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Time Embedded in Space

The Architecture of Contemporary Commemorating Forms

Summary/Abstract: Since the 1980s the concepts of spatial forms commemorating Holocaust, or toembrace it wider, the victims of the Nazi regime, have been increasingly movingaway from the principle presented in the period of “memory witnesses and guardians”.For a good reason here Robert Musil’s opinion is commonly quoted; claimingthe monuments which had been erected to draw a great attention, remain invisible.James E. Young – the author of the term counter -monument referring toobjects representing a new way of thinking of their messages, their roles and formsthey are able to express – wrote at the beginning of the 1990s: “The further shiftedin the past are the events of WWII, the more glamorous its monuments become”.Whereas several most significant commemorating monuments of a new trend gaintheir minimalist, nearly non -existing form, a great majority of them are of incomparablylarger scale with a wider range of means of expression. The examples selectedto be analysed are contemporary Polish projects of commemorating formsin Bełżec (proj. A. Sołyga, Z. Pidyk, M. Roszczyk, DDJM), in Gross -Rosen (proj.Nizio Design International), in Michniów (proj. Nizio Design International) andin Sobibór (proj. M. Urbanek, P. Michalewicz, Ł. Mieszkowski). In linear narrativethere is an active presence of the visitors provoked; the scenery is meant to evokethreat, confusion and seclusion. Commemorating forms designed with a flourishare becoming total monuments, accused of aestheticization of death. Monumentsas culture memory bearers in the meaning suggested by Aleida Assmann, have alwaysbeen expressions of their founders’ intentions and their attitudes towards thepast, and like in all other times, they constitute a reflection of us– the contemporary.

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