monument of the victims
A commemorative monument of the victims of Auschiwts-Birchenau
The dramatic nature of the place entailed the sense of an architectural work understood in two different and antithetical ways. The architecture seeks to crystallise the situation of the camp and to achieve figurative integration of the authentic elements, respected in their entirety, with its stark figurative parameters. There are no additional compositional operations: “The monument is the camp” with the sequential character of its aggregations. The site, the railhead, the pylons and the gates to the crematories are indelible traces. The architectural structure takes shape as a void, an isolated pause between the ruins of the crematories, precisely ripped so as to offer a multiplicity of viewpoints. In front of the entrance building, a transversal element definitively blocks the gates through which the wagons loaded with deportees entered the camp.