
a window also frames a view out
to the plaza to the west.
An oculus also provides
additional light
to the interior of the space
and frames the view to the sky
above.
You can make out in the sky
the flag of the United Nations.
As you pass through
the space and if you
back towards the
interior, all the elements
themselves are revealed to you.
And on the left,
you can actually
make out the engraved
relief of the slave ships
that were inspired
by earlier on.
After passing through,
the final element
is a triangular [? font ?] that
points us towards and forward
into the future as a reminder
for visitors to stay vigilant,
lest we forget.
The second project
that was in May, 1981
while the United States General
Services Administration was
preparing to build a federal
office tower on Broadway
between Duane and Reade streets
when the first human remains
of the 18th century
African burial ground
were accidentally uncovered.
The discovery of
the burial ground
called into question
the conventional history
that slavery in
the United States
was primarily a
southern institution.
The presence of the burial
ground brings light to the fact
that New York City was
not only a major slave
port, but at one time
the second largest
enslaved population in
Colonial America in the 1700s.
During that time,
African descendants
comprised between 14% and
21% of the city's population.
And the burial ground
is widely considered
one of America's
most significant
archaeological finds
of the 20th century.
And in 1993, the burial
ground was designated
a national historic landmark.
The design for the burial ground
was conceived as an ancestral
libation chamber.
And the visitor's
experience is expressed
through the multiple
mediums of expression.
These mediums of expression,
of form, space, symbol, image,
text, ritual, and memory are
also communicated through seven
component elements incorporated
to the memorial's design.
On October 4, 2003,
the remains of 419
exhumed African descendants
were ceremonially
re-interred in separate
hand-carved wooden coffins
from [INAUDIBLE].
The zone of ancestral
re-interment
is marked by seven
burial mounds that
acknowledged the sacred
nature of this area located
along the entrance plaza
to the memorial site.
On the north wall, facing
Duane Street, surrounded
by a series of large
government buildings,
we also established a
Wall of Remembrance.
This Wall of Remembrance
with text incorporating
the phrases, (READING)
"for all those
who are lost, for all
those who were stolen,
for all those who
were left behind,
and for all those who
are not forgotten,"
are also framed adjacent to
an Adinkra symbol of Sankofa
prominently featured
adjacent to that.
On the southern wall of
the ancestral chamber,
we have established a
memorial wall inscribed
with a map that
serves to clarify
the extent of the 18th century
burial grounds actual size.
This historic map or historic
map is superimposed upon
the existing city grid to reveal
the true scale of the hidden
four-acre national
monument site,
which is significantly larger
than the exposed 1/4-acre
memorial site.
The form of the
ancestral chamber
is a synthesis of
traditional and monumental
African archetypes, representing
the soaring African spirit,
embracing and comforting
all those who enter.
One enters the ancestral chamber
through the door of return.
The ancestral
chamber is a vessel
that serves to take us
back to an original place
where we all began.
The interior of the
ancestral chamber
provides a sacred space for
individual contemplation,
reflection, meditation,
prayer, and healing.
It is open to the sky and to
the lower level court, providing
a transitional zone between
the more secular space above
and the more sacred space below.
The circle of the
diaspora, comprised
of signs, symbols,
and images engraved
around the perimeter wall
encircling the libation court.
And these symbols come
from different parts
of the African diaspora.
The symbolic
meaning is described
below each of these symbols
and each of these images.
As one circulates around
the perimeter of the court
and spirals down
the processional /
these symbols present
themselves as a reminder
of the complexity and
diversity of African culture's
manifestations.
The spiral processional ramp
itself descends down four feet
below street level, thereby
bringing the visitor
physically, psychologically,
and spiritually closer
to the ancestors and the
original re-interment level.
The libation court, which is a
communal gathering space where
small to medium-scale public
cultural ceremonies can occur,
is the last element.
Inscribed in the surface
of the libation court
is a map suggested of
the migration of culture
from Africa to Europe, to North
America, South America, Central
America, and the Caribbean.
This spiritual space
is where reconsecration
of the African burial
ground [INAUDIBLE]
will continually take
place during libation
or other ceremonial rituals.
The ritual of libation
is an act which
will serve as an offering
and acknowledgement linking
past, present, and
future generations
in the spirit of Sankofa.
The last slide is a slide of
Citadelle Laferriere, which
is a fortress constructed
in the 18th century in Haiti
by the Haitians after their
liberation from France in 1804.
And that particular construction
I think of in some ways,
now that it's not
functioning, as kind
of like a monument
and a memorial
at the same time in itself
to slavery that really
also is a monument
to resistance.
So I wanted to put that up there
because I think that we often
think of memorials as something
that we can construct.
But we don't often
look back at our past
and look back at
things that were done
and try to re-transform
them into something
that could be used for
the future in terms
of communication
and the significance
of the history of the past.
So with that being said,
I think my time is up.
And thank you for giving
me this opportunity.
[APPLAUSE]
So architecture, like
many of your own fields,
is a practice that is
bound by the limits
of its cultural assumptions.
The memorial is an example
of a typology of design
whose genealogy is bounded by
particular spatial traditions,
namely those associated
with stillness,
silence, and a scale that
overwhelms the human body.
My work, in general, focuses
on how spatial culture
can be used as a
creative departure
to expand traditions of design.
[INAUDIBLE], the [? Volungal ?]
Port in Rio de Janeiro,
depicted here in a painting
entitled [INAUDIBLE],
or Arrival.
An estimated 22% of
all Africans brought
to the Americas via the
transatlantic slave trade pass
through Rio de Janeiro.
And this is the point of
arrival for millions of them.
As slavery would
become more lucrative,
investors upgraded this
wooden deck to a stone jetty
in 1811, which ended up
being a good investment,
as in only the first 20
years of that upgrade,
over 1 million Africans
walked across the stones.
This is an image
taken of the bay
the year before the slave
trade was officially
made illegal in 1888.
So keep this image in your head
when we go to the next slide.
That image is taken from
this hill looking over what
was, at the time, water.
This is the slave port.
And this was the
historic coastline.
So since that time,
there have been a number
of landfill operations.
And today, the
coastline is here.
So this removed the
slave port from view
as the city was built atop it.
Until 2011 when construction
workers uncovered
the ruins of the stone
jetty surprisingly
well-preserved below
the street, in response
to the outcries of
activists, the mayor
told newspapers the
city would quote,
"design a memorial
that would represent
the black experience."
That year I received a grant
to research this story.
And the activist
I was interviewing
put me in contact with
the mayor's office
where I was able to ask the
question, what the hell does
it mean to design
the black experience?
Basically they were like,
we are open to ideas.
Could you design it?
So over the last five years I've
continued to work with the city
on design development of this
site and the neighborhood known
as [? Picana, ?] [? Africa. ?]
I'd actually like
to take a moment
to recognize the folks
from the City Hall.
They came from Rio de Janeiro.
[? Washington ?]
and [INAUDIBLE].
Can we give them a
quick hand for coming
on this journey with me?
Going into this
project I knew what
the mayor's office had in mind.
The typology of the
memorial is rooted
in the notion of monumentality
of ancient Roman and Greek
empires.
They're fashioned around the
notion of an event, a war,
a hero, a triumph, a tragedy,
to trigger emotions outside
of the everyday.
Even memorials that
speak to slavery
tend to co-opt the
language of monumentality,
leaving unresolved the fact
that slavery was not an event.
It was 400 years of the
way the world operated,
its effects still present today.
This should suggest a
break in a formal language.
So my entry point was to reflect
on how many African traditions
of philosophy,
art, and space are
rooted in a circular
notion of time and memory.
So looking back some
300 million years,
we see that the slave war
of the [? Kaij de Volongo ?]
actually was connected to the
southwest coast of Africa.
To this day, these lands
share the same soil type
and floristic characteristics.
So on this map, you see the
slave trade routes in light
gray.
And you see the
shared soil regions--
[? ladicilic ?] red soil--
and their relationship
to the different, basically
Afro-American traditions
and their relationship
to the soil.
You also see on top the
dominant ocean vectors.
Africans actively brought
a lot of the plants
with them on the ships and
were able to establish them
in the new world.
A lot of times in Brazil the
plants actually flourished.
