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KOREA WAR MEMORIAL PARK

The rain of remembering

" The architecture alone could not tell the whole story. It demands the remembrance of people to reproduce the anguish. The anguish that shall bring us together. "

“ THE RAIN OF REMEMBERING ”

 


Walking back to the rain,
the pouring hand rewinds.
Stacking lost and pain,
the falling rain reminds.
.

 


WALKING BACK TO THE RAIN
‘ Preface ‘
“Ideologies separate us. Dreams and an- guish bring us together.”
: Eugene Ionesco
The monsoon rain in 1950 come with the storm of ideologic conflict which kills numerous civil victims. The Rain of Remem- brance shall bring people back to one of the most cruel event in the world history by reproducing the circumstance where the victims have confronted, killed and piled up in the mass grave on the rainy day.


However, the architecture alone could not tell the whole story. It demands the remembrance of people to reproduce the anguish. The anguish that shall bring us together.

THE POURING HAND REWINDS
‘ The ceremonial void ’
The memorial contains two connected space. The ceremonial void on the top of the berm and the memorial hall which cov- ers the canal underneath.
The circular void creates the connection be- tween the recalling and recreating through the ceremony. The hole that represent the mass grave is the commemorating space where allow people to contact the past by pouring water with their hand.
At the moment that people commemorate the dead by handing the water down to the memorial hall, they are reproducing the 1950 rain for the people below.


STACKING LOST AND PAIN
‘ The memorial hall ’
Within the memorial hall, the wall formed by the solid bricks and the memorial bricks. The solid bricks represent the ground, meanwhile the memorial bricks, which are the transparent boxes that contain the bones of the victims, represent the dead. The stacking of them replicates the con- dition of the mass grave of that time. The grave that filled with friends and families, lovers and dreamers, ideologist and inno- cent, then covered with sorrow and fear.

THE FALLING RAIN REMINDS 
‘ The remembrance ’
Through the void, the ceremonial water flows into the memorial hall then evacuates by the canal below. Along the way, the water dropping by the curvature surface as the reminding of the rainy season in 1950. The echo of the drops, which amplified by the conical volume of the hall, represents the groan of the victims.

The truth from the past was brought by the rain through the architecture. And this architecture also brings in hope that was created by the natural light. As the time goes by, human ignorance repeats the suffering history.


Only the truth will be the hope to end this miserable cycle.

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