For this proposal
for a public memorial dedicated to the remembrance of Cold War veterans, a
marker of time and cultural memory – a bell tower - is re-imagined.
Three distinct intervals of time ring out across this rural landscape; mechanical, celestial, and lunar time. These oscillations recall the varied perceptions of time associated with the Cold War, ranging from the decades long covert nuclearization of the American heartland, to the daily anxieties of nuclear threat.
Three distinct intervals of time ring out across this rural landscape; mechanical, celestial, and lunar time. These oscillations recall the varied perceptions of time associated with the Cold War, ranging from the decades long covert nuclearization of the American heartland, to the daily anxieties of nuclear threat.
Time is further indexed by
the tower’s copper, steel, and brass shingles that patina into variegated blue-green-purple
cones. Large incisions pierce the ground, descending through the earth and into a vast subterranean
bunker; a reference to the hundreds of missile silos embedded across the
American landscape.
From this bunker, visitors ascend to social, cultural, and
educational spaces including a museum, theater, and a belvedere that reveals
views of a landscape characterized by the prolonged avoidance of a perilous
Cold War ending.
This competition proposal was for the location at the Pritzker Archives & Memorial Park Center in Somers, Wisconsin and is unbuilt.