ARCHITECT SAYS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MEMORIAL WILL BE READY FOR SATURDAY UNVEILING
Pasadena Weekly, CA
April 16 2015
By Andre Coleman 04/16/2015
An architect working on the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Pasadena’s
Memorial Park said the monument will be completed by Saturday’s
unveiling ceremony.
“The structure itself is installed,” Chris Allaire of the Pasadena
architecture firm Moule & Polyzoides said Monday. “The benches are
being set along with the stonework, engraving is almost complete
and the fountain is being installed. I believe it will be completed
on time.”
Council members, area dignitaries and local residents are expected
to attend the ceremony set for 3 p.m. Saturday on the Walnut Street
side of Memorial Park.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide,
which claimed the lives of as many as 1.5 million children, women and
men between 1915 and 1923 at the hands of soldiers from the Turkish
Ottoman Empire. The Turkish government still denies responsibility for
what Pope Francis recently called the 20th century’s first genocide.
The circular design features a 16-foot-tall tripod at its center. From
the apex of the three beams will fall a single drop of water every
21 seconds, totaling 1.5 million drops — symbolic tears — each year
for every victim of the atrocity.
The design, created by 28-year-old Art Center student Catherine Menard,
was chosen from 17 applicants reviewed by members of the Pasadena
Genocide Memorial Committee (PASAGMC), which includes former Mayor
Bill Paparian, former Pasadena Police Chief Bernard Melekian and
former state Assemblyman Anthony Portantino of La Cañada Flintridge.
“The memorial represents the souls of the departed who cry out from
the grave for justice and is symbolic of other tragedies of genocide
from Darfur and Rwanda to the indigenous people of the Americas,”
said Pasadena City Councilman John Kennedy.
During his campaign in 2007, presidential candidate Barack Obama
promised that he would acknowledge the genocide if elected president.
However, despite urging from US Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) the
president has not followed through.
Schiff will read the names of a small fraction of the 1.5 million
people killed when Congress convenes April 22. Schiff is inviting the
descendants of genocide victims from around the nation to submit the
names of victims for inclusion in his speech and the congressional
record.
From: Baghdasarian