MH17 MEMORIAL + PARK | COMPETITION

“matterbetter is inviting young architects and students to participate in open-ideas international competition for MH17 Memorial + Park in Amsterdam. This competition aims to explore and research possible themes and directions of the Memorial representation. Matterbetter team is the only organizer of this competition. Any references to the involvement of the municipality of Amsterdam in this project are incorrect.

Background:

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on 17 July 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. The Boeing 777-200ER airliner lost contact about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border and crashed near Torez in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km from the border.

The aircraft crashed outside Hrabove, near Torez in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.The fireball on impact is believed to have been captured on video. Photographs from the site of the crash show scattered pieces of broken fuselage and engine parts, bodies, and passports. Some of the wreckage fell close to houses in Hrabove. Dozens of bodies fell into crop fields, and some fell into houses.

All 283 passengers and 15 crew died. The crew were Malaysian and 193 passengers were Dutch, while many of the other passengers were Australians and Malaysians. By 19 July, the airline had determined the nationalities of all 298 passengers and crew.

Among the passengers were delegates en route to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, including Joep Lange, a former president of the International AIDS Society, which organized the conference. Also on board were Dutch senator Willem Witteveen Australian author Liam Davison, and Malaysian actress Shuba Jay. At least twenty family groups were on board the aircraft, and eighty of the passengers were children.

Mission Statement:
An international open ideas competition for architects and students is initiated to remember and honor the victims of the MH17 tragedy. This man-made tragedy has influenced thousands of lives in direct or indirect manner across the entire world. Most of all this tragedy has affected the Netherlands – the Dutch nation that lost 193 souls in this catastophe. Therefore Amsterdam, the departure point of this one way flight, was selected as a location for the MH17 Memorial.

MATTERBETTER has proposed to design an artificial island in the IJmeer in Amsterdam as a foundation for the MH17 Memorial. We believe that the memorial has to be for everyone – the place for the people who are directly connected to the tragedy and for the population of the world in general. Because of its location the memorial has to be addressed to a broader public, as it will be visited by various groups of people. It should form a new public space – the place for remembrance, ceremonies, recreation, private gatherings and should become a vital point of the Amsterdam cultural infrastructure.

MH17 Memorial has to be free from the political overtone and should not directly express the tragedy in a type of a monologue – it should allow individuals to experience through the space and form their own memories and emotions. Human presence is vital. The Memorial has to become an inviting place open for physical interaction, the place that honors remembrances, respect for life and a preservation of peace.

It was decided that the MH17 Memorial site will accomodate a landscape park in addition to its main purpose in order to become a green axis that will connect the Old Center and the North of Amsterdam and strengthen the location that is reclaimed from the water – symbolizing traditional collaboration of the Dutch people with the nature.”