The
monument, before being a form, is a site.
– Giulio Carlo Argan, art historian, 1980
/uncovering
the monumentality, artistic freedom and beauty of WWII Memorials/
Former
Yugoslav WWII memorials, called also ‘spomeniks’, are closely connected to the landscape
in which they are located, so the space and the memory with the accumulated
years became one. But
what happens if we remove the natural context that enabled authors the freedom
to create? How does our perception of their content and form change?
The new image, the new object stays in space, but this new space is
transformed. Architecture becomes something independent and moves to the world of ideas,
location and material realization become of secondary importance. But the monument-object which is now nothing more than sheer
idea still radiates the stunning
beauty of stillness, static,
silence and timelessness.