29 Genn. 2013- Art Center College of Design Student Wins Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial ‎Competition

http://centerarnews.com/student-wins-armenian-genocide-memorial-design-contest-p5517-1.htm
Public Artwork Designed by Catherine Menard Will Be Completed in Time for 100th ‎Anniversary Commemorations in 2015‎
Art Center College of Design Student Wins Pasadena Armenian ‎Genocide Memorial Competition
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Public Artwork Designed by Catherine Menard Will Be Completed in ‎Time for 100th Anniversary Commemorations in 2015‎
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January 29, 2013, Pasadena, Calif.—Today Art Center College of Design and the Pasadena Armenian Genocide ‎Memorial Committee (PASAGMC) jointly announced the winning design concept for a new memorial whose planned ‎dedication in 2015 will coincide with 100th anniversary commemorations of the Armenian Genocide. The concept by ‎Art Center Environmental Design student Catherine Menard was developed in 2012 as part of the College’s social ‎impact design program, Designmatters. The proposed site for the public artwork is Memorial Park in the City of ‎Pasadena.‎
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Menard’s concept was one of 17 submissions the committee received, and one of three finalists chosen by an ‎independent panel of judges in December. The three-judge panel included Stefanos Polyzoides, a principal of Moule & ‎Polyzoides, Architects and Urbanists; Ruben Amirian, an architect/artist who has served on the design review board ‎and historic commission in Glendale; and Neshan Peroomian, a contractor and prominent Armenian-American ‎community leader.‎
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In all, six Environmental Design students at Art Center developed memorial proposals last fall during an intensive ‎Design Topic Studio class and submitted them to the competition. Two of the students—Menard and her classmate ‎J.D. Clark—were selected as finalists, a particularly impressive achievement in a field of competitors that included ‎many seasoned professionals.‎
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Earlier this month, Board members of PASAGMC voted unanimously to move forward with Menard’s proposal.‎
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‎“This was a competitive process, and we considered a number of very fine proposals,” says Committee Chair William ‎M. Paparian, Esq., an attorney and former Mayor of Pasadena. “But our final decision was unanimous. We were ‎deeply impressed by Catherine, who developed and presented an emotionally compelling design for a historical event ‎that she initially knew nothing about. We hope that this memorial will inspire a similar emotional connection in those ‎who encounter it, for generations to come.”‎
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‎“With tremendous pride, we congratulate Catherine Menard on her creative and inspiring memorial design that will ‎have profound and lasting impact in the community,” says Art Center President Lorne M. Buchman. “The ‎extraordinary talent and commitment of our students and faculty continue to find meaningful expression locally and ‎globally through a remarkable range of social impact projects.”‎
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Greater Los Angeles is home to the largest population of Armenians in the United States, many descended from ‎families persecuted and killed between 1915 and 1921.‎
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Menard, 26, is a seventh-term Environmental Design major at Art Center and expects to graduate this year. Of French ‎Cajun heritage, she was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and moved with her family to Los Angeles at age four. She ‎currently resides in Pasadena.‎
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‎“I’m a Southern California girl with a Southern heart,” she says with a smile.‎
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Initially invited to join the project by Environmental Design Associate Professor James Meraz, Menard came into it ‎with little knowledge of Armenian history. “But I have always felt drawn to history and heritage,” she says, “drawn to ‎anything with any semblance of meaning.”‎
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Menard immersed herself in accounts of the Armenian Genocide as well as the recent history of memorial art, including ‎the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC, designed by Maya Lin who, like Menard, was a student at ‎the time she won the competition.‎
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‎“It all started to permeate my mind and my heart,” says Menard. “At first I felt unworthy—who am I to respond to ‎such loss? But art lends itself to the deepest, darkest parts of human experience. It can create sympathy, empathy, ‎understanding. I wanted to pair this horror with something uplifting and beautiful, to create a way to remember. I ‎developed three different ideas and settled on the one that I felt most terrified and most moved by.” ‎
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The central feature of Menard’s minimalist design—a carved-stone basin of water straddled by a tripod arrangement ‎of three columns leaning into one another—is a single drop of water that falls from the highest point every three ‎seconds, each “teardrop” representing one life lost. Over the course of one year, 1.5 million tears will fall into the pool, ‎the estimated number of victims of the Armenian Genocide.‎
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‎“It was an honor to lead this most extraordinary challenge,” says Meraz. “In just seven weeks—half the time of our ‎typical studio—our students worked passionately to design a memorial that has the power to provoke an emotional ‎and contemplative response to a horrific event. In turn, this educational experience has given them new perspective, ‎with compassion, sensitivity, remembrance and hope for the human condition.”‎
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Polyzoides, one of the competition jurors, will work with Menard to bring her concept to fruition. An associate professor ‎of architecture emeritus at the University of Southern California, he is an architect, urbanist and partner of Moule & ‎Polyzoides, a Pasadena practice that has completed many distinguished projects locally, in other parts of the U.S. and ‎abroad.‎
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‎“All of the Art Center student submissions were extremely well done and stood out for their seriousness. But Catherine’s ‎design struck the perfect balance between abstract and representational,” says Polyzoides. “It’s very beautiful, very ‎poetic, and I want to make sure that it’s as well constructed as it was conceived.”‎
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Although he was the only non-Armenian juror, Polyzoides has many Armenian friends and the history of the Armenian ‎Genocide has personal resonance for him. “My grandparents were from Istanbul and I grew up in Greece,” he recalls. ‎‎“For as long as I can remember, I heard about the actions taken by the Ottoman Turkish government against the ‎Armenian minority. It was devastating.”‎
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Details regarding the project’s budget and construction will be developed over the next several months, with official ‎groundbreaking anticipated in 2014 and dedication of the completed memorial on April 24, 2015.‎
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CONTACT:‎
Teri Bond
Director, Communications
Art Center College of Design
‎310.738.2077 mobile‎
teri.bond@artcenter.edu

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