2007 VA ASLA Awards

General Design Professional - Community Chalkboard and Podium: a monument to free expression

 

Merit Award 

Project: Community Chalkboard and Podium: a monument to free expression
Landscape Architect: Siteworks
Architect: Robert Winstead, AIA
Client & Organizer: The Thomas Jefferson Center for Protection of Free Expression
General Contractor: R.E. Lee & Sons
Structural Engineer:  Mike Curry
Lighting Design:  Mark Schuyler 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably  to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
      The First Amendment

Purpose of the Project: To create a living, interactive monument to the first amendment and the right of free expression guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States that encourages and allows an active, uncensored engagement of this freedom. To catalyze a dynamic social urban landscape.

This project began as the winning entry for a competition for a monument to free expression in Charlottesville, Virginia. Our entry proposed a simple, community scaled black slate chalk wall to be located in front of city hall, upon which people could express themselves and confront their government and each other however they chose with chalk. This wall would be combined with a podium for speakers and would help create a zone in the city dedicated to public discourse, political debate and artistic expression. The next several years before construction involved an intense public debate over the monument design and an intense effort at communicating the idea to the community, gathering support and funds and in collaborating with city officials and with ongoing city projects adjacent to the project site.

The project is purposefully confrontational to embody and express the primary intention of the first amendment to protect our right to petition our elected officials and to act as an additional check in the checks and balance system. It has become a destination for both the community and for people from outside of the region. It has become the place of choice for political demonstrations, art installations and ad hoc oration as well as a place to express political opinions, love and hatred, tolerance and prejudice, religious faith and skepticism, worries, hopes and resolutions for the future.

Relevance to the Profession
While not a traditional landscape, we would argue that it is a place of dynamic social interaction and constant change. The monument is an interactive and dynamic social landscape.  The simple minimalism of the formal design is intended to avoid overt symbolic and static expression of an idea. Instead, this formal minimalism is intended to support the acts of expression that occur on the wall and podium. The monument is meant to be a vehicle for the engagement of this basic right in the United States and is intended to spark debate and create dialogue and not meant as an object to be appreciated for its own sake. The project embodies an ethic of aesthetic minimalism, timelessness of materiality, and community involvement. It has created a place where people feel compelled to express themselves and engage with each other; a place that is full of both hope and conflict, argument and agreement, love and hate, intellect and ignorance.