Monument to Freedom and Unity: Documentation 1:1 Mock-up

The concept for the National Monument to Freedom and Unity in Berlin is titled „Citizens in Motion“ - a message that is conveyed in an unexpected manner. The monument is animate and is not to be approached merely as an object for contemplation - the intention is that people shall enter it and walk on it and set it in motion. The movement will be achieved by people working together as a group.
Extensive testing required
The monument is a dynamic object that will be moved in slow motion. It is unique in form, content, interaction principle and its technological challenges. This requires extensive testing on a 1:1 scale. In 2011, our plans in terms of gradients and the speed of movement of man and object were tested on a drawbridge in Mannheim which has almost identical dimensions to those of one half of the monument.
In 2013, further long-term testing took place: the surfaces of the monument, the angle of inclination, the accessibility and impact for the visitors were tested on the basis of a 1:1 earth model: people of different ages, from different backgrounds and in diverse group-dynamic constellations strolled, walked, ran and filled the monument.
A continously changing choreography
The design was created in a spirit where, by means of creative action, individuals are enabled to bring benefit to the community and as a consequence shape society. The visitors themselves - the citizens who set the whole in motion - become an active part of the monument. The vision is that it will be an aesthetically ambitious, continually changing choreographic expression of the Peaceful Revolution of 1989.

[@HTtwentyten]

Interesting concept, but please build this seesaw anywhere else but on top of the Kaiser Wilhelm Monument's pedestal. It just does not belong there. Hopefully we can rebuild that monument in future, because the past is vitally important to who we are, and we should not be embarrassed by it.