Tipping Point: When reason becomes repression and an idea overtakes reality, the tipping point is what turns light to darkness and darkness to light.
The team of PLANT Architect Inc. and artists Blue Republic, with historian Eric Beck Rubin is one of six shortlisted teams invited to participate in Canada’s National Victims of Communism Memorial in Ottawa. One of the hallmarks of Communist regimes is the zealous construction of monuments to Communism, from epic-scale constructions to the insidious renaming of cities and streets. Communist regimes stained the nature of the conventional memorial and we believe it is unreasonable to commemorate this historical tragedy and trauma with the same types of monuments, architecture and design that previous regimes used as forms of propaganda. To our team, the key question of this competition was how to make a memorial within a context that calls into question the value of memorials, as we have known them.
Tipping Point comprises five elements which together narrate the journey from Victim to Refuge along the axis from the National Archives (our seat of collective memory), to the Supreme Court (our seat of justice) – a journey of engagement and revelation: The Knot, an 11.3 m tall bronze sculpture; the Processional entry and bronze Ribbon of Names; The Ring, the arena and main gathering space; and The Garden of Nations contemplative garden
The Communist system’s stranglehold on societies it dominated is represented by the Knot: the symbol of control but also the breaking point, of resistance and survival, of suffering and solidarity, imprisonment and freedom, of breaking free of bondage, through its physical, conceptual, and figurative tension. Rope is a universal metaphor – something ordinary and useful that can also be employed in other ways we are all familiar with – a device of detainment and torture.
The Ring is carved into the topography of the park and shapes a powerful bowl-like, embracing space for ceremonies – it is a theatre, arena, and agora – a crucible overlooked by the Knot. It evokes community, solidarity and unity, but resounds with the memory of how those qualities were perverted in precisely these spaces. The space is an embodiment of the fine line between the two.
The Garden of Nations is a contemplative woodland garden with scattered stone erratics. The Canadian community of each country that has or is suffering under a totalitarian Communist regime will be invited to contribute a boulder of a characteristic stone or geology representing their country so as to found this new stone in Canada. Each stone will be engraved with the country name. The richness of the stones from around the world reinforces the cultural richness that these victims have brought to Canada.
The Processional Entry rises upward, dramatizing the entry into the Ring, and carries the park dedication and meaning cast into the 30m long side wall: This Memorial is dedicated to the multitudes who have suffered under Communist regimes, and to those who found refuge in Canada. The Ribbon of Names – a single line of 1000 names – runs as a solemn handrail along the top and continues into and around the Ring, surrounding visitors with a thousand witnesses to the ceremonies in the Ring.
- A Conversation of Views
- Admiral Road Garden
- Airdrie Road Garden
- Airdrie Road Residence
- Albany Avenue Residence
- Alcina Garden
- Alexandra Park
- Aporia Records
- Asphalt Poetry
- – Poem
- Baby Point Gardens
- Beach Garden
- Beach Village BIA Master Plan
- Beaty Residence
- Bennington Heights Garden
- Berkeley Street Residence
- Bin-Scarth Garden
- Blink and you miss it.
- – Poem
- Block 22 Landscape
- Bloor St. Apartment
- Blue Note
- Booth Avenue Residence
- Boustrophedon Garden
- Braemore Gardens Residence
- Browning Avenue Residence
- Brunswick Avenue Residence
- Camp Arowhon Offices
- Canadian Firefighters Memorial
- Channelled Buried Moved Lost
- Chocolate Loft
- City Instrument
- Clarendon Garden
- Conversation Piece
- Cortleigh Boulevard Garden
- Creemore Farm
- Danforth Mosaic BIA Master Plan
- Dickson Park Garden
- Dilworth Residence
- Don Landing Revitalization
- Dublin Grounds of Remembrance
- Duncanwoods Townhouses
- Dundas Roncesvalles Peace Garden
- Dupont-by-the-Castle BIA
- East Point Bird Sanctuary
- Eglinton Ave Forecourt
- Eglinton Park Master Plan
- Elizabeth Fry Society
- Ellsworth Residence
- Face to Face | Tête à Tête
- First Avenue Garden
- First Avenue Residence
- Flyover Canada
- Foote’s Pond Wood
- Forest Hill Village Streetscape
- Gaze, Glimpse, Glance
- Global Affairs Monument
- Goldring Landscape, University of Toronto
- Gormley Garden
- Governor's Bridge Lookout
- Greener P
- Greer Road Garden
- Greer Road Residence
- Guelph Bridge
- Head in the Clouds
- Helena Ave Residence 4
- Jackman Institute for Childhood Studies
- Junction Craft Brewery
- Kelpies Competition
- Kew Gardens Streetscape
- King's Landing Apartment
- Kipling & Islington Developments
- Lakeport Beach Neighbourhood
- Le jardin du repos
- Lenticular Curtain
- Leslie Slip Lookout Park
- Liberty Village Parkettes
- Liza’s Garden
- Lynwood Garden
- Macroscape
- Makwa Waakaa'igan
- Markham Garden One
- Markham Street Residence Two
- Massey College Landscape Restoration
- Midtown Yonge Streetscape
- Mount Dennis Parkettes
- Mulock Park
- Nathan Phillips Square
- – Streetscape
- – Peace Garden
- – Podium Roof Garden
- Noel Garden
- Octane Medical Campus
- Orchard View Garden
- Osgoode Atkinson Green Competition
- Owl Cottage
- Paperstone Scissors
- Pendrith Residence
- Peripheral Sitings
- Pottery Road Crossing
- rare
- Ravine Forecourt
- Ribbon of the Lower Don
- Riverside BIA Master Plan
- Roxborough Garden One
- Roxborough Garden Two
- Schulich School of Business
- Sheridan College
- – Trafalgar Campus Master Plan
- Spadina Quay Wetland
- St. Anne's Road Garden
- St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts
- Stratford Market Square Competition
- Stratford Patterson Theatre Competition
- Superkids Dental
- Superlegible
- Sweet Farm
- Sweet Farm Pond House
- Swift Medical Offices
- The Meadows Reconsidered
- The Red Sash
- Thick & Thin
- Thistletown II Townhouses
- Tipping Point
- TMU Centre for Urban Innovation
- TMU Science Building
- Tranby Garden
- Tree House Residence
- UBC Okanagan – The Commons
- UHN Tunnels
- University of Toronto Mississauga Welcome Centre
- Venice Biennale 2012
- Vermont Square Park
- Vernon Avenue Garden
- Walk the Walk
- Walmer Road Residence
- Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial
- Wellesley Cottages Garden
- Wells Street Residence
- Westminster Residence
- Weston Village BIA Masterplan
- With Words as Their Actions
- Woodlawn Avenue Residence
- Woven Stories
- Wynford Drive Residences
- York Park
- Yorkwoods Townhouses