Sex+Design Magazine

And The Darkness Shall Give Way To The Sun

Commissions couldn’t come much darker than that of enshrining the memory of 91 murdered souls on a treeless, granite coast along an unforgiving sea at the world’s end. Bringing light and perspective, both figuratively and literally, to that work might seem an impossible responsibility. Yet, the Steilneset Memorial for the Victims of the Witch Trials in Vardø, Norway, seems to memorialize the events of the former fishing village’s dark past in a way that is poignantly sympathetic to its somewhat bleak future and does it with surprisingly fragility.

A quixotic verging on confusing collaboration between the incomparable Peter Zumthor and the late French-born artist Louise Bourgeois, the Steilneset Memorial owes much of its success to the Swiss architect’s masterful play of material, controlled use of light and understanding of the vernacular; the memorial’s gangling diagonal wood framing and punched openings (all 91 of them illuminated with a single lamp each representing a “witch” burned at the stake during the trials) are direct interpretations of the fish drying racks and small, curtainless windows prominent in the seaside village. Unfortunately, Bourgeois’s installation of an eternal flame burning from an aluminum chair in a separate Cor-Ten and glass pavilion (also by Zumthor) is heavy-handed and unnecessary given that Zumthor’s 410-foot longhouse of wood and cable suspended fiberglass alone brings surprising power and light within its stark, hauntingly morose context.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Architecture, Design, Format