Designed with the intent to complement nature by contrasting its delicacy with massiveness, its fluidity with rigidity, and its ever-changing qualities with permanence, these Monuments to Nature act as a blank canvas for nature to grow, change, and weather for the rest of time. These monuments aim to outlast the human experience and survive well into a post-human future. The monuments are dedicated to the three main principles of our environment: air, land, and water. Because of our tendencies to selfishly mistreat and destroy elements of nature for our benefit, each of the three monuments consists of solid, two-foot-thick concrete walls. The paradoxical narrative created by designing monuments dedicated to nature that act as a blank canvas yet still use unnatural materials serves to show that we have still not found a way to design architecture that can resiliently and responsibly withstand nature’s forces while still using materials occurring naturally in our environment. Inside the project’s only ‘building’ sits a cantilevered gallery of some of nature’s most beautiful objects—each of which is behind glass or rope. This furthers the idea that the only time you can truly appreciate nature is when you are outside, not when it is curated.
