23 March 2013, 16:35
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Winner of Armenian Genocide Memorial Competition

Art Center College of Design and the Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial Committee jointly announced the winning design concept for a new memorial whose planned dedication in 2015 will coincide with the 100th anniversary commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. The concept by Art Center Environmental Design student Catherine Menard was developed in 2012 as part of the college’s social impact design program, Design Matters. The proposed site for the public artwork is Memorial Park in the city of Pasadena. Menard’s concept was one of 17 submissions the committee received and one of three finalists chosen by an independent panel of judges in December. The central feature of Menard’s minimalist design – a carved-stone basin of water straddled by a tripod arrangement of three columns leaning into one another – is a single drop of water that falls from the highest point every three seconds, each “teardrop” representing one life lost. Over the course of one year, 1.5 million tears will fall into the pool, the estimated number of victims of the Armenian Genocide. Menard, 26, is a seventh-term environmental design major at Art Center and expects to graduate this year. Of French Cajun heritage, she was born in Lafayette, Louisiana and moved with her family to Los Angeles at age four.

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