Michigan State University students, faculty, staff and alumni have been asked to help choose a design for a memorial recognizing the death of three students and the serious injury of several others when on Feb 13, 2023, a gunman entered Berkey Hall and the MSU Union, forever changing how we feel about the safety and serenity of campus.
Since then, Judith Stoddart, MSU vice provost for university arts and collections, has led a planning process to honor the victims’ lives with a campus memorial. She led a team of 10, held listening sessions and conducted surveys about what a memorial should look like.
A request for proposal was sent out nationwide to architects, sculptors and landscape designers. Twenty proposals were submitted. None of the final designs are from Michigan companies or alumni.
A design by global architecture firm HWKN proposes three circular planting areas with trees planted in the center. A second design from Los Angeles architect James Dinh would feature three granite stone pillars with circles cut into the center to represent the lost lives. A third design by Toronto artists Carlos Portillo and Jessica Guinto incorporates the pond behind the Student Services Building. All call for seating areas to encourage meditation and contemplation.
The location of the first two memorials would be in “Sleepy Hollow,” just east of the Music Building off West Circle Drive. Sleepy Hollow, within Beal Gardens, is part of the so-called “Sacred Space” and has been excluded from any construction since its design in 1906 by O. C. Simonds, a well-known Prairie School landscape architect.
At the time, Simonds wrote, “I should regard all the ground included in this area marked as a sacred space from which all buildings must be forever excluded.”
You can help select a winner from three finalists at www.spartanstogether.msu.edu/memorial.
BILL CASTANIER
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