Witch memorial (Vardø)

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The witch memorial with pavilion
Pavilion with a pyre artwork by Louise Bourgeois

The witches monument in Vardø , the easternmost municipality in Norway is one in 2011 to plans by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor built and consisting of two buildings memorial in the Fylke Troms og Finnmark in Norway. It is a reminder of the witch hunts and burnings in northern Norway in the 17th century.

Historical background

In the 17th century, with a high point in the years 1662–1663, there was a wave of witch hunts in northern Norway, of which Vardø was one of the worst. More than 100 people were accused of witchcraft and 77 women and 14 men were burned at the stake . The witch hysteria was particularly pronounced in Finnmark ̣, with proportionally a particularly high number of indictments and a far above average number of executions .

The attachment

View from the mainland to Vardø; in the middle of the picture on the beach the elongated bright memorial hall, to the right of it the black pavilion

The facility is located south of the historic Vardøhus fortress on Steilnes, on the southwestern shore of the island of Vardøya , facing the mainland. It was inaugurated on June 23, 2011 by Queen Sonja of Norway . It consists of two separate and architecturally very different buildings, a long and narrow memorial hall and a comparatively small, square memorial.

The memorial hall

The 120-meter-long wooden and canvas construction of the memorial hall is reminiscent of a traditional Norwegian fish drying rack on which fish are dried in the salty sea air. White pillars support a filigree roof on the rocky ground. The boat-shaped memory room, only about 1.50 meters wide, is suspended in the wooden structure with thin steel cables. It is in the shape of an oversized kayak that is jacked up on its long side . A simple entrance door leads into the interior, which is quite dark in contrast to the bright exterior. The long corridor is only lit by 91 irregularly arranged small windows with incandescent lamps behind them, each of which is assigned to a text panel reminding of one of the 91 victims. The texts, written by the historian Liv Helene Willumsen, are based on the court minutes for the respective victim. These texts are published in a book available in four languages.

The pavilion

In a small square pavilion with steel walls and 17 smoked glass plates next to the memorial hall, the French-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois created a symbolized pyre; it was her last major public work. In the center of the pavilion, flames lick through the seat of a metal chair in the middle of a truncated cone made of concrete. Seven oval mirrors on five-meter-high masts form a circle around the fireplace, like judges around the victim. The visitors move between the concrete stump and the mirror and can watch the chair flaming in the fire and yet not burning, either directly or in mirror image.

Coordinates: 70 ° 22 ′ 10.3 ″  N , 31 ° 5 ′ 30.5 ″  E

Footnotes

  1. ^ Suzanne Stephens: Steilneset Memorial to the Victims of the Witch Trials. Peter Zumthor and Louise Bourgeois. Vardø, Norway. In: Architectural Record , Vol. 199, No. 8, August 2011, pp. 36-40
  2. ^ Nasjonale turistveger: Zumthor & Partner (Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partner). Retrieved November 5, 2017 .

literature

  • Zumthor in the very north , in DBZ , issue 2/2012, p. 12 - Article about the Vardømuseum built by Peter Zumthor and Norway's easternmost settlement.
  • Liv Helene Willumsen: Steilneset Memorial: Art Architecture History. Orkana, Stamsund, 2014, ISBN 978-82-8104-245-2
  • Liv Helene Willumsen: Witches of the North: Scotland and Finnmark. (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, Vol. 170), Brill, Leiden, 2013, ISBN 9-00425-291-6
  • Liv Helene Willumsen: The Witchcraft Trials in Finnmark, Northern Norway. Varanger Museum & Skald Publisher, Bergen, 2010, ISBN 978-82-7959-152-8
  • Kiran Millwood Hargrave: "Vardo - After the Storm", novel, ISBN 978-3-453-29236-9

Web links

Commons : Witch-hunt memorial in Steilneset  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files