Poetic essence in architecture : a seafarer's memorial

Abstract

Memorial architecture should aspire to reflect a universal understanding of the event or persons honored, serving as a means of educating through the tactile experience of space, explaining its purpose as the sculptural medium through which the historic, the present and the future are realized as a ceaseless phenomenon within which the story of the human experience is told. A sense of knowing is the fruit of true memorial architecture, be it sweet or sour, the heroic and the horrific truths of humanity will be undeniable as the warmth of the sun and the firmness of earth, wrought in the very stone of the foundation and cast in the ever lengthening shadow of its form. The essence of memorial architecture is gathered from the ethereal heights of the heavens that move us and the sulking depths of earth that holds us, a monument of mortality expressed with an eternally accepted maxim of human drama. The ideal memorial should function as a two way mirror through which the present confronts the living past via threads of empathic contemplation, transcending the singular experience of the moment to grasp the hopes and fears of our unfolding odyssey. This thesis will explore the aforementioned understanding of architecture in the design of a seafarers memorial.