Richmond, Virginia’s status as the former capital of the Confederate States has left unresolved historical issues to resurface again and again. To most of its citizens, the city has been slow to effectively reconcile its past (removing Robert E. Lee’s equestrian statue from Monument Avenue in 2021- only 156 years after the end of the civil war). It was shortly before the design of this project that the citizen’s simmering contempt spilled into the streets. After an exhaustive period of social isolation coupled with the death of George Floyd, an eruption of protests and counterprotests impelled Richmond into a battleground of social and political unrest. The numerous Confederate statues, which fantastically deify its icons, have become even more of an obvious sore in the wake of the burgeoning social-political reaction. It was during this period when monuments were targeted and the ideas around monumentality were, once again, confronted with a sense of urgent re-examination.

    Monuments play an integral role during rebellions, protests, and demonstrations as targeted symbols. Its erection or destruction are indicators of social change and record the dominance of the majority ideology. As such, this act of building and destruction is a time-honored human tradition as our ancestors have repeatedly erected our marble heroes and toppled our marble enemies again and again.

    Yet confederate monuments were still abundant by 2021. There were many who advocated for the monuments, putting forward arguments in favor of their right to remain. Predictably, this long-standing impasse compelled some “counter-monuments” to be installed as a reaction against the predominance of Confederate statues. The Emancipation and Freedom Monument, the Richmond Slavery Reconciliation Statue, and the Civil Rights Monument were erected around historic or important locations as counterweights against the Confederate monuments. Some of these employ meta-critique to directly address the Richmond momuments, like in Rumors of War by Kehinde Wiley, which subverts classical equestrian statues by replacing the white subject with a black one. During the protests and riots, many monuments were vandalized, creating a new kind of “organic” monument which traces its objections unto its own surfaces. For example, the defacing of the Robert E. Lee statue, with its new kaleidoscopic tattoo of spray-paint, subverts the authority of its host, its aggregation of oppositional splatters like a dialectical championing of collective solidarity against perceived symbols of oppression and of a spirit long dead. Where this uniquely layered emblem once stood is now an empty field.

    However well-intentioned these counter-monuments, like all monuments, they suffer a fundamental shortcoming- they function in the abstract. A common monument’s role as a seen-object is severly limited in its influence beyond visual contemplation. The occasional pavilionated or occupiable monuments are often vacuous and severely limited in its programmatic focus, if it even exists. Conversely, monuments are simple in its depictions of grand ideas leaving little room for programmatic and symbolic interpretation. The conventional monument typology therefore turns away any actionable 

    To instill real-life programmatic answers to the aspirations exhibited by conventional monuments, this project aims to remedy these shortcomings while retaining a monument’s symbolic significance. This involves rethinking the meaning of a monument into something which not only commemorates ambition through imagery but is actually capable of fostering it within the space. Here, the project returns to the difficult social-political atmosphere of Richmond. This proposal identifies intolerance and lack of meaningful communication as prime instigators of the current social polarization and seeks to reverse this within its space. Food is an effective and inviting universal tool in communicating culture and will be one of the project’s programmatic impetuses.

    No matter how fleeting, every act of consideration and acceptance is an act against intolerance; and the acceptance of food is the acceptance of that people’s labor and, often, cultural pride. A gesture of tolerance and acknowledgement. This is what is hoped to be achieved in abundance at the proposed monument. It will house an open food / farmers market of various cultures. The culturally diverse selection of vendors is meant to reflect the multi-cultural reality of this country and how enriched it is in its coexistence. 

   
    The new monument will also house a small public library- a space of exchanging knowledge and information. Here new ideas can be explored and discovered in unexpected ways, and through which can communicate new paradigms to an individual more personally and perhaps even more effectively.

    Finally, the project will continue to deliver the conventional symbolic expressions of commemoration through its architectonic forms. It is elevated beyond mere structure as its literal intersections simultaneously act as load bearing structures as well as symbols of the intersecting lives of those who visit the space. It is contained under a single roof to unify these principles into one collective sentiment.

    By ascribing this architectural project the status of “monument”, its begins to challenge conventional understandings of the seen-object nature of traditional monuments and its effectiveness in elevating the public’s ability to practice aspirational principles evoked in them. Architecture cannot solve complex social-political problems as directly as policies and regulations. However, during a tumultuous period in which ideological differences seem to overpower shared principles, it is nice to find a place where people are invited to sample foods of many cultures and engage in an act of unexpected learning. All are welcome in the new monument.