And people were able to
reconstitute their traditions--
their plant-based rituals.
But in some cases,
the ocean vectors
actually brought with
them some of those plants.
And those plants
established themselves
before the Africans arrived,
due to their flotation devices.
So when the Africans arrived
and they saw some of the species
that they recognized,
it's said that that's
when they knew that
their gods were present.
So zooming in on
this dot right here
is the [? Kaij de Volongo. ?]
And this
would have been the view
arriving in the port
where some of the first
glimpses of the vegetation
and the red soils
would have been.
And you see the stone jetty
of the [? Kaij de Volongo ?]
there.
So if you were sick on arrival
upon entering the stone jetty
you were taken down this
street where there was a slave
hospital in order to
heal you and get a better
price before your purchase.
If you didn't make it or
you were dead on arrival,
you were thrown in this
open burial ground here.
But most likely what happened
is you, upon arrival,
were taken down this central
corridor in this triangular
plaza there known as
the deposit, where
for two to three weeks you
went through a period of taming
and fattening,
during which time you
were stored in one of
the many warehouses that
lined the streets until
the time of your sale.
And those sales often took
form in the small plazas
and open spaces around the city.
So I took that historic analysis
that you see at the bottom
here and linked that to
the contemporary city grid,
and found that a
lot of these spaces
actually still exist with
no sign of their history.
So looking at the mayor's
redevelopment plan in the area,
there were identified
a number of parcels
where our intervention
could expand to include.
I also used the
form of the diagram
to explore the spatial cultures
in the neighborhood that
are largely based in
Afro-Brazilian tradition.
And I use this as a
method of communicating
with community members
about how I was interpreting
what I was seeing.
I'll give you an
example of one of these.
[TRIBAL MUSIC PLAYING]
So what we're looking at
here is an animated diagram
of looking at how bodies
take over urban spaces
and the practice of Capoeira,
an Afro-Brazilian martial art.
While the assignment was
to design a memorial,
this sort of analysis made
clear that the memory was really
embodied in the use
of these spaces,
and that any approach
to design should really
be about supporting
what is already
an active design
in and of itself,
and is this sort
of ritualistic use
and in carving the space
over time [INAUDIBLE].
So I designed not a
discrete memorial,
but what you see here--
somewhat of a large
strategic master plan
of a series of designs
that are interwoven
in the everyday
space of the city,
resulting in eight
concrete designs
that the city could include
in their redevelopment
plan, each one of these
using historical vegetation.
A lot of these species
are not supposed
to be planted in
public landscapes,
as they are non-native.
However, the notion
of plant nativity
is defined by which
plants were there
when the Europeans arrived.
So this is an arbitrary moment
in the constant migration
of plants.
Having made this point,
we were given support
that we could continue
to pursue our idea.
So let's look at a
couple of the designs
to see how this
process hit the ground.
We'll start here at the
[? Kaij de Volongo ?]
itself-- the
archaeological site.
Currently, there is
an obelisk dedicated
to the Empress of Portugal
built with the intent
to cover up the site after
the end of the trade.
Community activists pushed to
have it moved or at least moved
over.
But the city refused,
citing the Empress too
was part of history.
The community's
reaction was, OK,
let's design something taller.
However, our approach
evolved, and ended up
being instead of using height
as a demonstration of power,
that we would actually employ
Afro-Brazilian spatial language
and its own definitions of
power to set up a much more
powerful and profound dialogue.
So historical mappings
reveal that the extent
of the archaeological site
is actually much bigger.
The Wharf is much bigger
than the site is today--
the archaeological site.
So I proposed a parcel swap
between what this is currently.
This is where this hospital
has its trash receptacle.
So I proposed moving it
to this vacant property
that they currently owned so
that we could expand the site
and also make center
of this entrance
into the Favela da
Providencia where
a number of the descendants of
this history currently live.
Also the ficus genus
is a genus that
was native to both continents.
And Afro-Brazilians believe
that the base of this tree
is the place where
the ancestors gather.
And they mark that through
a wrapping of white fabric
or white walls around
the base of the tree.
So I explored in plaster the
forms that a wrapping could
suggest, and in design made
this sort of [? wrap-formed ?]
the circulation system
from the Favela--
from this historic street--
to form the sort of
suggestive circular forms
for those traditions
that happened
in these circular
typologies, and also
linked it to this
historic building, which
I don't know if
I'm allowed to say,
but is under consideration
for a National
Museum of Afro-Brazilian
history and culture.
So this is all
wrapped in a planting
of ficus trees for
shade, but also to mark
where the ancestors gathered.
So as opposed to the
sort of boxed form
that the archeology
site normally takes,
the wrap sort of smudges the
boundary between archeology
and the city, between every
day, between past, present,
and future.
So let's look at this site here.
Today, there's kind of a row
of underutilized warehouses
on the coast.
So I proposed
removing the one that
is aligned with what would
have been the last few feet
of the African journey.
There are a number of
Afro-Brazilian traditions
related to the
sea, but the bay is
polluted and dangerous to touch.
So the question became
how do we design something
to allow those practices
to happen here?
I proposed a plaza with a
thin half inch scrim of water
that would reflect the sky.
And it being just
above open water
kind of gives a
sensation of infinity
and activates
Afro-Brazilian traditions,
but also gives children in the
neighborhood a place to play,
offers micro-climate
refreshing to urban dwellers
in the Brazilian heat.
So it's this layering
of every day and memory.
So I'll show one last one.
The design for this historic
coastline which is now
a street really came from
this idea of the street
was not only the
coastline 100 years ago,
but 150 million years ago
it was touching Africa.
And so these are
some early sketches
of what could a graphic say
about the landmasses sort
of stretching and
pulling back together.
So I proposed downgrading
vehicular traffic
and privileging one
side of the street
to allow this sort of
seam to open up and have
enough space for vegetation--
again the same
African vegetation.
So the seam is sort
of ripping apart
and the vegetation
is coming through.
So this would be
using red pavers,
again representing the red
soils of the two continents.
And it's a graphic that can
be illuminated and legible
from the favelas above.
So this is a bench
design that includes
the vegetation and
also inscriptions
that could serve as a motif
around the neighborhood.
So aggregated, it sort of leads
you through the neighborhood
and also layering the everyday
again with the memory.
This is a large-scale
model I was working with
to understand the relationship
between these spaces.
Here you see the rat
and how it centers,
the entrance into the
favela, and the sort
of graphic legibility of
the historic coastline.
So the constellation
sort of goes up
to the top of the
favela from where
you can look down and see the
plaza with water overlooking
the bay.
So this project is
sort of territorial,
but it does take a lot
of different forms.
Sometimes it's subtle.
Other times it's not.
Other times it's just about
inscription, and then times
it does more about
contextualizing the history
around.
But in every
instance, it's really
about upholding this idea
that the memory actually
lives within the uses of the
spaces that we see every day.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm French [INAUDIBLE],
but Guadalupian [INAUDIBLE]
from the Caribbean.
So I apologize for my English.
And I have Karen
to bring with me,
because she will help me
to do this presentation.
So I'm a representative
of four architects
who worked on the competition.
It was a competition in
Guadalupe for the Memorial Act.
And I've organized this
presentation in two
[? pole-- ?] what we
found, and what we do.
What we found is talking
about association context,
because we have a lot of
association in our island.
Talking about original
political demand,
the geographic place, the
town of Point-a-Pitre,
history of the
site, the program,
the cultural and political
context of literature.
So in this project was a
demand of the population
via the Association.
Then you have [INAUDIBLE]
who was a leader.
[? He ?] takes a
project and [INAUDIBLE].
And Victorin Lurel who
was chief of the region
said, OK, I understand
what you mean.
I understand what the population
means, and I'm going to do it.
So this [? card ?] is the
blue is the French Island
in the Caribbean.
It's just to say that
we are three area,
and others are speaking English
in red, and Spanish in green.
So it's difficult for us
to exchange literature,
to talk with our--
what's that?
Neighbors.
Our neighbors because we
have not the same language.
And that is important
to understand
the context of assimilation
and other nations.
Didn't We can't have
with colonialism
when we are alone in this area.
So that's the town
of Pointe-a-Pitre.
You have the urban frame
colonial with rectangular.
