Space that Transcends Time: Narrating the Past in the Steilneset Memorial in VardØ

Abstract

This visual essay investigates the Steilneset Memorial (2011) in Vardø, Norway—a collaborative effort between the artist Louise Bourgeois and the architect Peter Zumthor. Consisting of two separate buildings, often referred to as a “line and a dot,” the project aims to narrate a centuries-old tragic history of witchcraft. The memorial was imagined as a commemorative project that responds to the spatial and cultural context of the location while also evoking the traumatic legacy. To address the centuries-old harrowing episode, the designers explored a concept of spirituality as a way to transcend historical time.