To see the emotional power of architecture, one only needs to look to some of the world’s famous monuments and memorials. Designing these structures is often a challenging proposition. Architects must balance meaning and aesthetics, all while keeping the person or people being memorialized at the center of the design. So it’s no wonder that these designs are often met with controversy. From Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, these tributes have provoked strong reactions, but have also become iconic pieces of art and architecture and important destinations for locals and travelers alike. Tour 14 of the world’s most moving memorials, from Hiroshima, Japan, to Oklahoma City.
Gateway Arch
Completed: 1965 Gateway Arch National Park, St. Louis, Missouri stlouisarcom Most people don’t think of St. Louis’s celebrated Gateway Arch as a memorial, but in fact it’s the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial built to commemorate the westward expansion of the United States. In the 1948 competition for the memorial design, an unknown Eero Saarinen beat out his famous father, Eliel, with a simple but powerful steel parabola. America’s first modern monument, the 630-foot-high engineering marvel did not begin construction until 1963, two years after its designer’s death.
Steilneset Memorial to Victims of Witch Trials
Completed: 2011 Andreas Lies Gate, Vardø, Norway nasjonaleturistvegero Visiting this curious collaboration between Pritzker Prize–winning architect Peter Zumthor and the late artist Louise Bourgeois requires a trek above the Arctic Circle to Norway’s northeasternmost town. Remembering the 91 so-called witches burned at the stake in the area more than 300 years ago, Zumthor’s memorial consists of two structures—a long, wood-framed enclosure punctuated by 91 windows, and a steel-and-glass one to house Bourgeois’s featured artwork, a burning chair.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Completed: 1982 5 Henry Bacon Dr NW, Washington, D.C. nps.gov Just 21 years old and a student at Yale University, Maya Lin was plucked from obscurity and immediately plunged into controversy when her design—a visual scar on the National Mall—won the 1981 competition. The memorial invites the viewer below ground level to read the names of the war’s more than 58,000 dead and missing inscribed on the face of two 247-foot black-granite walls. Decried as an insult to veterans, the simple structure elicited such powerful emotions upon opening to the public that its critics were almost immediately silenced.
Jewish Museum Berlin
Completed: 2001 Lindenstraße 9-14, Berlin, Germany jmberlin.de No museum dedicated to the history of the Jews in Germany can be just a museum. Opened in 2001, Daniel Libeskind ’s first major work is arguably his best. Built around the concept of erasure and void, its architecture integrates the meaning of the Holocaust into the consciousness of the city, physically and spiritually. The zigzagging form of its main building, the unusual gradient of the Garden of Exile, and the Holocaust Tower’s claustrophobic container are disorienting, but the architect calls the project an “emblem of hope.”
Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum
Completed: 2001 620 N Harvey Ave, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma oklahomacitynationalmemorialrg On April 19, 2000, the fifth anniversary of the bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the Outdoor Symbolic Memorial was dedicated to the 168 lives lost. The centerpiece of the 3.3-acre site, designed by Hans and Torrey Butzer with Sven Berg, are 168 bronze and stone chairs with translucent glass bases that honor each victim individually.
USS Arizona Memorial
Completed: 1962 1 Arizona Memorial Pl, Honolulu, Hawaii nps.gov The USS Arizona is the final resting place for many of the ship’s 1,177 crewmen who lost their lives in the attack on Pearl Harbor 70 years ago. The 184-foot-long memorial, accessible only by boat, sits on the surface above the sunken vessel’s midsection, rising at either end to signify the United States’ ultimate victory. Its designer, Austrian-born Alfred Preis, fled the Nazi takeover of his homeland only to be imprisoned as an “enemy alien” in Hawaii, not far from where his monument now stands.
Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation
Completed: 1962 Square de l'Ile-de-France, 7 Quai de l'Archevêché, Paris defense.gour It is the quintessential postcard image of Paris—Notre Dame Cathedral emerging from the Seine on the Île de la Cité. Behind the Gothic masterpiece, on the eastern tip of the island, is a small but moving memorial by French modernist architect Georges-Henri Pingusson to the 200,000 French who died in concentration camps between 1940 and 1945. Rather than rising heroically, the memorial is meant to evoke the unspeakable, anonymous drama of deportation—its entrance a descending stairway.
Memorial da América Latina
Completed: 1989 Av. Auro Soares de Moura Andrade, 664, Barra Funda, São Paulo memorialrg.br It seemed like the perfect pairing—a memorial to the cultural, artistic, and scientific achievements of Latin America designed by the region’s most famous modern architect. Though the complex’s concrete pavilions feature Oscar Niemeyer ’s signature free-flowing forms, the master here falls short. Since it opened in 1989 in an old industrial area of São Paulo, its museum, library, and auditorium have hosted world leaders, but the poorly planned and poorly built structures fail to connect to the city’s more than 10 million inhabitants.
Pentagon Memorial
Completed: 2008 1 N Rotary Rd, Arlington, Virginia pentagonmemorialrg In a two-acre park near the point of impact of American Airlines Flight 77 on 9/11, the Pentagon Memorial features 184 cantilevered, benchlike “units,” each engraved with the name of a victim, hovering above a pool of water. Somewhat convoluted in its details, Keith Kaseman and Julie Beckman ’s design was chosen from more than 1,200 submissions in an international competition.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial
Completed: 1954 Otemachi, 1−10, Naka-ku, Hiroshima http://visithiroshimaet/ The memorial, also known as the Genbaku Dome or the Atomic Bomb Dome, was once the atrium of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. It was the only structure left standing in the area after the first atomic bomb exploded in 1945. It has been preserved in its post-explosion state and sits in Peace Memorial Park, alongside other monuments, including the Cenotaph for Atomic Bomb Victims, which was designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Kenzo Tange. The Dome was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.
National September 11 Memorial and Museum
Completed: 2011 180 Greenwich Street, New York 911memorialrg Dedicated on the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the memorial includes twin reflecting pools that sit in the footprints of the World Trade Center towers. The pools are surrounded by panels listing the names of each person who died in the 1993 and 2001 attacks. Designed by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker, the memorial features the largest man-made waterfalls in North America. The museum, designed by Davis Brody Bond with an entrance pavilion by Snøhetta, showcases artifacts, archives, and personal narratives.
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
Completed: 2011 1964 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, D.C. nps.gov The memorial to the minister, activist, and civil rights leader is located beside the National Mall in West Potomac Park. Carved by Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin, the memorial, which was designed by ROMA Design Group, is inspired by a line from King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. The piece includes the Mountain of Despair and the Stone of Hope, which features a carving of King. An inscription on the Stone of Hope—a paraphrased quote—drew criticism from Maya Angelou and was ultimately removed.
National Memorial for Peace and Justice
Completed: 2018 417 Caroline Street, Montgomery, Alabama museumandmemorialjirg The recently unveiled memorial in Montgomery is a sobering reminder of racial inequality in America. The center structure, created with the Mass Design Group, includes 800 Corten steel pillars, each symbolizing a county where a lynching took place. Identical pillars sit outside the memorial, waiting to be claimed by the counties—hopefully spreading the impact of the memorial across the country. The Equal Justice Initiative, which founded the memorial, collaborated with a number of artists for the project, including Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, Dana King, and Hank Willis Thomas.
Yad Vashem
Completed: 2005 Mount of Rememberance, Jerusalem yadvashemrg Israel's memorial to the Holocaust was established in 1953, and in 2005 it opened a new Holocaust History Museum designed by architect Moshe Safdie. The triangular structure cuts through the landscape with dramatic cantilevered ends, and skylights run across the top of the reinforced concrete building. The main circular Hall of Names houses short biographies of each victim—over 2 million pages—and a nearly 33-foot-tall cone displays photos and testimonies.