More than half of Eisenman's memorial is already cracked

Berlin - Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, one of the youngest tourist attractions in the German capital, is developing more and more cracks. Cracks have already been revealed on more than half of the 2,711 concrete slabs evenly distributed over an area of approximately two football fields near the Brandenburg Gate. This was reported by the German magazine Cicero, citing an expert from Berlin’s Technical University, Joachim Schulze, who examined the extent of the damage to the memorial in December and January.
    Cracks in the variously tall slabs began to appear soon after its opening in May 2005. Initially, 20 cracked slabs were reported, later 390 and 450. Now there are already 1,361, and the damage is already in the hundreds of thousands of euros - estimated at 100,000 to 200,000 euros (2.6 to 5.3 million crowns). The construction of the slab field cost 13.9 million euros.
    According to Schulze's report, 60 percent of the cracks are thinner than 0.2 millimeters, which means they are "optical defects." However, the other cracks are larger. So far, visitors are not exposed to any danger, but the memorial designed by American architect Peter Eisenman risks becoming a perpetual construction site, warns the newspaper Die Welt.
    Schulze does not rule out that the slabs will begin to crumble once water penetrates into the cracks and freezes. Therefore, according to him, the current cracks must be sealed in any case, and slabs with larger gaps should even be replaced with new ones.
    However, Eisenman ruled this out last year, as he stated that there is no crane with a sufficiently long arm that could reach the middle of the slab field. Remediation of the memorial was supposed to begin last year, when it was planned to fill the cracks with resin. However, the foundation operating the memorial stated that the plan faltered due to disagreements with the contractor - the company Geithner Bau. While it will repair 50 blocks in the spring, it currently refuses to do so under warranty. It is therefore uncertain who will bear the costs of the remediation, as it has not yet been conclusively determined what is causing the cracking.
    The memorial to the victims of the Holocaust is a draw for tourists from around the world not only because of its underground informational section but mainly due to the impressive labyrinth of rectangular alleys between the concrete blocks. Visitors are struck by a suffocating feeling of being in the midst of a dark, petrified city devoid of life.