This local competition calls for a park proposal in San Juan. Our scheme's principal objective for the Third Millenium Park was to transform the idea of the monument into a kind of collective memory capsule which would reflect the identity, aspirations, and idiosyncrasy of the Puerto Rican people. With this in mind, we proposed part of our scheme to incorporate works of art to be commissioned to local artists. These works would have the monument's glass envelope as a canvas, and would be commissioned along the length of the next century. In this way, the glass facades would accumulate over time and store images of our past and present, and visions of our future. The structure, primarily composed of stainless steel, lies like an island surrounded by a pond as to reference Puerto Rico's geographic condition. The monument is essentially a tower composed of three sides, in relation to the three ethnic groups, Spanish, African, and Taíno, which are traditionally believed to have given birth to the Puerto Rican culture. This triangular arrangement also has the structural advantage of being extremely stable. The translucent surfaces serve the dual purpose of creating color effects and nocturnal illumination, while lessening the impact of the monument's massive scale.
