National War Memorial | Competition*
New Delhi
Year 2016
Status Competition entry
The memorial is envisaged as a journey into the time where one passes by the memories of the war of our nation. The landscape formulates a new threshold at an urban scale between the busy vehicular road and the silent hexagon gardens.
The memorial path forms an arc which connects the two sections of the larger hexagon in a playful manner. The memorial path is a directional walk provided with several pauses that give porosity to the grounds as well as to the road edge. The memorial walk emerges from the public realm of the street edge and expands itself outwards to attract passing commuters. Presence of various functions such as a visitor centre, public services, exhibition galleries and cafeterias generate a bustling public space for the city.
The proposed paths comprise of ramps and staircases leading to sub-terrain courtyards which are the gallery spaces for the exhibition of the war murals and scenarios and larger gathering spaces for the public congregation. The memorial is envisaged a journey of emotions of pride, glory, honor to that of grief, loss and void. The journey of these emotions ends in the large void which allows the visitor to contemplate the emotions within.
*in collaboration with Ar. Arjun Sara