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Bologna Holocaust Memorial

Squares, streets, monuments

Bologna

Bologna's Holocaust Memorial, conceived by the joint commitment of the Jewish Community, institutions and private citizens, is aimed as much at the past as at the future. Two 10-metre steel blocks face each other at the corner between Via dei Carracci and the bridge of Via Matteotti converging one toward the other until delimiting a fissure enough wide to pass a person. On the sides, empty orbits overhang the path, repeating themselves obsessively in all directions. They represent the cells of the deportees; the void left by those who occupied them. But there is another side of the Memorial: a smooth facade where the perimeter of the cells can be guessed only through slight projections - specifically thought to reflect sounds, lights and images. The monument, in effect, is designed as a magnet: it wants to attract people, make them reflect, discuss, think about what happened in the history: « The intuition, suggested by the Municipality, to build it at the railway station of Bologna - where happened the bombing of 2 August 1980 - is the synthesis of its nature: the memory». Project: SET Architects (Lorenzo Catena, Chiara Cucina, Onorato di Manno, Andrea Tanci)