And all the part
of Pointe-a-Pitre
was popular was no
frame but is the port.
And our project is
on this [? parcel. ?]
On this land you can see it
was a museum [INAUDIBLE].
It was a sugar factory.
A sugar factory.
And because [INAUDIBLE] made
in 1867 on this [FRENCH]
So the factory stopped in 1980.
[INAUDIBLE] here are some views
of the rest of the [INAUDIBLE]
of the factory.
And this building is
going to be rebuilt
because it was a famous
building of the [FRENCH].
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
That's where we paid the
workers in this building.
Yeah.
So it was a social demand
to keep it on the site.
So since competition
requirements,
they give us because
they walk on it before.
It's a competition
where [INAUDIBLE].
In 2007.
And we have a program.
And then we overpass the
preserves-- the response--
because it was too small.
And we say, oh, we are looking
for walker into [INAUDIBLE].
In the bay.
In the bay.
And we [? want cargo. ?] We
want tourist boat [INAUDIBLE].
So we have to be long.
We don't have to be high.
So I want to talk
about our culture,
because it's very important
cause we're still French.
English island can't
understand what I say,
because English colonization was
[? erupted. ?] And then French
colonization is
[? passengers. ?]
Insidious.
Insidious because we were,
instead of [SPEAKING FRENCH].
1848.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
Until--
No.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So 1848 to 1946.
On the day we were a colony.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So from 1946 until today.
We are department.
Now we're a Department.
But nothing has really
changed about the power.
OK.
[LAUGHING]
Everybody understands that.
So in our culture,
[SPEAKING FRENCH] OK.
It says that we have
to write our culture
and don't write your
culture of the colonizer.
The colonizer.
Yes.
The colonizer.
He talks about
cultural alienation.
And he says that after that
we have to open to the world.
After that.
And Glissand says
make a lot of them--
[? Creole, ?] [? Creolity, ?]
[? Creolization. ?] Three
things, three differences.
But we are not to
talk about recently.
But it was important
for us to approach
to [? see this ?] approach.
And it was important
because in [FRENCH]--
2001.
The French Parliament
passed a law
declaring slavery a
crime against humanity.
Then President of the French
Republic Jacques Chirac
asked it all right
and [INAUDIBLE]
to lead the reflection of the
constriction of the National
Center of the Memory of
Slavery and [INAUDIBLE].
It was supposed to be
a building in France.
So Edouard Glissand made a book
he called Memoir [INAUDIBLE].
And he would describe
this building.
And he reads that, because it
was before the competition.
[INAUDIBLE]
OK.
So after Glissand, we
have read Frantz Fanon.
We read also Patrick Chamoiseau.
He made a book, [INAUDIBLE].
So Karen is going
to read for you.
He writes, "How can you write
when your imagination is spent
from dawn to dreams with
images, thoughts and values
that do not belong to you?
How can you write when you
are and what you are vegetates
outside of the momentum
shaping your own life?
How can you write when
you are dominated?
So that's a crucial question
because we are a Department,
but our own cultural
model comes from France.
So Patrick Chamoiseau says,
I don't think I'm French.
Perhaps I'm American.
Perhaps I am African.
Perhaps I am Indian,
Chinese, Syrian, Lebanese.
Perhaps I am [INAUDIBLE].
That all makes me Creole.
That's what I am.
And Christiane Taubira,
which was minister
in the government [INAUDIBLE].
2001.
Yes.
And Christiane Taubira
says that [? effective ?]
we have to be together.
OK, we have a lot of problems,
but we cannot make a fragmented
society.
That was important for
[? hers ?] [? too. ?]
And then the last one we found
a memorial of [INAUDIBLE].
It was made by Mr.
Bonder, who is here.
Yes.
And [? Wodizoko. ?]
And you know,
we know the world because
we're working with symbols.
So [? Karen ?] is going to read.
(READING) Step by
step, the artist
lays out his point of view.
The term memorial
relates to commemoration,
which is defined
as something that
is used to preserve the memory
or the knowledge of a person
or event, but is also akin
to the word memento, which
is something used to warn
or to remember with a view
to influence future events.
OK.
It's from a book a book of
[? Memorial ?] [INAUDIBLE].
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So we have all of
this reflection.
Then, we said, OK,
how are we going
to do it with all of that?
So in town, it's a tribute
and speak to the future.
In town, we know this place.
This place is a [INAUDIBLE]
place you have here.
This one is a military place.
In all Caribbean, all the
places are military places
because they want
to put man in rows.
And the place is a plaza.
So all of those plazas are where
they have the military lineup.
Yes.
To go to the mountain to
bring back the people escape.
[INAUDIBLE]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
That escaped.
That escaped.
So we say first we are
going to make a place.
The second one we are
going to make a place which
is not a military place.
And the symbol is OK,
it's the first place
in [? our ?] Caribbean that
is not a military initiative.
And then in competition we
have [INAUDIBLE], this one,
which is [INAUDIBLE].
And then you can
see [INAUDIBLE].
And [INAUDIBLE] is a place
we can [SPEAKING FRENCH].
So it's a plaza where you
take the commemoration.
Commemoration.
It's under the arc.
And it is [SPEAKING FRENCH].
So it's the final
step of the plaza.
So that's some sketch about
what the competition was like.
You can see the building,
a bridge, [INAUDIBLE]
of the memory, and then a
proposition of composition
of [INAUDIBLE].
So the building we
read Derek Walcott
who told us that yesterday
we were talking about anger.
I think it was yesterday.
Yeah.
So no anger to draw.
No anger to propose a
solution, but based on hope.
And we want to try that.
We see that on the site.
It is a building was there.
It used to have water
in it [INAUDIBLE].
But now it is not on.
And we see the stone.
And we see this tree
growing in the stone,
and it grows up
to go to the sun.
And we say, OK,
that's good for us,
because it is how [INAUDIBLE].
It is our culture.
It is our vegetation.
Vegetation.
Vegetation.
And it can be our symbol.
You have the granite here.
And you have
[? transpositioned ?]
the vegetation to go to the sky.
And we experience that.
We say, OK, silver
roots on a black box.
Roots.
OK?
We understand that because
you can take substance
in the black box.
And the black box is the
history of our Caribbean trade
and slave.
And it is a room of
[SPEAKING FRENCH].
So 1,700 square meters.
Yes.
[? It's ?] where you
can see all the history.
And we say when you
know this history,
you can grow [? it. ?]
When you know
this history-- you
know your history-- you
can go to the future with it.
And that's a message we can
say with this architecture.
So we use symbols.
So that's a granite.
The granite has some
[? inscription. ?]
Sparkling pieces of gold.
Yes.
Sparkling pieces of gold.
You know?
And when the sunlight is
on, they're just blinking,
and they say, OK, we are there.
[LAUGHING]
Yeah.
I say, OK, thank you.
You are with us, because
we go to the future.
OK.
So is some sketch
from the [INAUDIBLE].
From the lattice work.
The lattice.
Yes.
The lattice.
And it was like a
[? goal ?] for us.
We wanted to have a
good [SPEAKING FRENCH].
A good treatment of it.
Yeah.
Because, you know, it was noble.
Noble?
Noble.
Noble.
Noble.
It was noble for us.
It was like [INAUDIBLE].
You know that chain of the
[? slavery ?] in our Caribbean
they make it like gold.
They make it like
they transform it.
Like Renee Menil
say, we [INAUDIBLE]
and turn them into diamonds.
And that is what we wanted
to do with these [INAUDIBLE].
Just to show you how
[INAUDIBLE] compilation,
you can see the beginning,
transposition, [INAUDIBLE]
on the walk.
Just by [SPEAKING FRENCH].
20 meters.
20 meters.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
And that designer,
because we [INAUDIBLE],
you see there that
is not regular.
That is not regular.
When the wind pushes the
[? far ?] [? side, ?] they have
to be [? regular ?] because
it's an application of a force.
And the force is [INAUDIBLE].
So you can make
something [? regular. ?]
And you say, oh, I
want [INAUDIBLE].
And you say, I want 2 meters
in each row [SPEAKING FRENCH].
On the pillars.
Yes.
And then we go.
But you say, no, we want
another [SPEAKING FRENCH].
