The lesser things is whether remain remote

Nothing of the vacuum: stones, wind, and silence. The respect due to the different populations interned at the camp Joffre in Rivesaltes for over thirty years was imposed on architect Rudy Ricciotti project of extreme deference. Winner of the competition for the construction of a Memorial, it is clearly artwork: a concrete plate raised to the height of the former barracks in a silent prayer, the Earth to the sky, exhumed memory. Worn by the General Council of Pyrénées-Orientales in the person of Christian Bourquin, its President since 1998, this project was found in this voluntary landfill the only worthy expression, that of leaving intact site. "Sites like this refer to the absurdity of the Act to build its indecency." The lesser things is whether remain remote. With few words, this site is enormously. "Be heard", sets out Rudy Ricciotti.

Chairman of the Scientific Council and project leader, Denis Peschanski, Director of research at the CNRS, the question otherwise: "report on a site maintained under different regimes for populations that have experienced different sorts: diversity in universality." Created in 1935 as a military training camp, the camp Joffre the name of the maréchal de France, born in 1852 in Rivesaltes served successively of place of residence of the Spanish Republicans and Gypsies, and then in 1942 national Centre of gathering of the Israelites, a kind of "Drancy of free zone", according to Serge Klarsfeld. In 1962, the independence of the Algeria, he became the centre for temporary accommodation of the harkis. "This site is unique in France by its size, its state of conservation and its geographical position, says the Director of the project, it was important to have a grand gesture that is not necessary to place."

Historical innermost

The camp Joffre was classified in the additional inventory of Historic Monuments in the year 2000. The project occupies 42 acres on 300 of the total, partly still used by the army. The slab of concrete embedded spaces develop on some 3,000 m2. Ramps and tunnels allow access unless the visitor either previously prepared this dive in history. "It is a work on burial, getting bogged down, the thickness and the mass of concrete which seal the feet in the soil, says Rudy Ricciotti;" "getting bogged down, it is also seeking depth and the hidden face of the site, almost a psychoanalysis of this physical location". Under concrete, the Memorial gradually unveiled in a solemn atmosphere of "mineral crypt" to showrooms breakthroughs to punch holes in the Zenithal light as a constellation. "Transparency was not last to discuss major trauma", says the architect. "The two axis of the second world war and the war of Algeria, in particular through the fate of the harkis, adds a third axis hope interested in works of assistance called today NGOs, on the site from the outset, with this critical reports of the humanitarian issue and policy", says Denis Peschanski. Under the Earth, the architect took care to dig patios, each equipped with a special atmosphere, including a garden of Eden hosted sounds of birds in the heart of educational space for children. An area of meditation, singular and disconnected from the course, also to gather around four trees of different species planted in the square, selected by the four main communities concerned and their corresponding symbolically.

Nothing anecdotal or of demagogic within the device. "It is the antithesis of Disneyland," said Denis Peschanski;" It is not question of make believe the visitor can get instead of one who has suffered. "For control of work as to the architect, the philosophy of the Memorial is unambiguous. "The camp was an expression of the authority, a rationalist certainty on the theme of repetition, planning and the internment, says the architect, today as yesterday, the lack of freedom that remains is the sky. Devoid of any superfluous scenography, the only fact construction demonstration of this fact in the huge concrete plate which will be a single on 18 metres of scope. Each of his achievements, Rudy Ricciotti opportunity to advance the technology of the concrete. The Rivesaltes Memorial which should see the day in 2008, according to forecasts, will be a new demonstration. For the time being, the project advances on other fronts with including the recent signing of a partnership agreement with the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, or even a partnership with the Swiss Red Cross International to identify all the organisations who rescued in these places since the second world war and many of which are still present in the South. "Such a project can only succeed with strong local mobilization and the will of a territorial community, said Denis Peschanski, as in Rivesaltes, where memory found architectural expression.