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COMPETITION ENTRYMONUMENT TO THE VICTIMS OF THE BOMBING

WHO DIED ON DUTY AT SERBIAN RADIO TELEVISION

About the value of ruins

The value of ruins (German: Ruinwert) is the conception of the building design and the choosing of materials in such a way that when eventual collapse occurs, they retain their value, primarily aesthetic but also utilitarian, which will continue to exist as such without any maintenance. The intention is not only based on the idea of the collapse of buildings , but also on the prolonged time of the building’s life. The fascination with Ruin Value Theory (German: Ruinwerttheorie) occurs in the 18 century, during Romanticism, perfectly painted on Piranesi’s etchings . In the 19th century British architect Sir John Soun and artist Joseph Gandhy, both fascinated with the remains of Roman architecture, presented their project for the Bank of England over period of time. One painting heralded the freshly built bank, the second showed the bank after a few years, under the influence of weather conditions and of use, and the third - ruins of the bank after 1,000 years as testimony and praise of its great value and power .

Giovanni Battista Piranesi, etching from the series Le Antichitá Romane, 1756

Sir John Soane and Joseph Gandy, Bank of England, 1830

system, the director of RTS was sentenced to ten years in prison for not obeying an order from the Federal Government and moving technology and people to the location, prepared in case of emergency. After completing his sentence he was released. Although there are assumptions about his reasons and motives, the final and official truth does not yet exist. Arendt, as if she is explaining the total collapse of moral standards in the extreme situation during the war in the former Yugoslavia, in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem says “every moral act was illegal, and every lawful act was a crime.”

About the bombingand the banality of evil

During the 1990s foreign media used to call Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) - “Ministry of Lies”. Media and advertising played a key role and served as the most powerful war weapon of the regime. For these reasons, in spite of the Rules of war, for the first time in history, during the air strike on Serbia in 1999, one media house was bombed. Sixteen workers, technicians and security guards, were killed. None of the journalists died. It is assumed that some people were sacrificed while others were protected. Today, fourteen years later, the public does not know why these people were killed. Despite the thesis of German philosopher Hannah Arendt that you can not judge a man for evil caused by a

Remains of the building in Aberdareva Street, Belgrade, 2013

ruin details, Aberdareva street, 2013

As long as there is no truth, this place must be marked with something mysterious, something that raises new questions and recalls the past for reconsideration. As long as only the families of victims are fighting for the truth, instead of it being in the public interest, the place has to remind us of the fleeting and ephemeral nature of the memories of one person or sixteen families. In the same space where people were killed at their place of work, there are now people working who need to be aware of the responsibilities of their profession and constantly reminded that the version of the truth which is going to be recorded in the media, depends on them. For the moment when future becomes past, at the place of the bombing will be a memorial in which history is inscribed.

About time scale

The memory of sixteen people is guarded by their families; those memories will live as long as the people who knew them are alive. The task of the unpreserved ruin is to keep reminding us; it stays in the same state as it was rendered on 23 April 1999. The ruin contains and exhibits the dynamic of its own gradual but inevitable fading whilst capturing and recounnting the moment of total disappearance. It will , probably before the end of the century, along with the personal memories, succumb to time. The intention is to underline the lifetime of memories through the fragility of the ruins and to invoke the responsibility which we all have today in the writing of history.

About fragments

Is a hand-full of potsherds still a pot?’ The housewife, rightly, says ‘No’ and throws the pieces into the garbage. The archaeologist, rightly, says ‘Yes’, gathers the pieces from the garbage, puts them into a glass case and visu-alizes the pot as an entity although in reality it is not.

Cornelia VismannThe Love of Ruins

Although solving political issues is not in the job description of an architect, architectural intervention can influence people’s perception - suppressing a story or inviting critique. The fragmentation of the memorial to the victims killed in the RTS building must inspire a pursuit of the truth, as well as constant questioning and watchfulness. According to Hannah Arendt, the biggest danger is the absence of personal opinion and judgment. Political evil in the 20th century in general, and the war in Yugoslavia, could have not been conducted without extending the complicity across the entire society, where the media are likely to have held a crucial role. The design of the monument, strongly connected with the concept of time and aging, is constantly reminding the society and an individual to engage in the quest for answers.

the ruins. The same effect is achieved on the other side of the glass. All groups of users are in a constant dialog with the facts, responsibilities, emotions and themselves.

For it is sometimes the case that the ruin closely borders the center of a city, and so visiting the place be-comes bordered with a line of famil-iarity. Often, a cracked window from the ruins of a factory enables us to see the familiar motion we associate with active space. With that combi-nation, decay gathers a detached and secure limit, and so is able to be briefly appreciated.

Dylan Trigg, Architecture and Nostalgia in

the Age of Ruin

About materialization of stance

The focus of design is that the monument as such, without any physical side-programs, can convey the story of the bombing and victims. There is no enclosed space in order to inform or exhibit. The ruins , the life which goes on, already existing monuments, a newly designed stepped plinth with the outline of the missing building and 16 existing trees are acting as the most honest and credible witnesses .

The Cut

A precise cut divides the existing building in Aberdareva Street into two parts . One half continues its life, the other becomes a frozen memory, separated by a clear glass surface. By drawing a pre-cise line between inside and out, overlapping life and memory are reflected in one another.

On this reflective but transparent glass surface, through a thin, porous layer of the ruin, a collision between daily working life and passers-by occurs. From their work space, employees observe the visitors and their own reflections overlapping in

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Nivo/Level 124.79

Nivo/Level 132.52

Nivo/Level 136.04

Nivo/Level 143.24

Nivo/Level 139.72

Nivo krova/Roof Level

The sixteen names which are inscribed on the steps are situated behind the sixteen existing trees. The steps open up the space between the trees and the existing wall allowing candles to be lit and flowers to be laid.The topology of the surrounding buildings interiorises the main square, giving it the character of a room with an open ceiling and making it a more intimate for visitors paying their respects to the victims.

The steps are oversized (30x30cm) in order to make visitors highly conscious of their environment as they climb. The difficulty of climbing evokes pil-grimage and the eventual ascent becomes an accomplishment.Step-free access to the ruins is provided by site falls adjacent to the steps.

The Stairs

The Stairs have multiple roles. The surface treatment of the steps comes from understanding the ritual of lighting candles and laying flowers for the deceased. A narrow sand-filled trench is embedded into the horizontal stone surface 1.2m above the finished floor level of the Children’s Cultural Centre, so that visitors can place candles in front of the names of the victims, which are inscribed on the vertical stone surface behind the candles.

The plinth

The materials choices minimise maintenance requirements and ensure durability. The massive, monolithic plinth is, with time, to become a ‘beautiful ruin’. The pla-teau is treated not only as a sur-face element, but rather a spatial element who’s volume dominates. In the area in front of the Chil-dren’s Theatre, the full width and height of the plateau’s volume are present. On the other side, the relationship with the parking area is interrupted: a thin fissure in the floor demarcates two materialities and a height differential. Despite the visual connection, the char-acters of these two areas feel intrinsically different.

The plinth’s surface is for walking; from this level one can observe the ruins. The edge of the plinth follows the contour of the ru-ins. The visitor is kept a certain distance away from the building, both for safety reasons and to maintain a constant view of the whole composition. The stark material contrast and the transi-tion from straight, neatly arranged stone cubes to unarticulated, undefined rubble clearly signals that one can’t walk further.

Under the pile of stones which symbolise the unsolved nature of this situation is an empty memori-al plaque, waiting for history to be inscribed as and when we write and fight for it.