Another organizing or
another [INAUDIBLE].
Yeah.
Another organizing.
And we base it on
the madras fabric,
because in 1848 when slavery
was abolished in Guadalupe,
in 1854 Indians came to
the country with contract
because there was nobody
on the plantation.
But they worked in
the same conditions.
So it's just a
[SPEAKING FRENCH].
It's just a wink [? too. ?]
OK.
OK.
So it was, for our culture,
because it is now our culture,
for the color also, madras
teaches us a lot of things.
That's why we say we are linked.
So after that we have
[INAUDIBLE] because you have
[SPEAKING FRENCH].
That's the Exposition Room.
Exposition.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
That's the temporary
exhibition room.
Yeah.
And [SPEAKING FRENCH]
with the [INAUDIBLE].
We are going to talk about that.
And you have this bridge.
The bridge will go to the hill.
[INAUDIBLE] the
bridge is very light
because it was made by a
famous architect in France.
His name is [? Mark ?]
[INAUDIBLE].
He was a [? laureate ?]
[INAUDIBLE] [? prize ?] last
year.
So he worked with us to do that.
So that was a [INAUDIBLE]
works in his office in Paris.
And [SPEAKING FRENCH] how
it is [SPEAKING FRENCH].
It's very light.
Very light.
So here is lattice on the sun.
The walk of the
sun was a lattice
on the back of the building.
And we say that we have a lot
of [? wide ?] [? proportion. ?]
But it is not like
this building,
because this building was
built in 1930 after a big
[? storm. ?] [SPEAKING FRENCH]
After a hurricane.
After a hurricane.
And the French said
to [? architects ?]
to come in Guadalupe
to say to reconstruct
all the administration
judge buildings.
And they make a high proportion,
but it was not in homage.
It was to [? fear ?] the
population to say, OK,
I am the leader.
I am the state.
I am the state.
I am big.
I am strong.
And you have to learn
that I am there.
That I am the leader.
Yeah.
That's important.
So we know we try to put it
in different [INAUDIBLE].
We are talking about symbol.
And I took this man who
was [? an allegorical ?]
representation of a person of
social form, because, you know,
symbol is a [? potomitan. ?]
It was a symbol for us
of the position of the
woman in our history.
We think that a
woman's [? wear ?] is
the [? potomitan ?]
of the family.
And it's an homage.
It's a tribute.
It's a tribute.
It's a tribute.
So it's a sculpture.
But we did it because
[? potomitan ?]
like [INAUDIBLE]
that's the fabrication.
[INAUDIBLE]
Potomitan, for us, is
you can find potomitan
in all the Caribbean.
You can find it as the
Indians in South America,
because [INAUDIBLE] have
a kind of potomitan.
In voodoo you can
have [INAUDIBLE]
you have a potomitan.
It represents the axis mundi.
You can go in it.
You can go to sky.
You can go to [INAUDIBLE].
To Hell.
To Hell.
And [INAUDIBLE].
That's important.
And in my world you have
seven levels in the potomitan.
You have seven levels.
You can be god.
You can be half god.
You can be servant of god.
And then you can be human.
So in Africa, you have here a
representation of [INAUDIBLE].
It is a very
special [INAUDIBLE].
And in Guadalupe you have
a lot of [SPEAKING FRENCH].
Beliefs.
Beliefs.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
You know, some spirits who can
keep you and take you away.
So what I say is
that's our culture.
It's the culture
of the Caribbean.
And that's why the potomitan is
what we want in our building,
because I know my
population knows it.
I know Caribbean people know it.
And it is a way to [INAUDIBLE].
To further it.
To further exam and
to tell them that,
OK, the language, the
literature, the art, and also
the architecture
is an expression
of our belonging of the
Caribbean archipelago.
So I forgot,
because when I began
I always have two proverbs.
Proverbs.
Proverbs in Creole because I,
in my normal [SPEAKING FRENCH].
In my many trips that I take.
In the Caribbean I
saw that you always
seek somebody who speaks
Creole, always, in every island,
in English island or
in Spanish island.
And the first one is
[SPEAKING FRENCH].
It is a rose falls
on [INAUDIBLE].
[INAUDIBLE] is beauty
is not eternal.
That came from Haiti.
And the last one is
[SPEAKING FRENCH].
[INAUDIBLE] people are
[? menacing. ?] Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
My job is to
moderate this panel.
And I'm very
conscious of the time
that we're already at 3:05.
So I think I'm going to again
depart from the protocol,
and instead of having 15
minutes of discussion now,
I think we're going to open it
up right away to the audience.
I just wanted to make one point
first which I had originally
framed as a question.
But I think I'll just leave
it as an open question
that maybe we can return
to if there's time
or for you to think
about in the audience.
And that is, in my work on
public monuments starting
in the kind of Golden Age
of the public monument
in the modern period starting
in the 19th century, most
public monuments the
high point of their life
was the day that they
were finished and opened
and unveiled.
And from that point on
it was all downhill.
And they rapidly
fell into obscurity
and even invisibility
in the famous quote
by Robert [? Mesial ?]
that the nature of monument
is to be invisible.
So from a public
history standpoint,
public memorials traditionally
have been disasters.
And what is so interesting to
me about this group of projects
and the work that
is being done really
in the contemporary period
is that monuments have become
much more living memorials.
And these projects, I
think, exemplify that.
And it's something
that's a theme that we've
seen over and over again
in this conference, which
is once the
exhibition is opened,
or once the website
is launched, it's
then that actually
the work begins again.
I think that was a
phrase that has returned
to me over and over again.
The work begins
again at that point.
And so I'm very
interested in the question
of how that is designed.
How do we design
for that outcome?
How do we design
spaces and memorials
to actually make that work begin
again after the monument is
opened and finished?
So I'll leave you with that.
And I think we'll go
directly to the audience.
And we have in the back there.
Yes.
I think that's actually
a wonderful question.
I was thinking about Sara's
work, which is very thoughtful
and emerges from an enormously
fascinating, creative process.
I worked with her firm,
GGN, on the Boston Greenway,
where we ran into
extraordinarily interesting
opposition, not so much
partly from the community,
but also from other architects
and landscape architects
and designers on some of
the Greenway projects.
Less on GGN.
So I'm wondering what
organizational process
and educational process to
follow on Professor Savage's
question accompanies the design
and implementation of this?
How do you actually get
this politically achieved
against what other architects--
must be hundreds of
architects in Rio
who think of themselves
as being equally
capable of this project?
And therefore, we all know that
the kind of jealousies that
emerge in this.
So how do you actually
create the organization,
the political process?
And then, I guess, there
are two other issues.
One is Professor
Savage's question.
How does this continue
and get sustained?
And how does the [? heuristic ?]
quality get expounded?
And who takes responsibility
for [? it? ?] You
don't want to have signage
everywhere that says,
here's what the architect
thought she was doing.
So how does that
actually continue
to happen 10 years after the
opening in a project that's
so subtle and so rich
and so interestingly
derived from different
kinds of research?
Sure.
So one of the issues
in Rio, and you
know, I've started to also work
with a few other communities
around the United States, a
lot of the neighborhoods where
these sites are located are
under-served by in terms
of urban infrastructure.
So in a way, it's
a political move,
but it's also one
about the memorial
not fitting into
obscurity to link
it to sort of the urban
redevelopment that's already
happening.
So in Rio, you
know what we'd been
doing to this point was
really targeting the World Cup
and the Olympics as an impetus.
Those events have now
passed, and so we're
re-strategizing
now about what else
we can sort of link that to.
But all across the United
States and the Americas,
you're seeing this
urban Renaissance--
this huge major investment
in urban infrastructure.
And a lot of that is
happening and putting
pressure on these
historic sites.
We saw the map earlier of all of
the ports in the United States.
All of those sites are
located in the downtown core
of these cities.
And so as redevelopment
is happening,
I think politically it
opens up an opportunity
to do something like this.
In the case of Rio
specifically, I
mean I'm just like a
guerrilla architect basically.
I sent a bunch of emails.
I asked the people that
I was interviewing--
it was supposed to be a
two-week research project.
You know, I sent enough emails
to this man sitting right here,
and he responded to one.
And that was five years ago.
