Memorial to Victims of Violence in Mexico, Gaeta-Springall Architects

Gaeta-Springall Architects designed the memorial to the victims of violence in Mexico, in Chapultepec – Mexico City’s largest park. Not only a tangible way of remembering so many lives lost to organised crime but also a project to recover a former state-owned forest that has now been returned to the general public.



The Memorial to Victims of Violence in Mexico designed by Mexican architecture firm, Gaeta-Springall Architects Architects was unsurprisingly the centrepiece of the exhibition we visited in Berlin (link to exhibition). It gives Mexicans a physical place in the centre of their capital city, where they can commemorate the lives lost to one of society’s worst evils – drug-related crime. Here, the architects from Gaeta-Springall used two dimensions to represent the violence – the void and the built – integrated into the forest location. The gaps between the trees and the Corten steel walls are a reference to the emptiness left behind by the loved ones who died, while the trees, the water and the visitors sustain life.





Even the materials – steel and concrete – were carefully selected to underline the site’s symbolism. Seventy massive Corten steel slabs in different heights, with three different finishes: the rusted versions are a kind of “memento mori”, a reminder that life is short, the natural walls reference pure values that must be protected, and the polished versions are a mirror image of life, multiplying the people, trees and water reflected in them. Concrete paths lead visitors through the site, where they encounter more and more slabs, sitting on the concrete benches as a pause for contemplation, until they reach the centre, where the slabs form a kind of forest of walls.





Here, the 1200 square metres of rectangular, interconnecting shallow pools are a reminder that the violence has not ceased, but also that water is a healing, cleansing element. It is a symbol of life, and of hope, and this hope is also emphasised by the vertical, angular steel slabs that direct our eyes skywards, towards the light.



But possibly the most striking aspect of this memorial by Gaeta-Springall architects is the human interaction they intended for it. Visitors can write and draw on the walls to vent their feelings, leaving a kind of testimony to the pain and destruction caused by the violence of organised crime.

This work by Julio Gaeta, Luby Springall and Ricardo López is not just a simple piece of architecture – it is a construction of memory.

Credits: Gaeta-Springall Architects Julio Gaeta, Luby Springall, Ricardo López 
Location: Avenida Reforma, Bosque de Chapultepec, Ciudad de México
Area: 15,000 m2
Opening: April 2013
Consultants: Gustavo Avilés, Hugo Sánchez, Tonatiuh Martínez, Jorge Cadena
Collaborators: Jesica Amescua, Brenda Ceja, Liliana Ramírez, Guillermo Ramírez, Edgar Martínez, Christian Ortega, Carlos Verón, Aldo Urban, Daniela Dávila, Miguel Márquez, José Luis Martínez, Jorge Torres, Paolo González, Juan Verón, Paulina de Luna, Iohanna Kuppers, Rogelio Rodríguez 
Photographs: Sandra Pereznieto
Exhibition at Aedes Gallery, Berlin http://www.floornature.com/overview-architecture-news/news-floornaturelive-with-gaeta-springall-architects-at-the-aedes-gallery-in-berlin-9835/