Charlottesville Memorial
Design Competition Entry – Charlottesville, Virginia
Lifting the Curtain is a site-specific installation that invites both rest and reflection. Created for the 2018 BDA Prize—an ideas competition exploring identity and design in Charlottesville’s public realm—the piece responds to the erased legacy of Vinegar Hill, a historically Black neighborhood demolished during 1960s urban renewal.
The installation introduces a soft, sloped green surface into the downtown pedestrian mall—a gesture of ease and comfort that welcomes lingering, play, and community gathering. Yet at one edge, this familiar surface lifts, revealing a field of unfinished marble blocks beneath. These fractured forms symbolize lives uprooted, histories buried, and narratives long excluded from the visible urban fabric. QR codes embedded in the stone connect visitors to personal stories, expanding the installation into a participatory and evolving digital archive.
The work operates on multiple levels—literal and metaphorical, spatial and social. Inspired by counter-monumental thinking, it avoids grand gestures in favor of a quiet, layered provocation. What appears as a place of leisure is also a site of questioning: What lies beneath our public spaces? Whose histories are visible, and whose have been concealed?
By merging everyday landscape with civic memory, Lifting the Curtain creates a platform where architecture becomes an act of uncovering, a means of revealing what has been displaced—inviting new forms of engagement, remembrance, and responsibility.
Vinegar Hill before demolition (circa 1960)
This aerial photograph captures Vinegar Hill, the historic Black neighborhood that once stood on the site of this project. In 1965, it was demolished under federal urban renewal policies, displacing over 100 families and erasing a vibrant network of Black-owned homes and businesses. Today, few physical traces remain. Lifting the Curtain seeks to bring this buried history back into public awareness—quietly honoring what was lost and inviting reflection in the heart of the city.