The context of the memorial on the gloomy coast of the Barents Sea, in the town of Vardo, is one of the most eerie pages in the history of Norway. Zumthor's most famous and most mystical work was built by him in 2011. By that time, Peter had already won the Pritzker Prize and the RIBA Prize.
Steilneset Memorial on the shores of the Barents Sea. Photo: Andrew Meredith
In the 1593th century, the fishing town of Vardo became the center of a mass massacre of women accused of witchcraft. Witch hunters believed that fishermen's wives, whose husbands went to sea for a long time, came into contact with evil spirits. Local lopars who performed pagan rites were also under suspicion. According to Rune historian Blix Hagen, who studied the archives at the University of Tromsø, only from 1692 to 100, almost 77 people were sentenced to death and burned in Vardo, including XNUMX women. The executions took place on a rocky shore, under the howl of the wind and the menacing noise of the waves.
Peter Zumthor in the background of his memorial to the victims of the witch hunt. Photo: Andrew Meredith
Zumthor first visited this barren shore in February 2006. He was invited by the curator of the Norwegian Tourist Route with a request to design a pavilion that would house the installations of the artist Louise Bourgeois, dedicated to the witch hunt.
Next to the textile and wood pavilion is a glass cube with an installation by Louise Bourgeois
"I was surprised by the huge number of dark and abandoned buildings," says Zumthor about his first impressions in Vardo. — While I was walking, I saw several buildings where, as a sign that they lived in the house, the residents put a lantern with a candle on the windowsill. I absorbed this flat, horizontal landscape, and woke up in the morning with an idea."
Photo: Andrew Meredith
For the next three years, Zumthor and the employees of his office, located in the small Swiss village of Haldenstein, developed technical solutions for the project in Vardo.
Memorial design layout
Zumthor designed and installed a strange structure along the surf line: pine scaffolding, similar to that used by fishermen to dry cod, supports a suspended textile cocoon 120 meters long. Inside, there is a fitted corridor with panels and flooring of dark oak, which is illuminated by a meager light from square windows. As one walks through the narrow, swaying corridor, one feels trapped, whether in the hold of a ship or in the womb of a whale, and all one sees are the names of burned witches on plaques and the foam of the sea surf outside the tiny windows.
Inside the pavilion. Photo: Andrew Meredith
A cubic pavilion made of black glass is installed separately from the cocoon. It houses the Eternal Witches Bonfire installation, a chair with a burning seat and seven mirrors around it.
A chair with eternal fire. Photo: Andrew Meredith
Mirrors are like mute witnesses of crimes, perhaps they are relatives and family members of victims who could not or did not want to protect them.
Photo: Andrew Meredith
"The most important thing in architecture is not the creation of a form, but completely different things: light, structure, the play of shadows, smells," believes Zumthor, and the Steilneset Memorial became the embodiment of all his ideas and an architectural accuser of human ignorance and obscurantism.
