Why I Love the Berlin Holocaust Memorial

Brutalist architecture gets a bad rap. I understand that its use in governmental buildings often makes the construction appear lazy, utilitarian, and soulless (see the Department of Education building in Washington, DC). However, brutalism does have its place. I find its use in memorials particularly effective, demonstrating the depravity of the darkest moments of human history.

One shining example of brutalism that I know many people view as lazy architecture is the Berlin Holocaust Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I know from a distance it looks like a bunch of rectangles. I know it looks lazy and uninspired, but if you plan on visiting Berlin, please plan to visit the memorial and give it serious consideration as a work of brutalist art.

When you approach the memorial from the edge of the square where it lies, you’ll notice the vast field of concrete rectangles before you, which start off around knee height and rise higher and higher toward the middle of the memorial. Upon closer inspection, you’ll realize that these concrete rectangles are the size and shape of tombs. Sometimes passersby will place stones or flowers on the outermost of these pillars as a sign of respect for the murdered Jews they are meant to memorialize.

After a cursory glance from the outside of the square, you venture into the memorial itself, passing between tombs that gradually creep higher to your waist as you pass the first couple of rows. But you continue on, expecting more of the same visual landscape for the entirety of the square.

Suddenly, the ground drops beneath your feet. The memorial takes you much deeper than the walkway on the outside of the square. At the same time, the tomb-like pillars rise higher than ever, and as you look around, you notice that the sun is entirely blocked out by the concrete forest that encompasses you. Dread and anxiety wash over you as you search for a way out and as a hundred questions race through your mind. Am I lost? How did I get here? How did it get this deep this fast? Is there a way out? Does this go on forever? Was it always this dark? I don’t remember it always being this way.

In these thoughts, we find ourselves in the shadow, a mere fractional experience of the actual Holocaust. Prejudice here and there, creeping exclusions, and the occasional isolated act of violence. Then, overnight and all at once, forceful relocations, arrests and deportations, camps, execution pits, and gas chambers. Systemic, calculated execution. Was it always like this? Were those early prejudices and exclusions always an inevitable precursor to genocide? How can I get out? There is nowhere to run and few places to hide in this darkness that goes on as far as the eye can see.

Brutalism has its place, and when used correctly, it can be an effective tool for ensnaring the viewer in the horrific memories of the twentieth century, as long as the viewer respects the architecture enough to hear it out, see it out, and seriously consider it as a work of art that offers a dire warning.