And so to expand that
to say that there
is sort of an
organizational model,
maybe ask me in
another five years.
For now, I'm really just working
sort of in this guerrilla
style, working with communities
that reach out to me
and strategizing from there.
But a lot of city
officials actually
see this that there's sort of
a paralysis around these sites.
A lot of them are vacant and
being eyed for redevelopment.
And there's sort of a
reaction to not do anything
because they're sacred sites.
But at the same time,
there's sort of a checkmate
because there's no movement
for something else.
And so I think there's
an opportunity there.
Can I follow up on that?
I actually wanted
to give a shout out
and a moment to
someone in the audience
here who is actually
mentioned in Pascal's talk who
is [? Julian ?] Bonder,
now that I've located you
in the audience.
I couldn't see where you
were with the lights.
[? Julian ?] Bonder who
was the co-designer with
[? Christophe ?]
[? Vodischo ?] of the Memorial
to the Abolition of
Slavery in France,
which is located at [INAUDIBLE]
and was mentioned as one
of the inspirations for the
Guadalupe project there.
And I thought since we
have you in the audience
and we have the good
fortune to have Julian here
in the audience with us today
that maybe you could give us
a reflection or two on the panel
and perhaps a question as well.
And then I'll be
happy to open it up
to the rest of the audience.
Thanks so much
for the invitation
to make a couple of comments.
And I want to thank you
for the three presentations
and the conference in general.
I think it's extremely
powerful work at many levels,
from the symbolic level,
from the kind of questions
of meaning, questions of how
communities relate to place.
And I think what is quite
interesting is that all three
presentations have what we
could call different approaches
to the language of making things
more ephemeral, more present,
more charged with symbols that
come from different places.
So I think it's
extremely powerful
to see this work from a vantage
point of a practicing architect
and also professor and working
on history of Rhode Island
slavery.
So there's a lot of
things that strike
me as quite interesting here
in the conference in general.
Maybe I can make a
couple of comments
and ask you a question then.
One is as Pascal
kindly mentioned
some of our writings
and our work
on the notion of
memory and memorial.
I mentioned yesterday that for
me, memory is not an object.
Memory is a verb.
Memory is an action to remember.
And the word monument comes
from the word [NON-ENGLISH].
And it means to warn, to
remind, and to advise.
So it's not a question of
scale or dimension, you know.
It's more like what
is monumentality?
It's the capacity that
places have in our minds
to evoke or make us think of
something beyond themselves.
And to me this is
what is interesting
about all of this work is that
yes, we're working with matter,
but we're trying to evoke
something beyond matter.
You know, yes, we're
working with space,
but we're trying
to evoke something
beyond space, which
is [INAUDIBLE],
or the burial
itself, or the moment
of symbolic nature
as Pascal mentioned.
So to me, the question
here is, how do we,
when we work on
this project, which
is, [? Kirk, ?] what
you were asking,
I think, I think we have
to be mindful and be
wary of expectation of
creating instant metaphors
and somehow artificial meanings.
It's a risk that we
all have all the time.
So how do we position
ourselves in relation
to our own understanding
of the word metaphor?
And how do we relay
that to the public?
You know, is the public going
to receive an explanation?
I think that was asked before.
You know, well, maybe yes
or maybe it's not necessary.
So for me, the
question is how do we
accept our role as
public intellectuals
and embrace our role
as public intellectuals
so that we can transform in
a certain way public sphere?
You know, public sphere
as a place for dialogue,
as it was talked about
before in the Diocese project
for the Center for Conservation,
or the spaces in Rio,
or the spaces in [INAUDIBLE].
So that requires a
commitment to me.
And this is the question.
How do we address something
that is extremely complex, which
is those others who
do not have a voice
or did not have a voice?
Can we hear the
echoes of the past?
In many of the works we
can somehow sense it.
And it's really
powerful to see it.
But it still remains
kind of a big question,
because if we think of all
these projects as politically
motivated, and which
are all political, then
we need to understand
what is politics
in relation to visibility?
Hannah Arendt told us
that political equality
relates to visibility.
Conversely, inequality
relates to invisibility.
So while we strive to
make visible places
or make visible
things, we still have
to think about why
is it that visibility
is so important to us
in our culture that
is based on the gaze--
on what we see?
So what I would like, if
the panel could reflect
in this question of why
is it that perhaps you
have thought of this, but
why is it that the visible is
so important?
And how do you address, which
you explained a little bit,
that which is not
visible in your work?
Thank you very much.
I could maybe respond
to that question.
One of the things that
I try to think about
is this idea of context.
And as an architect
and a student
while studying
architecture, particularly
in urban environments,
you know, there
was always a reinforcing of this
notion and this idea of context
and the importance of context
and reacting to context.
And for myself, as I'm sure
a lot of us as designers,
there's just a certain degree
of potentially resistance
to contexts in so far as what
do you fit within the context
that you're given,
and how do you
begin to develop ideas
or represent ideas
relative and really an
extension of yourself
if you are constantly
deferring to something
that came before you?
That's a particular
challenge in regards to,
let's say, if you're coming from
an African-American perspective
where you are trying
to establish context
within a larger context.
And an extension of that then
becoming like establishing
relevance and becoming visible.
So I always had a
problem or a challenge
in terms of how do
I approach context?
Because I think that
contextuality can be considered
in a myriad of ways as opposed
to the, say, physical context,
there's also the intangible
element of context,
which I think he was talking
about, which deal with history,
deal with memory, deal
with even how spaces
are used and occupied that give
them relevance that are just as
relevant as physical context,
and sometimes even more
relevant.
And I think in the process
of designing spaces,
especially like memorial spaces,
what I look for for context
in order to reveal
what has been concealed
are these intangible elements of
context that deal with history
and deal with culture.
And for me, that
becomes integrated
as part of my process to
establish a voice that can then
transform and become more
integrated into a larger
fabric of context.
And then become visible.
We have a couple
of questions from
our institutional sponsors.
Three now.
So Paul was the first.
I'll be brief, because
I think some of this,
I'll leave aside your
question of memory.
Sara, I thought you had
a beautiful response
to your comments that were,
memory lives in the uses
of the spaces we see every day.
And I think that speaks directly
to Kirk's original question.
But I have this question
now about I think
inspiration and visibility.
And I thank you three for
very powerful projects
and presentations.
It's beautiful to see.
Sara, I guess my question is
directed toward you because I,
too, was impressed by the
variety of sources, especially
the work on the maps you were
showing that were talking
about the transportation
of vegetation
over millions of years.
I thought that was fascinating.
I wondered if also any
of your research process
utilized looking at some
of the materials that
were excavated from Valongo.
I know that there were
materials excavated
that were produced on the site
by women who were creating
bracelets that were then
given to people for protection
in those sites
throughout the city--
simple bracelets made of
utilitarian materials.
And that, to me, is a
very powerful thought.
I didn't know if
you were beginning
to work with any of
those symbols or objects
from those who were
enslaved on that site.
And then I think
my second question
gets into this
question of visibility
and making something
visible and whether or not
you could speak
to, because I think
you spoke about the politics and
the economics of revitalization
and what this meant
and what it means
to make this history
visible, and I
wondered if you could speak a
little bit about this project
in context of the revitalization
of the [INAUDIBLE],
and maybe explain
that a little bit
and what it means
as a very different
successful revitalization
project in the same space that
speaks to a different kind of
history in the future, perhaps.
Yeah.
Those are great questions.
And the question of visibility
is an interesting topic to me,
because a lot of the things
that we're talking about,
and it very much underpins
the approach to the design,
is that these things
are already visible.
It's a question of whether we're
choosing to see them or not.
And so the approach to
design is maybe highlighting
of something that's
already there,
and to validate that existence.
But these things are
open air and visible.
So with regards to sort
of getting inspiration
from the actual
objects excavated,
that whole circuit
of African heritage
incorporates what's called
the Urban Archeology Lab.
Which I'm actually going to
ask [? Washington ?] to take
the mic to explain
this initiative.
But my role as a designer
has been to, with regards
to that specifically, is
to incorporate the already
existing plans to create an
open urban archeology lab.
So they haven't necessarily
been a point of departure
for, in terms of design
formalistically speaking,
but they are incorporated
in the programming
of the circuit itself.
