climate chronograph
a living climate memorial and sea level rise observatory.
climate chronograph’s living memorial of a sacrificial grid of cherry trees serves as a processional gauge of advancing seas. as oceans swell with ice melt, trees flood on the sloped shore, dying row by row, leaving sculptural trunks delineating shorelines past.
authored by nature, the memorial is an apolitical datum for public witness of cultural and natural histories in the making, reframing the climate debate in the irrefutable language of the land and sea.
marking today’s rising seas through a lens of tomorrow, the memorial previews a hindsight-like reckoning in our agency in their acceleration. today’s existing tidal flooding on the national mall reflects climate change impacts already felt across this nation and world. here, in washington dc, adaptation and mitigation questions are essentialized—how to balance civilization on an evolving planet of finite resources is a puzzle of values, policy, and pragmatism.
climate chronograph is a contemplative forum for our collective alarm, awe and optimism over our human fragility and power . . . a shoreline from which to observe the linked fates of the climate and our species.
design
rebecca sunter + erik jensen (as azimuth land craft)
competition winner
memorials for the future (nps, ncpc, van alen institute)
location
national mall, washington d.c.
date
2016
climate chronograph is the unbuilt winning entry to the memorials for the future ideas competition, sponsored by the national capital planning commission (ncpc), van alen institute, and the national park service (nps).
the memorial garnered enthusiasm for construction from competition jurors and sponsors—including directors at nps, ncpc, van alen, us commission of fine arts, and the national endowment for the arts. despite wide-ranging support from both dc's local and national leaders, climate chronograph died in all but idea just a month after its debut with the 2016 administration that ended climate work.
historic and projected sea level rise maps show the evolution of climate chronograph’s proposed site, on the tip of today's east potomac park (called hains point) from natural riverway to man-made island back to tidal river with rising seas. the island began flooding on king high tides years ago, causing infrastructural damage to the island's perimeter which is a keystone in downtown dc's flood control. nps owns the land and has already invested millions in seawall improvements around the jefferson memorial on the northern end of the island. nps was excited about climate chronograph's construction as a public datum making visible incremental water encroachment in real time, thereby highlighting adaptation questions behind defense vs. retreat scenarios, faced broadly by all waterfront owners and the jurisdictions in which they reside and specifically challenging to nps’ stewardship of lands in flux under the preservationalist mission upon which it was founded.
while the national mall is a fittingly poignant siting, the memorial's concept remains indelible on any stretch of tidal shore.
by press, poets, + philosophers
“A message written in the future perfect tense, Climate Chronograph transforms the present into an object of future memory.” Elizabeth Rush, RISING, Pulitzer Prize finalist
“A Sinking Cherry Grove Portends a Future of Rising Tides” HYPERALLERGIC
“In part, the memorial is meant as a commentary on modern attempts to control nature, and what that means in an era of climate change.” Fast Company
“Climate Chronograph . . . is a forward-looking memorial that takes a complex global process—climate change—and turns it into a tangible, personal experience.” National Park Service
“Climate Chronograph carries all of its past in its present, as it becomes its future.” Dr. Clara de Massol, Remember the Anthropocene. Memorials Beyond the Human, 2024
“Climate Chronograph demands that we reflect, now, on whether we will have wished we had done more to slow the incoming tide.” Elizabeth Rush, Orion Magazine, January/February 2017
The finalist concepts allow us to think outside the often-fixed nature of memorial design, looking beyond solemn marble statues of uniformed men on horseback, and envisioning emotionally resonant memorials open to varied interpretations.’” CURBED Washingston, D.C.
“Climate Chronograph is a new form of memorialization that commemorates the aftermath of the present.” Professor Edward Linithal
“With Climate Chronograph, Sunter and Jensen do not aspire to preserve or encase the memory of what is being lost to planetary climate change, instead . . . the memorial is designed to follow the movements of climate change organically by acting, in the manner of counter monuments as defined by James E. Young, ‘against itself’. Climate Chronograph counters memorial traditions of perennialism by unsuspending the past from its monumental shrine. . . . The memorial is not designed to reassure but to challenge its visitors and remind them of their agency and situation in the formulation and perpetuation of climate change’s collective memory. . . . Climate Chronograph is not devised to ‘solve’ climate change but to expose its material and immaterial reality . . .” Dr. Clara de Massol, Remember the Anthropocene. Memorials Beyond the Human, 2024
“Climate Chronograph [has become] a . . . memorial of the Trump era, significative of the former administration’s refusal to recognize the reality of climate change. The project won the Memorial for the Future competition just before Trump’s election in 2016; if it had been erected, it would have gone against the denialist narrative of its country’s executive leader. . . . {T}he project is . . . one of the first intentional memorials of the Anthropocene, designed in reaction to political impotence . . .” Dr. Clara de Massol, Remember the Anthropocene. Memorials Beyond the Human, 2024
“II
A grove of cherry trees
will be planted in rows
on a graded field,
close to the water.
As sea levels rise, salinity
in the soil will kill
the trees, row by row,
moving up slope foot by foot
until they all wither.
I hope to have a daughter
to take there, someday. Dress her
for a picnic in the Capitol,
tie her curls up in bows.
Wet the soles of our shoes
as we toe the line where cherry
blossoms once thrived. Uphill,
we will find few remain.”
excerpt Memorials for the Future, Climate Chronograph, Project Muse