Hollow Monoliths Veterans Memorial
2020
Place: Springdale, Arkansas
Team: David Sweere, Hunter Crager
A memorial is meant to be impactful, emotional, and even spiritually moving through its total sensory experience. This memorial commemorating the selfless sacrifice of veterans of Springdale and the greater region creates an atmosphere which engages all the senses in its historical attachment to the collective memories of the landscape as a setting for the history of man. The memory of veterans is etched in stone in this memorial which rationalizes the natural bluffs and engulfing woodlands of the nearby Ozark National Forest.
Northwest Arkansas developed as a series of small towns along a highway and rail line naturally interlaced through the mountainous forest, rivers, and streams of the Boston Mountains, a plateau carved by water over millennia, revealing its geologic history in stone cliffs, waterfalls, and natural caverns. It’s a rolling and rugged stone landscape blanketed in a hardwood forest of oak and hickory, changing with the seasons in a yearly display of spectacular color. This memorial becomes part of this natural landscape of the region, presenting itself as a microcosm of the greater mountainous forest of Northwest Arkansas, engaging its sensory experience created by tree canopy and rocky terrain.
The intent is to create a timeless piece of architecture that seems as though its been there as long as the natural stone formations and covering forest of the Boston Mountains. The veterans of this great nation deserve a memorial of such permanence.