Washington, do you want to add
anything about the process?
You can also speak more to the
politics and the [INAUDIBLE]
project.
You know, [INAUDIBLE],
as I understand it,
was really constructed around
the idea of the Olympics.
But a lot of the
infrastructure is still
in plans to continue to be
implemented and developed
over time.
And so we really see this effort
continuing beyond the Olympics.
[INAUDIBLE] also sort
of laid the groundwork
for understanding or
setting the standard
for the scale of intervention
that we could describe.
It's such an ambitious
infrastructure development
project that why
can't we also be
ambitious about the way that
we're approaching this design
work?
You know?
And so it's really
kind of riding
the coattails of that project.
At the same time
it's pretty clear
that a lot of the
aspects of the plan that
have to do with developments
for large companies,
private development-- all
of the private development
is obviously running on a much
faster pace than our project.
So that can be
frustrating at times.
But at the same time, I
see it's been tremendously
beneficial in terms
of operationalizing
the scale of our effort and
understanding that we really
can make a difference.
If all of this is going to be
dug up and repaved, why don't
we do it in a way
and replanted, you
know, why don't we do
it in this other way?
We already have the financing.
We already have the space.
This place is relevant for
these particular reasons.
In a lot of ways we
actually develop a chart
showing that our
design is actually
more cost-effective than what
they were designing originally.
A lot of it is also
politics, and politics
that frankly, as a
designer, I don't really
understand the depths of.
But I can let the politician
in the room speak to that.
That's why he came here.
[LAUGHS]
Thank you, [INAUDIBLE].
Sorry about my English.
I'm not a politician.
And I'm an architect
and urban planner, too.
I'm in charge of the
heritage of the city of Rio.
And what is happening
with the waterfront of Rio
is the common type of urban
regeneration happening
in waterfronts in other
parts of the world.
But we got to this very
special place in Rio
which is the Valongo
Wharf, which is also
the presence of [? dissonance ?]
of African-Brazilian population
in the port area.
So basically what
we are trying to do
is how to use our heritage
power as a possibility
to bring more visibility
to this local community.
And from inside of
the city hall tried
to bring to the light this
very traditional route,
and also this very
powerful culture
that we have in the
port area of Rio.
So I used to say that we got
[? Norman ?] [? Foster ?]
buildings in Rio now.
We got [INAUDIBLE] buildings.
We got [? trains. ?] We got a
lot of [? public ?] space like
every port in the world.
But we, only in Rio,
have the Valongo Wharf.
So that means that this
uniqueness of this place
is the most powerful thing.
And so we try to use our
work and our privilege
as heritage to deal with that.
And it was a very good
collaboration with Sara.
And Sara brought to us this very
provocative idea of this Pangea
connection of the South
America continent connected
with the African continent.
And that created some
very interesting aspects
to our work.
I would like to give you one
example about the baobab.
Sara proposed to plant
the baobab tree in Rio.
And this is not allowed
anymore, because baobab is not
a native tree from Brazil.
So that means that it's
illegal to plant a baobab tree.
And we have to fight with these
kind of regulations and laws
about botanic regulations.
So sometimes in
the public sector
to do something important you
have to do something illegal.
And sometimes in
the public sector,
innovation is quite a
little bit close to illegal.
And so now we've got the baobab
tree finally in the place.
And that was very important
for the local community.
This is one very small
example about the challenge
that we had to manage.
What we discuss a lot,
Sara, with our team,
it's about the challenge
of the public space,
and how to bring
to the public space
the cultural and symbolic
signals connected
with African-Brazilian culture.
And we understand that as
an American challenge too.
Because in Brazil
the black population
were segregated in the cities.
And we understand that the
public space had a special rule
to create access to not
necessarily access to the city,
but access to the public sphere.
So we understand that
the public space is
our challenge in part of Rio.
So we had discussed
that with Sara.
We don't want a memorial.
We want a new type of
character for the public space.
And then understanding that,
we got this public space
which still now got the
symbols and the characters
off the white culture.
But how could it be
possible in that place?
It is such an important
historic place
with such important heritage.
We don't have a [INAUDIBLE]
that could represent
the African-Brazilian culture.
And we understand that
this is a type of challenge
that we have to face.
And we have to deal with
that, because we understand
that there is a
lot of connection
with the [? presidency ?]
now about violence
in cities, violence
against black population,
violence against youth
population in cities.
So at the same time
that the [INAUDIBLE]
is a totally global space,
or totally boring type
of waterfront
[? regeneration, ?]
we've got this uniqueness.
And this uniqueness is
based on very small details.
So it's based on a baobab.
It's based on the local
community, the [INAUDIBLE]
Africa, and also other places.
So we tried to use the
heritage as a political tool
to change other
possibilities to this kind
of urban regeneration.
[APPLAUSE]
So I think David.
Right, David?
And then Tony.
Yeah.
Thank you, all three of you.
Terrific presentations.
And Kirk, for your question
about where do monuments
begin and end.
I hadn't quite thought about it.
It was a great question.
My question stems off
Rodney's presentation.
But it's really for
all three of you.
How do you think about
tragedy in the public space?
Rodney, in your
presentation you said
the three big themes were
acknowledge tragedy, consider
the legacy, lest we forget.
Then you talked about
transcending tragedy.
I found that reclining
figure [INAUDIBLE].
I have not yet been
to that memorial,
but I am eager to go soon.
You know, tragedy is one of
those ideas Americans don't
even like to think about a lot.
It's not a word we use a lot.
Other cultures are a little
better at it, perhaps.
There are dozens of notions
of tragedy, from the Greeks
to the Bible to Shakespeare
and so on and so on and so on.
But this is a story
of authentic tragedy.
However, we want to define it.
How do you think
about that concept
as designers, as artists,
in these kinds of contexts,
with these kinds of
extraordinary memorials?
Or is it not all that conscious?
Do you, at some point have to
just put the concept behind
and just go for the design?
But at some point, how do
you think about tragedy
when you do this kind of work?
I'm asking as a historian.
I've written a
lot about tragedy,
but I usually rely on
philosophers and people
who write about it.
You know, I don't have
to design anything.
But you do.
How do you think about tragedy
in the public space like this?
Thank you for that question.
That's actually one of
the biggest challenges
in terms of memorial
design for dealing
with a serious, tragic
episode in history
like the transatlantic
slave trade and slavery.
And there a couple of
issues that we always
have to confront
in regards to that
in terms of like how
does one, in some cases,
essentially represent the
tragedy without necessarily
being a victim to it
and being a slave to it
in terms of the design?
We always try to express in
the design objectives early on,
an opportunity to
acknowledge it,
but also an opportunity
to transcend it.
In the context of
memorialization, you know,
this tragedy is
part of a continuum.
So there's a
component that we tend
to be fixated on the
present, I think.
But some people think
of a memorial as fixated
on the past.
But we see it as sort of a part
of a continuum of the past,
present and future.
So the design, itself,
needs to, I think,
transcend the
tragedy in some ways
so that we see it as a kind of
an aspect of the design having
an interactive aspect
where people can
heal beyond the acknowledgment.
Because you know,
there's an idea
that you need to
acknowledge that.
Because obviously,
historically, you know, there
hasn't been an acknowledgement.
And I think that
there also needs
to be a point of reflection
where you can then
go beyond that acknowledgment
and then begin to repair.
I think there was a discussion
about reclaiming the term
reparations as what it really
means to repair and to go
beyond and to heal.
So not to be really captured
by the aspect of tragedy,
but use it as part
of a narrative,
and to kind of tell a story.
And I think Americans
like happy endings.
Right?
So I think there's an
aspect of hope to that.
Above the Door of
Return in the African
Burial Ground is an
Adinkra symbol of hope.
So the idea is that
when you pass through
that you're passing and you're
in a part of that continuum
going towards the future.
And then there's a hopeful
future in the acknowledgement
and in the transcendence
that we look for.
So it's kind of like
a long response,
but that's sort of like
how we kind of approach it.
And just a quick follow-up,
it is always fascinating.
Again, it's kind
of Kirk's question.
Where do monuments begin?
It's always fascinating to think
about which memorials, first
of all, move us, and at which
memorials do we actually
experience some healing?
