Memorial for the victims at the Danube - Black Sea Canal

Authors’ Comment

The proposed site of the memorial is in Cernavoda, the city from which the building of the canal started. It is situated on the hillside across from the city center. The hill represents a place that is a witness to the trauma since one of the first forced labour work sites was at its base. It’s shape was defined throughout history by a series of cuts in key moments. The memorial thus becomes a part of the citys history by adding a cut to the hillside. A straight powerful, obviously human intervention on the landscape that would generate a slit in the earth through which a pathway to the heart of the hill is created. The upward oriented pathway takes the vistor through a sequence of spaces carved out of the hillside. Given the subject that the project addreses, the main purpose was to create space by subtraction rather than adition – negative space to commemorate absence – an antimonument.