War Memorial

THEY WALKED AMONGST US. 

When the national war memorial competition was announced by the government of India in 2016, the entire architectural fraternity was very excited to be a part of it. Competitions for public projects of this scale and importance were and still are to an extent rare scenarios. We were no different from the others on this and were overzealous to participate. 

War memorials are the markers of collective memory.  A memory, that we share as a nation, which brings to light stories of bravery, sacrifice, valour, patriotism, love, death, pain and several others. Hence, while designing the war memorial, we wondered, what would it commemorate. Our design process was a rather lengthy one, where constant brainstorming sessions led to several small ideas, which further led to one big idea. The main challenge though was, to translate these ideas into architecture, which would then evoke certain emotions. We asked ourselves, who are these martyrs? Where do they come from? What do they aspire to? What does their life entail? What was their story? And through these questions, emerged an unshakeable thought, which would eventually form the core of our design.

The Martyrs are born amongst us and live a life similar to ours. We grew up with and around them. They are our family, our friends. We attended the same schools, cheered the same teams, laughed and shed tears together. Yet, they rose above their line of duty to the nation. They made the greatest sacrifice for us and laid their lives to protect our freedom.

THEY WALKED AMONGST US. 

The idea was to personalise the sentiment of loss, by eliminating the distance between ‘Them’ and ‘Us’. We conceptualised a journey by introducing subtle interventions which would evoke spurs of emotion. The journey of each visitor would thus become a personal one, with a constant reminder of the thought of how ‘They Walked Amongst Us’.