MEMORIAL TO CARRIE BUCK

Existing Site Pictures

The first intervention is a Memorial to Carrie Buck at the Western State Lunatic Asylum, now the Blackburn Inn. Carrie Buck was the first person legally sterilized in Virginia, after her case was argued in the 1927 Buck v. Bell Supreme Court case, holding the law that forced sterilization was legal to those deemed unfit.

The geometry of the memorial is informed by the geographical relationship between 4 cities of relevance in her life: Charlottesville, where she was born, Lynchburg, where she was sterilized, Staunton, where she lived for a period and symbolizes DeJarnette’s testifying in her court case, and Waynesboro, her final resting place.

The memorial creates a contemplative space for remembrance, with a wall of inscriptions of her life, and gathering spaces throughout the landscape, hoping to draw visitors from the conference center to these spaces.

Water moves through the memorial, ending up in a continuous, reflective river, eternally memorializing Carrie’s life in the landscape. This memorial personalizes the narrative of this project by emphasizing the life of and documentation of Carrie Buck in honor of those whose history has been lost.

The landscape at the site revolves around seasons and changes, working with the event schedule of the Blackburn Inn, and symbolizing the cycles of life, plants and trees bud, bloom, and die each year. Deciduous trees shade the outdoor spaces of the landscape during the summer, bloom brightly during autumn, and drop their leaves in the winter, creating direct views from the memorial to the Inn.

Existing Site Pictures

The second intervention is Legacy Markers at the new cemetery behind the Blackburn Inn. At this site, approximately 2,200 headstones mark the graves but include no information is included about the person it marks. This reflects the lack of archival evidence during the eugenics period, specifically representing the exploitation of minority communities. The site is currently privatized by the Inn and inaccessible to the public, thus a secondary entrance from a major road is added for public access. This intervention personalizes those headstones by humanizing and dignifying those headstones through reflections and silhouettes. The lines of the graves are framed between reflective panels, that project the shadows of those passing through the path between the panels with different levels of transparency throughout the day.

A water path stitches the panels together and creates a secondary level of reflection. Each pair of panels frames a row of graves and the height of the panels corresponds to the number of graves in that line.

Re ective panels | Quanti es graves Winding Path | Contemplative journey

Panel Height | Corresponds to number of graves in row

PROGRAM DIAGRAM

Panel Orientation | Frames the graves

LANDSCAPE CATALOG

Re ective silhouettes | Humanizes graves Water path | Stitches together the graveyard Landscaping | Evergreen trees and blooming trees symbolize life

FORM DIAGRAM

Existing Site Pictures

The third intervention is a Memorial to the Unnamed Victims of Virginia Eugenics at the old, unmarked cemetery. Used for 15 years, only 5 markers lie on the site, currently fenced off by an obscure fence. The intervention starts by lining the Western perimeter of the grave with lined with slate panels, aligned in the direction of the legacy markers at the new cemetery, connecting the two sites. These slate panels are intended to become personalized symbols of the lives of people lost to 20th century eugenics by encouraging written inscriptions of stories by those visiting the site.

The eastern perimeter is lined with a granite wall, punctured with 145 blocks that represent the 145 people buried at the site. Throughout the day, the movement of the sun over the site casts shadows onto the landscape, creating “headstones” for each of the graves. At night, each box is lit up, blending the dark slate and granite into the night sky, illuminating the lives of those lost. The perimeter is redefined with contemplative spaces for visitors. The landscape catalog at both graveyards uses evergreens and flowering species to bring color, activity, and life to the sites throughout the entire year.