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.

View toward the National Library & Archives to the west
View toward the National Library & Archives at dusk

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.

Winter view along Wellington Street looking west
View from Wellington Street at night
View looking south to Wellington Street from the Meadow Garden

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.

Aerial view of the site from the southeast
The Knot

  1. A Conversation of Views
  2. Admiral Road Garden
  3. Airdrie Road Garden
  4. Airdrie Road Residence
  5. Albany Avenue Residence
  6. Alcina Garden
  7. Alexandra Park
  8. Aporia Records
  9. Asphalt Poetry
  10. – Poem
  11. Baby Point Gardens
  12. Beach Garden
  13. Beach Village BIA Master Plan
  14. Beaty Residence
  15. Bennington Heights Garden
  16. Berkeley Street Residence
  17. Bin-Scarth Garden
  18. Blink and you miss it.
  19. – Poem
  20. Block 22 Landscape
  21. Bloor St. Apartment
  22. Blue Note
  23. Booth Avenue Residence
  24. Boustrophedon Garden
  25. Braemore Gardens Residence
  26. Browning Avenue Residence
  27. Brunswick Avenue Residence
  28. Camp Arowhon Offices
  29. Canadian Firefighters Memorial
  30. Channelled Buried Moved Lost
  31. Chocolate Loft
  32. City Instrument
  33. Clarendon Garden
  34. Conversation Piece
  35. Cortleigh Boulevard Garden
  36. Creemore Farm
  37. Danforth Mosaic BIA Master Plan
  38. Dickson Park Garden
  39. Dilworth Residence
  40. Don Landing Revitalization
  41. Dublin Grounds of Remembrance
  42. Duncanwoods Townhouses
  43. Dundas Roncesvalles Peace Garden
  44. Dupont-by-the-Castle BIA
  45. East Point Bird Sanctuary
  46. Eglinton Ave Forecourt
  47. Eglinton Park Master Plan
  48. Elizabeth Fry Society
  49. Ellsworth Residence
  50. Face to Face | Tête à Tête
  51. First Avenue Garden
  52. First Avenue Residence
  53. Flyover Canada
  54. Foote’s Pond Wood
  55. Forest Hill Village Streetscape
  56. Gaze, Glimpse, Glance
  57. Global Affairs Monument
  58. Goldring Landscape, University of Toronto
  59. Gormley Garden
  60. Governor's Bridge Lookout
  61. Greener P
  62. Greer Road Garden
  63. Greer Road Residence
  64. Guelph Bridge
  65. Head in the Clouds
  66. Helena Ave Residence 4
  67. Jackman Institute for Childhood Studies
  68. Junction Craft Brewery
  69. Kelpies Competition
  70. Kew Gardens Streetscape
  71. King's Landing Apartment
  72. Kipling & Islington Developments
  73. Lakeport Beach Neighbourhood
  74. Le jardin du repos
  75. Lenticular Curtain
  76. Leslie Slip Lookout Park
  77. Liberty Village Parkettes
  78. Liza’s Garden
  79. Lynwood Garden
  80. Macroscape
  81. Makwa Waakaa'igan
  82. Markham Garden One
  83. Markham Street Residence Two
  84. Massey College Landscape Restoration
  85. Midtown Yonge Streetscape
  86. Mount Dennis Parkettes
  87. Mulock Park
  88. Nathan Phillips Square
  89. – Streetscape
  90. – Peace Garden
  91. – Podium Roof Garden
  92. Noel Garden
  93. Octane Medical Campus
  94. Orchard View Garden
  95. Osgoode Atkinson Green Competition
  96. Owl Cottage
  97. Paperstone Scissors
  98. Pendrith Residence
  99. Peripheral Sitings
  100. Pottery Road Crossing
  101. rare
  102. Ravine Forecourt
  103. Ribbon of the Lower Don
  104. Riverside BIA Master Plan
  105. Roxborough Garden One
  106. Roxborough Garden Two
  107. Schulich School of Business
  108. Sheridan College
  109. – Trafalgar Campus Master Plan
  110. Spadina Quay Wetland
  111. St. Anne's Road Garden
  112. St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts
  113. Stratford Market Square Competition
  114. Stratford Patterson Theatre Competition
  115. Superkids Dental
  116. Superlegible
  117. Sweet Farm
  118. Sweet Farm Pond House
  119. Swift Medical Offices
  120. The Meadows Reconsidered
  121. The Red Sash
  122. Thick & Thin
  123. Thistletown II Townhouses
  124. Tipping Point
  125. TMU Centre for Urban Innovation
  126. TMU Science Building
  127. Tranby Garden
  128. Tree House Residence
  129. UBC Okanagan – The Commons
  130. UHN Tunnels
  131. University of Toronto Mississauga Welcome Centre
  132. Venice Biennale 2012
  133. Vermont Square Park
  134. Vernon Avenue Garden
  135. Walk the Walk
  136. Walmer Road Residence
  137. Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial
  138. Wellesley Cottages Garden
  139. Wells Street Residence
  140. Westminster Residence
  141. Weston Village BIA Masterplan
  142. With Words as Their Actions
  143. Woodlawn Avenue Residence
  144. Woven Stories
  145. Wynford Drive Residences
  146. York Park
  147. Yorkwoods Townhouses