The first blog

Memorials 

Up until this week, I had never really thought much of memorials. I used to think that they were just carved rocks that paid tribute to an event or person. After doing all the assignments this week I realized how much thought and effort go into monuments and how impactful they can be on people’s lives. Take the Vietnam memorial for an example.

This memorial cost 8 million dollars and took three and a half years to be completed. Each year nearly 5 million people visit this memorial. The location, size, and even the way this memorial was built symbolize something. The memorial was built in between the Lincoln memorial and the Washington monument to represent the past and future. The memorial was “cut into the earth” to show that this unnatural war left a cut in everybody, but as time passes cuts heal. Every minute detail of the memorial was well thought out, in the hope that the men that died in Vietnam will be eternally remembered. However, not all memorials are planned in the same way. For instance, the National Holocaust Memorial Museum is often met with mixed opinions.

This museum was met with a lot of controversy because people thought it was insensitive to build a holocaust museum in the United States, who did little to stop the holocaust from occurring. The design also portrayed the museum as very big and built in a mall. Everything was not fitting for this project, most people felt that this monument would just downplay the holocaust and cause antisemitism. These 2 memorials had completely different results because of the way they were executed. I never truly realized the amount of effort that goes into building a memorial; there is so much to consider.