Panorama Photo

We are in the heart of Berlin, very close to Branderburg Tor. The "Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas" also known as the Holocaust Memorial (Holocaust-Mahnmal), is a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold.

It consists of a 19.000 m2 site covered with 2.711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The stelae are all 2,38m long and 0,95m wide, but vary in height from 0,2 to 4,8m.

Generally, from the architectural point of view, the Memorial do not like to Berliners and do not like even to tourists. This is demonstrated, for example, by the fact that no one has ever thought to photograph it in this site. In this case, my opinion is different. The Memorial do not like because it is done on purpose to confuse and embarrass. This was precisely the aim of the author.

According to Eisenman's project text, the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason (the Nazism).

The plan of the monument has in fact a regular pattern to the board, as the plant of certain ancient Greek and Roman cities. But it is not adjust the vertical pattern, because the stele, all equal at the base, are all different for the height and the slight tilt, thus creating an unpredictable and tormented form. Even the alleys, of equal width, paved with gray cubes hung out regularly, are not plans, but lean without apparent logic, going to sink into the ground at the highest stele. Those who love the straight lines can not fail to experience discomfort.

But not always the lines of the history are straight.