Georgia Convict Labor Memorial
Georgia Tech Design Studio / 2014 / Atlanta, GA / supervised by Libero Androtti
This monument and documentation center straddles the BeltLine in the Old Fourth Ward and commemorates the incarcerated men sold by prison wardens into a brutal labor system that essentially extended the institution of slavery in the South during the reconstruction years. The form and material of the tower reference the brick making industry that victimized the imprisoned workers.
As visitors embark on the winding path through the memorial the brick walls around them deform and eventually decompose. The walls frame a series of spaces that alternate between bright and open, and gloomy and compressive. The journey begins when the path peels off of the main stretch of the BeltLine and narrows to focus vision on the tower and obscures the enclosure's entrance. The last curve reveals a descending ramp that circles the tower and leads visitors underground. The tower’s oculus, the journey’s climax, floods with direct sunlight annually to commemorate the day the crimes were brought to light by the .
The path continues through another dimly lit curve that widens to reveal the documentation center, a small museum and gallery displaying objects and information about the system that forced the incarcerated into unpaid labor. The brick retaining wall becomes very irregular here, deconstructing from the top to meet a slowly ascending ramp leading visitors out of the enclosure and back to the BeltLine.