I mean, we don't always
know when that's happening.
You might not know
it until later.
You might not know it
until we're in a group.
But some memorials do lend
themselves to healing.
They have.
You know?
The Vietnam Memorial is the
famous one in America now.
But there are so many others.
And I think just the process you
all go through to get to that,
because you don't know your end.
And you're putting
this up and hoping.
And it's just
absolutely fascinating
how you use the imagination.
And all of us who just
write for a living I think
have to keep learning from that.
Thank you.
And Tony.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Thanks so much, Kirk.
I really would like to
thank all three of you
for absolutely
stimulating presentations.
Really, thank you very much.
As I listened something that
struck me was that each of you
were working through a set of
intellectual and historical
resources that were local
or primarily African-based--
African-Brazilian,
African-American, Afro-Haitian,
or Afro-Caribbean.
But what you were all
doing and designing
were not necessarily things
that were [? mirrors ?]
of those things and
of those sources.
There was a drawing
from the sources.
And so there was a way in which
particular in the Guadalupan
case I was thinking of a
certain kind of abstraction
to the design that you all did.
And I really wanted to talk
about you mentioned abstract.
And I really wanted to
think about this question
of not just the abstract but
the process of abstraction that
comes from the rich sources
of the African diasporic
experience or the
African experience.
And I think of it
because I'm working
on our project in Haiti.
I met a young man in I.
I looked at his work.
And I said you're
an abstract painter.
And he looked at me and
said, [? prof, ?] no.
Because he was actually
painting one of the laws.
And he says, no, [? prof. ?]
I am an abstraction painter.
And I kind of
paused for a minute
and said, OK,
explain that to me.
And he talked about
a particular process
of using the laws in
the pantheon of voodoo
to then begin to paint
in a certain way.
So I want to ask
your [? opinion ?]
about that, any one of you.
But then secondly, I want to
ask [INAUDIBLE] specifically
about the site in Haiti.
About the what?
The site in Haiti that
you ended with, which
had almost faded to black.
Right?
It just up and then
faded to black.
And then you talked about
a site of memorialization
of [INAUDIBLE] and the
site of resistance.
And I just wanted to know what
exactly you have in your mind
if you're going to do
anything with that site
or work with that site.
What precisely do you have?
Because that's an
extraordinarily complicated
site.
And I just wanted to know what
were your thoughts and what
[INAUDIBLE]
I mean, I could, I guess, start
with the second question first.
And I guess the other question
was directed at all of us.
The site that we ended up with
was the Citadelle Laferriere,
which is a fortification
that was constructed
under the direction of
Henry Christophe, who
was one of the generals
of the Haitian Liberation
who crowned himself Emperor
of Haiti eventually.
But it's also a structure that
is a very monumental structure
that was meant for the
protection of the population
for potential
continued incursion
by European powers, eventually
which never really transpired.
And I think that I've
always found it fascinating
that whenever I show
that slide or when
I talk about the
Citadelle, especially
like to architects and
other people that, grant us,
we should know about
and we don't know about.
So I tend to lately
try to introduce
that, because I think it's
symbolic of not understanding
or knowing who we are, and
that we are interconnected,
and that there is this idea
of memorialization also being
an expression somehow of
kind of like a tragedy
like we were talking about
before in victim-hood.
Whereas growing up from
a Haitian-American,
being firstborn
generation Haitian,
our relationship to
history into slavery
specifically tends
to be when we grow up
a little bit different in
terms of like how we speak
about slavery and how we
see it, because the ability
of liberation to be a
part of also that history.
But what I find
kind of fascinating
in terms of the
broader context and how
we're connected [? is ?] how
Americans don't understand
the relationship between that
historic transformation that
occurred with Haitian
liberation and the impact
that it had among
America's development.
And if you'd understand the loss
of and the defeat of Napoleon,
the defeat of the British,
the defeat of the Spanish,
by Toussaint
Louverture, [INAUDIBLE]
and you understand, essentially,
that was the wealthiest
source of income for the
French Empire at the time,
then you wouldn't have
the Louisiana Purchase.
You wouldn't have the westward
expansion of the United States.
And you wouldn't have
essentially the development
of the Western
hemisphere the way
that we understand it to be.
So in a lot of ways,
ironically, United States
owes a huge debt to Haiti
and African liberation,
which is in context
with the freedom that
transformed this continent from
British imperialism as well.
So I like to include that site.
And I think I'll
probably do it more often
in the context of
presentations like this
in order to start to get
people to really start
to expand and understand the
relationship between slavery,
liberation, and how that
also can be inspirational,
inspiring, and
transformational in regards
to our own historic context
here, and stop to kind of put
it in this kind of box that
we tend to think about things.
I'm trying to answer
first the [INAUDIBLE].
And that's why on the projects
we don't have any heroes.
Our heroes are not there.
They are into the memorial.
But because sometimes
when you evoke a symbol,
you can just do a
[? knock ?] and then
you can protect a place.
And the place is
all those things
which are not represented.
So it's a way we want to do it,
because the roots are symbols.
The granite is a symbol.
It's a tribute of this history.
We don't think.
In Guadalupe it's
particular because Guadalupe
doesn't think about Africa.
They don't think about it.
The traumatism of
slavery put a cut.
And then how would you say that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
Some [? merits ?] [? would ?]
have the memorial be accepted
by the population.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
We had to play
with the symbolic.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
And to make it suggestive.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
And also deep.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
It's for this reason that we
couldn't treat the tragedy.
We couldn't deal
with the tragedy.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
About
We could only do the homage
to those who disappeared.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
Because the shock
was already immense.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
And the population has
many different opinions.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
And there are many
people that said
that we have to forget
this story and go forward.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
It's for this that our symbolic
architecture says that we
must honor our ancestors.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
But we also have to know
our history in order
to go towards the future.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
It is for this that
this construction is
necessary to our progression.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
In this [INAUDIBLE]
that there are
lots of debates on the
recognition of this memory.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
[INAUDIBLE] it is good to
have a duty towards memory.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
But it's better to have
a duty towards knowledge.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
And it's even better to have
a duty towards the recognition
of the slaves.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So it's [INAUDIBLE] that
the black box that contains
the story from when to when?
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So from 1730 to our time now.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
That's the jewel.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So it's this box that
allows us to have
the space for discussion
because we did not
want to have society fragment.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So it's for this that we don't
want to recall territories
that are unknown
and that are part
of our permanent exhibition.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So it's [? first ?] that we
want to bring our populations
from the past that they
know that's contained
in the black box
towards a future.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So the abstraction laws are
to express things simply
with a language that is
simple, but that is universal.
And I hope this
answers your question.
[LAUGHING]
OK.
So we have a question here.
Well, it's no question.
A comment.
I speak as a chairman
of this Memorial Act.
One thing is that you
must feel an experience is
that this abstraction
is like this Memorial
Act is like a work of art.
I mean, it works on other
parts of our intelligence.
I mean it's not
just intellectual.
It becomes emotional,
intellectual.
It becomes visual.
I mean, all the body
is suddenly connected
because knowing what it's
about, and because it's huge.
Suddenly the point
made by the public
is maybe this
story is important.
And the building
itself has the size
of the crime that was committed.
And the tribute we must
give to our ancestors.
This is also the
meaning for, who
is external to the construction
itself of this building.
It makes us, in terms of
wondering, so that maybe it
is not what I thought it was.
These poor people--
these slaves--
were people and
were great people.
And it's changed.
It changes the perception of
the descendants of this history
and make everybody think
about it collectively also.
It's not a nice
way, as Pascal said
it, is not going to
separate, create,
or to split the population
again and again and again.
It will make us
think, collectively
about what we're talking about.
And this is one
of the [INAUDIBLE]
of the building and
the architecture.
Last thing I'd like to
say, I was in a restaurant
and the waiter of the restaurant
came and recognized me
and said, oh, you know,
I was with my friends,
and I went to the Memorial Act.
And you know, it was
a great experience.
And when I went
up with my friends
told me, because they
didn't want to go in.
They were afraid of what they
were going to find inside.
So they refused.
They waited for me
outside under the arch.
And when I came out they
said, so, what is it?
How is it inside?
And he answered them
all, I can't tell you.
I'm very moved.
