julian king architect: holocaust memorial finalist

bearing witness image courtesy julian king architect

american julian king architect has been selected as a finalist in the atlantic city boardwalk holocaust memorial design competition.

out of over 715 submissions from 55 countries, a jury consisting of architects daniel liebeskind, richard meier, wendy evans joseph, and holocaust scholars james e. young, paul b. winkler, and clifford chanin, selected julian king architect as one of six finalists, from which the winning scheme will be chosen from in november.

an ethereal wall of over 100,000 glass bottles representing those who survived the nazi death camps, each with a personal message, rises out of the sand as a glimmering beacon of hope and testament to human resilience in the face of atrocity.

a call is put out for letters and photographs of the survivors, their words and images to be etched into solid bottles cast from recycled glass. local students participate in the preliminary assembly of the bottle walls, which are then bound together in an innovative post tensioned design. built by the community and the world, the memorial attests to the fragile but enduring bonds of humanity.

the messages in the bottles are at once personal and universal-the intimate words and faces of the memorial’s ‘castaways’ invoke the diaspora, while bearing witness to all those that suffered in the shoah-healing the fragments of history and faith into a collective image of courage and redemption.

visitors can leave their own notes and prayers in selected bottles for this purpose at the memorial’s entrance. to witness these messages is to participate in an act of salvation.

detail of bottle wall

holocaust memorial view from the beach

holocaust memorial view from the bench

holocaust memorial view from the boardwalk

holocaust memorial at sunset

model

model

sun diagrams