This is a beautiful memorial, and truly a touching tribute, but the cost of these memorials has always befuddled me. The 52 3.5m (11.5') steel pillars cost £1 million. And as far as memorial pricetags go, that is fairly low. Some budgets reach into the 100 millions.
I have always wondered if somehow, a smaller, much more simpler physical memorial was built, and the remainder of the funds allocated and established some sort of foundation or charity or the like for the victims families to help get them through what they have just experienced would be more appropriate. I do not deny the importance of something you can touch and look at and is understandable to other people, but I suppose the comfort that you can get out of a physical memorial always seemed out of proportion to the cost of erecting it. A elaborate mausoleum does not comfort the grieving widow anymore than a simple tombstone does.
I have never had to go through anything like the families and friends of tragedy victims have had to, so I cannot pretend to thoroughly understand. However, it has always seemed to me that those people would not care how much money was spent of a memorial to their loved ones, only that they were recognized and appreciated at all. And that the poignancy of the tribute would not be halved if the budget was.
Again, mostly just conjecture on my part, but with the cost of dealing with a loved one's death, it almost seems more befitting to help out with the little things that can cause so much more grief and agony in the daily lives of the survivors (like organizing funerals, paying for them, supporting family that was left behind), than to make a huge expensive grand public gesture.
If the public gesture was a bit less extravagant (cost-wise, not talking about design here at all), maybe a bit of that money could be put pointed in a more useful direction. Just some thoughts.
(some post-posting thoughts to add. I realize as I re-read this that what I have just typed does not necessarily, or cannot, apply to war memorials, or where the death toll number is far greater. At least in the thoughts on reallocation of funds.
But I do believe that parts of my argument still stand. I have seen war memorials that are elaborate [the new WWII memorial in DC for example], and I have seen war memorials that are as simple as a tank pulled out of the water and preserved with a plaque dedication [the memorial to British and American soldiers who were killed practicing for D-Day at Slapton Sands on the southern coast of England]. Both stirring, both silence inducing, both bringing up appreciativeness for the sacrifices made for our countries. One at considerable less cost.
At the same time I do not think I would like to see all grand memorials go. I am a huge fan of Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial, and think it is one of the best of its kind. I am just proposing not all memorials have to carry the price tag of the gross national income of most African countries. [I didn't mean for that to sound sarcastic....])
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