New York-based Julian King Architect shared with us their proposal for the Atlantic City Holocaust Memorial Design Competition, selected as one of the six finalists. The competition will announce the winning project in November. More images and architect’s description after the break.
An ethereal wall of over 100,000 glass bottles-representing those who survived the Nazi death camps, and each containing a personal message, rises out of the sand as a glimmering beacon of hope and testament to human resilience in the face of atrocity.
A call is put out for letters and photographs that bear witness to the survivors, to be placed inside recycled glass bottles by local New Jersey schoolchildren.
Built by the community and the world, the memorial attests to the fragile but enduring bonds of humanity.
The messages in the bottles are at once personal and universal. The intimate notes and photographs from the memorial’s “castaways” invoke the Diaspora, while bearing witness to all those that suffered in the Shoah; healing the fragments of history and faith into a collective image of courage and redemption.
To witness these messages is to participate in an act of salvation.
Design Team: Julian King, Christina Lyons, Adrian Castineira, Sean Barry Structural Engineering Consultants: Guy Nordenson and Associates Structural Engineers LLP, Todd Dalland, FTL/Solar Lighting Consultant: Melanie Freundlich Lighting Design
