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Arc of Memory has won the competition for dsesign of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism. -

A sculpture of bronze rods configured in a giant arc and intended to act as a living calendar has been chosenas the winning design for the Memorial to the Victims of Communism.

The design, unveiled Wednesday, marks the latest, and perhaps one of the final chapters, in the saga of a monument that has stirred immense controversy in the capital.

The Arc of Memorywas chosen by Heritage Minister Mlanie Joly afterpublic consultations in March 2017 and on the recommendations of a jury of design professionals. It was one of five designs shortlisted by the Departmentof Canadian Heritage.

The design was created by Toronto architect and artist Paul Raff, designer and arborist Michael A. Ormston-Holloway, and landscape architectsBrett Hoornaert and Luke Kairys.

It features two gently curving wall-like metal frames that will support more than 4,000 bronze rods. Those will be densely arranged along 365 steel fins. Each one will point at a unique angle of the sun, for every hour of every day, across a year, Canadian Heritage explained.

The memorial will be split in the middle at winter solstice, inviting visitors to step through in a metaphorical journey from darkness and oppression to lightness and liberty.

Its a three-dimensional calendar, where every moment can be identified, seen and touched, and where key collective moments, like the fall of the Berlin Wall can be inscribed and expressed as a moment in time, said Raff.Its something that can bring the history tangibly, visibly, into the present.

The sculpture, which will sit in a corner on the west side of the Garden of the Provinces and Territories, between Wellington and Sparks streets, is roughly fourmetres high and 21 metres long.

Constructionis expected to cost $3 million and be completed sometime in 2018, said MP Arif Virani, parliamentary secretary to the minister of Canadian Heritage, who announced the selection.

The federal government has committed half of that amount, along with an additional $500,000 for the design process. The other $1.5 million is being raised by the charity Tribute to Liberty. The new design still requires National Capital Commission approval.

Joly was in Montreal with the prime minister to mark Montreals 375th anniversary on Wednesday and didnt attend the announcement.

Virani said the chosen design met requirements that included public support, aesthetic value and cost. It also has a bold visionary component and is testament to the hardship and persecution people have faced and demonstrating that Canada is indeed a land of refuge, Virani said.

Tribute to Liberty has already provided $1 million of donations to the federal government, and its chair said that outstanding pledges made to their charity will cover the remaining half a million dollars needed to pay for its share of the project once construction begins.

The project has taken a long, winding road. The earlier monuments proposed location, near the Supreme Court of Canada, was heavily criticized, as was its initialdesign and size.

The new design will be much smaller than the previous monument, whichwas to take up 60 per cent of a 5,000-square-metre site.It was later reduced in size to about a third of the site, and latercancelled by the then-new Liberal government.

Ludwik Klimkowski with the model of the winning design Arc of Memory by Team Raff that was selected for the Memorial to the Victims of Communism. Errol McGihon / Postmedia

Tribute to Liberty chair Ludwik Klimkowski said there had been misconceptions about the size and placement of the earlier monument, but that he is pleased now with both the new site and the chosen design.

It still embeds itself within the parliamentary precinct, said Klimkowski. The planned redevelopment of Lebreton Flats to include a hockey arena could mean considerably more foot traffic for their new site, he said.

This particular design is equally, if not more, inclusive, inviting, inspiring and it really enlightens you, he said.

Ottawa architect Barry Padolsky, an outspoken critic of the original monument, said the new design is fairly abstract but perfectly respectable and possibly even imaginative scheme that is more universal than its specific.

Its a modest, human-scale monument. Its not something that will be an eyesore on the landscape, he said.

About eight million Canadians trace their roots to countries that lived or still live under Communism. The memorial is intended to recognize Canadas role providing refuge for those who fled Communism regimes.

TALE OF THE TAPE

Size

New monument: 21 metres long and about four metres tall, divided into two walls.

Canadian Heritage couldnt provide the monuments exact footprint, but said during public consultations earlier this year that the new monument was expected to be between 200 and 500 square metres.

Original monument: Originally planned to occupy about 3,000 square metres; it was later scaled back to about 1,700 square metres. The height of the monument was also reduced by about half to five metres.

Cost

New monument: $3 million, evenly split between charity Tribute to Liberty and the federal government. The department of Canadian Heritage also covered an additional $500,000 for design costs.

Original monument: $5.5 million. The previous Conservative government would have funded up to $4 million of that amount.

Location

New monument: Western corner of the Garden of the Provinces and Territories, which is between Wellington Street and Sparks Street on the western edge of downtown.

Original monument: In front of the Supreme Court of Canada on a 5,000-square-metre plot of land that had previously been earmarked for a new federal justice building.

Design

New monument: A sculptural array of bronze roads configured into a gigantic arc that features two gently curving wall-like metal frames roughly four metres tall and 21 metres long supporting 4,000 short bronze rods.

Original monument: A large viewing platform looked down on ascending folded concrete rows, rising about nine metres at their highest point. The rows were to feature 100 million fingertip-size memory squares that visitors could walk among and touch to viscerally experience the overwhelming scale of the Communist atrocities. The size of the monument was later scaled back.

aseymour@postmedia.com

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Arc of Memory 'living calendar' chosen for Memorial to Victims of ... - Ottawa Citizen