Most war memorials speak in the language of victory.
They glorify sacrifice, and in doing so, they often decrease the pain that war leaves behind.
But architecture has the power to disrupt even the oldest rituals of remembrance.
It can refuse to flatter. It can turn from symbol to wound, from declaration to silence.
in maya lin’s work of vietnam veterans memorial, we see No generals. No battles. No flags. Only 58,000 names, engraved in black granite, listed by date of death, not by rank.
You see yourself in the polished stone. while your living body is being reflected over names that can no longer answer.
The wall becomes both a grave and a mirror. It holds you in between.
a cut in the earth, just for remembering.
a clean, brutal line.
architecture here mourns and listens.
source: https://www.vvmf.org/About-The-Wall/history-of-the-vietnam-veterans-memorial/Maya-Lin/
this is not. 