In the autumn of 1995, Simon Wiesenthal, director of the Jewish Documentation Centre, suggested that a monument dedicated to the Jewish victims of the Nazi regime be erected in Vienna. The proposed site for the monument was Judenplatz, the spiritual and intellectual centre of Jewish culture in Vienna during the Middle Ages. From proposals by an international group of artists and architects, the jury, headed by the Viennese architect Hans Hollein, chose the British artist Rachel Whiteread. In common with other works by Whiteread this project represents the inverted interior of a room which exists in memory and in history. Reinforced concrete in construction, the exterior surfaces of the monument are shaped as library walls turned inside out. On the front wall of the cuboid structure is a double wing door which conceals an inaccessible 'anonymous library'. This symposium, coinciding with an exhibition of the same name, discusses a range of issues raised by the competition.
Homa Farjadi - The Slow Tactility of History
Mark Cousins - Inside Outcast
Q & A panel session with symposium speakers.
NB: Missing section of Q & A.