sky well

타이완 치치 지진 메모리얼 국제현상설계 당선작

2004

location: taiching taiwan

Sky-well is the grand-prix winner of Chichi earthquake memorial international competition in Taiwan, organized by taiwanese government. Jungyoon Kim and Yoonjin Park were teamed up with Eve Robidoux and Tsaiher Cheng.
Cherishing the dead is based in sadness. Designing a memorial space therefore has an inherent challenge to evoke the feeling that is so personal and varied by providing a physical space. The tendency of memorials, especially in the US after the mid 20th century, has been to emphasis each dead individual, as seen at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., the Oklahoma city national memorial in okalahoma city, and so forth. In the process of designing the memorial of the taiwanese chi-chi earthquake, Cheng Kim Park Robidoux tried to set up a series of spaces through which not only the relatives of the dead but also unrelated visitors could have their own spatial experiences, private rituals and public enets, so that they can fianlly build up a collective memory.
sky-well consists of a large bamboo forest enclosing a void. without a particular entrance and guiding system, visitors stroll and get lost in the bamboo forest before they find the sentral void. the horror they experienced during the earthquake is melted down into the motion and phenomenology of the bamboo forest whereas the central void is reinterpreted as an empty mind, where people find solace from the sky. Details, such as the bamboo wall to place commemorative flowers and lotus blossom engraved pavers are echoing the theme of rebirth.
The work was exhibited in Montreal Biennale 2004.