[ad_1]
Holocaust memorial proposals outside Parliament have been criticized for their potentially "damaging" impact on a park in central London.
The new landmark, which will also include a learning center, is planned for Victoria Tower Gardens on Millbank, along the Thames.
It will be dedicated to the six million men, women, children and other Jewish victims murdered by the Nazis.
A planning request for the memorial is currently being considered by Westminster City Council.
But Royal Parks, a charitable organization that looks after Victoria Tower Gardens, said it does not support the planning application "given the impact it will have on a popular public space located in a Capital district that counts few public parks.
In a letter to the Westminster Planning Team, Royal Parks described the gardens as "an extremely sensitive place in terms of planning and heritage".
He pointed out that the small triangular green space is a Grade II listed park located near Westminster Abbey and Parliament, collectively designated as a World Heritage Site.
The design of the Holocaust Memorial includes 23 large bronze fin structures in which visitors can wander, leading to the underground learning center.
Royal Parks stated that it "strongly supports" the principle of the project, but believes that its scope and design would have "significant adverse effects" on the "character and function" of the park.
He warned that the Learning Center "would fundamentally change the historical character and perspectives badociated with the inside and outside of the park".
"The structure will dominate the park and eclipse existing memorials, which are of national significance in their own right," the letter added.
Concerns were expressed about the negative impact of construction on the park's biodiversity and its accessibility to the public.
"Gardens are open spaces for the public and we would not want to close such a large area, or the possibility of the entire park, to visitors during the three years of its construction," wrote Royal Parks.
The charity said that the 1 million visitors expected from the memorial during its first year would create "queues and traffic jams".
"Overall, the dark nature of the memorial, the large structure and the necessary security measures (…) will change the nature of what is currently a relaxed park parallel to a unique location at the edge of a river", he declared.
More than 10,000 people signed an online petition on Change.org urging the government to reconsider the location of the memorial.
Clare Annamalai, a local resident and member of the Save Victoria Tower Gardens campaign group, said, "We do not think you should build parks, especially small historic parks of this type."
She said the activists were "absolutely not opposed" to the idea of the memorial but feared that current plans would "completely" dominate the park.
"It's both a local convenience, but also a national heritage and an environmental issue," she said.
"The scale … is deliberately invasive because it is supposed to shock and attract attention," she added.
According to Annamalai, a smaller memorial without the learning center would be more appropriate, or activists offered to transfer it to Westminster's College Green or the Imperial War Museum.
She claimed that the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, which runs the project, was "very opaque" as to why Victoria Tower Gardens had been chosen in relation to other places.
Royal Parks, who is responsible for managing eight of London's Royal Parks on behalf of the government, said the location had been chosen prior to the creation of the agency.
In his letter, he said, "The ministers made it clear that the charity had no role to play in the approval process."
Architect Sir David Adjaye heads the memorial design team alongside Ron Arad Architects as the memorial architect and Gustafson Porter + Bowman as landscape architect.
Adjaye was criticized after reporting this month in an interview that "disrupting the pleasure of being in a park is the key to thinking."
In a letter published Saturday in the Times newspaper, he replied: "Concerns about the preservation of the park and its purpose are understandable and have been heard.
"We have neither the desire nor the intention to diminish the refuge and the joy that this public place provides."
He added that the architects were working to keep 90% of the original park.
A spokesman for Westminster City Council said, "The council can not comment on outstanding requests."
Source link
