World Memorial to the Pandemic: A Space that Pays Tribute to Life and Nature
-
Program:
Memorial
-
Status:
Concept and schematic design
-
Awards:
- 2022
First prize in the 'Memorial Architectural Design' category at the Muse Design Awards.
Inspired by the actual global experience of this pandemic, but conceived as a contribution to the future, the World Memorial to the Pandemic is a reflection-oriented public space that, although it stems from this worldwide experience, is not limited to it or to the way in which the planet is facing it. Instead, this memorial aims to continue building a collective consciousness that reminds us that mankind is not the center of the ecosystem in which we live since we’ll always be subordinate to nature itself.
The “new normality” established from the global COVID-19 pandemic has conditioned our ways of life, our customs and the way we relate to each other in all levels of society. On this base, during 2020 we started designing this space as a contribution, creating a new space that offers a multisensory, immersive and captivating experience, in order to transform the uncertainty born of adversity into collective knowledge.
Through an open, circular, simple and yet overwhelming space, this World Memorial situates itself right at the limit between the city and the sea, between maximum artifice and absolute nature, representing the constant cycle of the ecosystem. The access of this borderline space between the transformable and the unknown it is inscribed as a crack in that circular shape, aiming as a reminder of the break that marked the unique event of global proportions that defined a before and after in the history of humankind.
The center of this World Memorial is occupied by an empty space in which nature flourishes in its purest state. This “eye of nature” works as a constant reminder that the center of the ecosystem is not the human being, but nature itself.
A study carried out by geologist Eduardo Castiglioni PhD and biologist Silvia Villar PhD concluded that the World Memorial to the Pandemic “does not pose a risk in the short or long term from a strictly physical and/or biological point of view.” The structure will be prefabricated, with the components assembled on site, which avoids the impact of heavy construction work in the area, and this in turn allows the work to be reversible and relocated easily, quickly and without any impact.