And you know, of course,
the building is beautiful.
But the truth is inside.
And I said, thank
you, Mr. Waiter,
because this is exactly
what this project is about
and how it works.
I mean, it's invitation.
It's an homage, a tribute.
But it's also
educating, knowledge,
and trying to reach--
to touch something
that we have not
been educated and used
to touch or to feel
about our history
and this history.
I wonder if I might
jump in and then
we'll only have one last
question after that.
I wanted to actually ask a
followup question to Tony's
about the abstraction,
because one
of the things that, Pascal, was
new to me from the presentation
was the Madras fabric,
which was so striking,
and your window design as an
abstraction of that Madras
fabric.
And my particular
question here is
how that relates to the diaspora
from India in the Caribbean
and in Guadalupe,
and how the building
has connected with that
particular population.
Has it?
And is that Madras
motif recognized
by Indians who visit?
Is that something
that draws them in?
Is it something that
actually creates a connection
with that particular
type of visitor?
No.
It's abstraction.
I try to explain.
And you know, when they come,
and because we have the Diwali.
Diwali is an Indian ceremony.
And they used to make it
twice in the memorial.
And when the Indian community
comes, I say, oh, look.
Come on.
You see?
You see it?
You see it?
You see it?
OK.
So we don't reach to
the goal any time.
We try.
Perhaps you fall.
Perhaps you win.
So we had one last
question back here.
Yeah.
[INAUDIBLE]
The images of the
various memorials
that you've been talking
about are staggering.
And I hope that I
live long enough
to be able to visit them and
experience them firsthand.
But I'm struck with what Mr.
Bonder said a little while ago.
And he said that the
significance of a memorial
really goes beyond scale.
And the thing that
I hope you will
do before you
leave the campus is
to take on a very
small-scale memorial
that Brown has in
front of its University
Hall across the street.
And to me, when I
visit the campus
I experience the power of
that very small memorial.
When I grab ahold of the iron
link, it's a broken chain,
and I feel something that comes
from the ground which it's
rooted in, and then
it makes me look up
on top of the broken chain.
And there's a little mirror
there that reflects the sky.
And I think all of
that is what is,
to me, a very powerful
statement in a very small space.
Well, let's see.
I think we're at 3:57.
OK.
So we do have time for one
more question right here.
OK.
Oh, thanks.
Thank you.
I'm just bowled over
by what we saw today.
So I just want to
thank the entire panel.
I think that with
these memorials
there is so much power,
intelligence, and craft too.
And I think one question
I had, which is really
about so many things
happening at once,
I think that some people
are talking about the fact
that memorials pay
tribute, but they are also
places of healing, but they
are also places of warning.
Three very different things.
I think scale was something
that I wanted to point
to-- the difference in scale of
all of these projects and how
you have all dealt
with the scale--
the space that you're given--
but are trying to tell
a much bigger story.
So there's always that
tension, I think, of scale.
And then also always
in architecture
this tension between
representation and experience,
telling someone a
story about a thing
and trying to convey an
experience of a thing.
And I feel like all
of these projects
did all of those
pieces so beautifully.
So what I'm wondering is I'm
just wondering if you would
share with us some
of your inspirations,
because I agree with them
Kirk Savage who started this
by saying, the
memorial, in some ways
feels like it really has
not been a medium that
has been pushed to the
extent that you are all
pushing it, taking
it in new directions,
making it very much of
a living experience.
So I'm wondering in all of
these projects who you possibly
looked to as inspiration points,
whether within architectural
history, landscape, or even
outside of the fields to
[? literature, ?] just
to share that with us?
I think from the
standpoint of the work
that we've done that a lot
of what we're looking for
is inspiration, not
necessarily from, say,
a particular architect
or a particular memorial,
per se, as much as it is
the way that people let's
say from a traditional
standpoint,
if you think about African
[? space ?] interact.
And if you go back and
look at the classical idea
of a memorial as a place that
you kind of stand back from
and that you visually
look at or look up to,
and it's not meant for
it to be really something
that you interact with or
connect with in any way
other than visually.
And then you start to think
about memorials as primarily
being interactive and
something that you connect with
and a place that you really
create activity and connections
between people, then
once people leave,
the idea is that that experience
has kind of transformed them.
Then they take that
experience with them.
And it's sort of like
we take that lesson,
and they take that
sensibility about what
they experience when they're
at the memorial someplace else.
And so those are the things
that we look for in terms
of inspiration and those types
of spaces and those types
of places in the case of the
African burial [? bringing ?]
[? up ?] ideas of the
traditional African courtyard
space that might
have an [INAUDIBLE].
I don't know if you're familiar
with those kind of figures,
or an ancestral pillar.
And this is an object
which is activated
through physical action,
interaction, and ritual.
And we're looking for
those types of rituals,
those types of actions
and interactions
to really bring
life to this space.
So trying to also
introduce multiple mediums
of communication
within the memorials.
So we'll have like words,
phrases, maps, formal spaces,
landscaping, so that you have
multiple sensory interactions
and perceptions.
And that makes, I think,
the experience much more
transformative and a lot more
of a multiplicity of experiences
as opposed to a singularity.
And another thing
is that we also
look at the aspect of dealing
with the contradictions
that you're going to
need individuals to have
a certain experience,
small groups
but also in the context
of an urban environment,
this whole idea of ceremony.
So how do you, with the very
limited amount of space,
begin to address the
potential for reflection
on an individual scale, but
at the same time accommodate
teaching and communication?
Because education, I think,
is an essential primary aspect
of it.
And the more interactive
it is, the better
it would be to teach children
and to transmit the knowledge
that needs to be transmitted.
But also there's
an idea of ceremony
and the impact of
ceremony and ritual
in the context of like how
we, as people, as a nation
kind of have celebrations
and have holidays.
How do you then begin to also
allow larger groups of people
to kind of on an urban
scale sort of gather around
and use this space as a
backdrop for an acknowledgement
of the significance of
the site and the history
behind the site?
So we are always thinking about
those three complementary,
but often contradictory aspects
that we need to address.
And the inspiration comes
from different sources.
It doesn't necessarily,
for us, come
from one particular
architect or project.
So I think we're running
a little bit over time.
And we will give the last word.
[INAUDIBLE]
Oh, OK.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So in the case of a
competition of architecture--
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
First, there's a program.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
After, you have the
first reflections.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So the parameters are given.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
And inspiration of
the architect comes
from that and those parameters.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
The architectural intentions--
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
Of the translation
of the abstractions.
And final word here to Sara.
And then we will let
you go for a break.
You know, I mentioned
this briefly
in the beginning
of my presentation,
but architecture
is severely lacking
in literature and
practice that's rooted
in African spatial tradition.
And so what a lot of you are
sensing in terms of how lengthy
of a process that we've all
gone through is required.
A lot of projects, and
this has been referenced
in a number of the
questions, memorials
have the potential to default
into symbols and recreation
and preservation--
only preservation,
recreation, and just symbols.
I can't tell you
how many times I
was asked to put African
symbols somewhere.
You know?
And it's this sort
of default thinking
when really what
we should be doing
is creating spatial experience.
There are distinct
spatial experiences
that are related to this
culture and to this history.
And for me, you know,
whether it be specifically
about this history, but in
general and about design,
I think it's important,
and the burden
is on us as designers
to really tap into that.
As [? Julian ?]
mentioned yesterday,
there is a spatiality to
memory and to tragedy.
And so as a designer I don't see
my role to come to any project
or to any situation with
a predetermined idea
about what tragedy is.
The first time that I presented
the archaeological site
idea to a panel of architects
they asked me where's the rage?
Where's the anger?
And I said, don't ask me.
That's not me.
And I think that the emotions
tied to this particular history
is not something like a
war in that it's something
outside of the everyday.
You know, descendants
of this history
wake up every day
and deal with it.
So you can't wake up
every day and feel rage.
So how do you interface
with this history every day?
It's a different emotion,
and therefore it's
a different spatial typology.
And so, you know, designers
that work in this realm
have a huge task of starting
from scratch in a lot of ways.
We can't draw from precedence.
So the inspiration, in
my mind, has to almost
be reconstructed in every case.
Well, thank you so much
for a great discussion.
[APPLAUSE]
