memorial

Our approach in this proposal for Bjørnelva Memorial for the Soviet prisoners of war in Nordland
and at Bjørnelva, is to create a memorial site that honours the lives lived and the lives lost there.

The proposal is made with an attention to the landscape and the conditions that the prisoners
lived under. We have sought referring to basic forms, structures and vegetation that are present
on the site, in combination with sculptural and architectonic typologies that can clearly be
understood as a site for honouring, commemoration, and dignity.

We suggest to do that by creating a dramaturgy where the visitor will be first met by an
information point that mediates the history of the Soviet prisoners of war in Nordland and at
Bjørnelva; next, leads the visitor to the memorial site with a modular platform as entrance and
gathering point and a branching structure of steps leading one up to Sukkertoppen, where one
at the top will get a view of the site; including a map of the camp site and railroad that can be
seen from the lookout point.

The camp site itself will be untouched, and we propose to lead the visitors who wish to visit the
historical, broken monument at Bjørnelva along a path outside of the camp. By doing so, the
telling remnants of the camp and broken monument will be accessible for the visitors to see, yet
facilitated in such a way that these traces of layered history is well preserved.

We regard the walk up the steps as a form of procession and an integral part of the aesthetic
and affective experience at the memorial. The steps directs the movements on the memorial,
and can be seen as an infrastructure in dialogue with the railroad and road.