Los Angeles, CA
Chinese Massacre Memorial Competition
Submission 2022

 The platform is embedded in the dirt bed revealed by excavating the ground. Bringing soil up from the ground represents the land that the Chinese immigrants wished to settle in but were murdered at. The platform basically consisted of two 5’-0″ tall walls offering different possibilities for public engagement. The axis of the wall is created by the existing pedestrian pavers and the Chinese American Museum building façade to minimize the intervention of the existing environment and naturally attract the public to the platform.

The human scale of the wall enables the public to stand, sit and walk through, which conveys that the people stay in this place for a moment to learn a lesson, rest in stillness, or pray for the loss.

The eighteen apertures in the wall visualize the eighteen victims of the 1871 Chinese Massacre. Each aperture generates its own shape of light, cast in the horizontal plane by the boundary of the shadow in the daytime. We want to give the victims different characters, and then the history begins with a powerful story to draw attention and increase awareness of the painful event. The memorial is also lit up at night by the eighteen paver lights to carry on the same idea. The linear structure is comprised of eight segments possibly applicable to each unique secondary site environment. People can link the primary with the secondary and understand the whole story of the incident. The platform is made out of red concrete that blends in with its surroundings, and it is also associated with Chinese culture, creating physical and psychological connectivity.