Square of November 9, 1989, Berlin moment by moment

According to the memories of eye witnesses, the essence of the 9th of November 1989 consists of a series of sequences of powerful individual moments. Quotes embedded into the pavement recall these emotionally charged moments and events.

Motif
On the narrow strip on Bornholmer Straße at the north-eastern foot of the Bösebrücke, a memorial space for the 9th of November 1989, for one single day, is to be developed.
Our proposal for the design of the square approaches the "moment" as a historical unit of time and as a motif of remembrance. Immediately, the 9th of November was addressed as a historical day. When looking back in commemoration, the day remains as an abstract unit of remembrance. It presents itself (like many before) as a flow of powerful individual moments, a building stream of unimagined news.
Many of the moments of this day belong to the frequently repeated canon of our media memory and are retrievable by a large part of the people in Germany, from Schabowski's "to my knowledge... this is immediately, without delay" to the "madness" of late night. So far, they have not lost their emotional impact. Such powerful moments of this day should shape the place.
We want to imagine the decisive moment of this night, the undocumented moment when the first person detaches from this dense and growing crowd and makes a move across the bridge.

Figure
The elongated, narrowing space is covered with water-bound gravel in an anthracite shade. Perpendicularly aligned with the relic of the Hinterland wall, rusty steel bands extend across the pavements in a seemingly irregular manner.
But in fact, their frequency from East to West proportionally follows the chronology of the events of 9th of November ‘89. They are marked with hours and minutes and supplemented with literal quotations or text fragments. They refer to events that occurred from 9:00 to midnight.
A linear band marks the moment when the so-called “valve-opening” (21:20) was ordered – at this time the first GDR citizen was able to cross the bridge without exit papers.

Space
The proposed spatial arrangement allows for an interplay between an area of commemoration, a central area of information and an area of contemplation. The entire space is also intended to be accessed sensually as well as contemplatively. The events of the day can be experienced by a brief tour. The walk through the grove allows the visitor to encounter both confinement and open expanse.