Visitors to Battery Park in Manhattan will find memorials to fallen soldiers, sunken sailors and 400 passengers who perished when a Staten Island ferry was attacked by a giant octopus.

This last event, however convincing (thanks to 250-pound cast-bronze sculpture and plaque), is entirely fictional, part of surprisingly elaborate hoax. That would be hard to guess at a glance, though, given the thought and craft that went into this fake memorial and the other materials that were designed to bolster its credibility.

Artist Joseph Reginella invented the scenario, crafting a website, a mock documentary, news articles and fliers to complete the deception. The monument even directs people to the Ferry Disaster Memorial museum. It also weaves in real-world facts, like the name of the ship.

He had the idea while taking the ferry himself. When his won asked whether there were dangerous creatures waiting below, he invented the story, then spent months elaborating on the fabrication.

To keep the city from taking it away, he has moved the memorial from place to place. To add credibility, he made the day of the event the same as the assassination of President Kennedy, something that would plausibly overshadow such a massive historic disaster.

A visceral memorial to the nearly 100,000 victims of China’s 2008 earthquake, this weathered-steel monument and museum conjures images of cracked Earth left in the wake of a quake.

The Wenchuan Earthquake Memorial Museum was conceived of as an architectural landscape and situated in Wenchuan County, the epicenter of the earthquake in the Sichuan Province.

Green roofs look unassuming in the landscape while rusted steal provides a ground-hued contrast in the cracks winding their way through the ruptured site. The effect is powerful, giving visitors the sense that they are walking in the actual voids left by the disaster.

The quake was responsible for an estimated 70,000 deaths and left tens of thousands missing. The museum complex was created by the faculty of Tonji University at the request of the Chinese government.

The sheer magnitude of such an event is impossible to capture in physical form, but this design aims to at least give a sense of the devastation and places for remembrance and quiet contemplation.

In an audacious and contentious move, a group of young artists took it upon themselves to paint over the famous John Lennon Wall in Prague, replacing decades of layered mural work, drawings and tags with the message: “Wall is Over”. While the surface in question has particularly significant meaning for the local population, it has also long been a global symbol of resistance against governmental oppression – its clearing has thus become a border-crossing controversy.

Calling themselves Prague Service, the arts collective in question wanted to create a blank slate for future writers, reworking the wall that got its name after the assassination of its namesake. The piece was also intended to work as a combination  tribute to Lennon, referencing the song Happy Xmas (War is Over), and celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in what was then Czechoslovakia. Of their work, they write: “Twenty-five years ago, one big totalitarian wall fell … Students of art schools are expressing their commemoration of (1989) and opening room for new messages of the current generation.”

According to Hyperallergic (with details from the French Associated Press): “It didn’t take long for others to take advantage of the free space and begin filling the Lennon Wall with tags again. However, the wall’s owner, the Order of Malta, was not so quick to dismiss the incident, and is pursuing legal action against the artists.”

While the intentions behind this buffing of history may have been good, there may be unintended references as well to an era of Communist domination in which free expression was limited and street art was also painted over for political reasons. Images above and below via Rick Chan, Matushy, Steven Feather, Eregoion,  Brandon Schauer and Brian Beggerly.

More on the history of the John Lennon Wall: “In 1988, the wall was a source of irritation for the communist regime of Gustáv Husák. Young Czechs would write grievances on the wall and in a report of the time this led to a clash between hundreds of students and security police on the nearby Charles Bridge. The movement these students followed was described ironically as “Lennonism” and Czech authorities described these people variously as alcoholics, mentally deranged, sociopathic, and agents of Western capitalism.”

In fairness to the students who edited it, the wall will not be over for long – its surface will continue to be reinvented over time: “The wall continuously undergoes change and the original portrait of Lennon is long lost under layers of new paint. Even when the wall was repainted by some authorities, on the second day it was again full of poems and flowers. Today, the wall represents a symbol of global ideals such as love and peace.”

Though Nelson Mandela’s passing will spur the creation of memorials worldwide, a number of larger-than-life tributes are already extant or planned.

Nelson Mandela Capture Monument

(images via: Lemay Online)

The Nelson Mandela Sculpture in Howick KwaZulu-Natal was inaugurated and unveiled by South African President Jacob Zuma on August 4th, 2012. Artist Marco Cianfanelli was commissioned to create the sculpture in time for the 50th anniversary of Mandela’s capture by police in 1962, after which he was imprisoned for 27 years.

(image via: Lemay Online)

The sculpture comprises 50 metal columns ranging in height from 5 to 10 meters (16 to 33 ft). Visitors can only discern the portrait of Mandela at a point 35 meters (115 ft) away from the front of the sculpture, signifying the fact that Mandela, dubbed “The Black Pimpernel”, was able to elude authorities for 17 months after his arrest was ordered.

Boxing Mandela Statue

(images via: National Geographic and Howzit MSN News)

In June of 2013, a strikingly styled statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled and unlike other Mandela statues on display around the world, this one depicts the famed freedom fighter as, well, a different sort of fighter. Situated in front of the Magistrate’s Courts in Johannesburg, the 5 meter (16.5 ft) tall steel statue by Marco Cianfanelli depicts Mandela in his younger days when he was known mainly for his skills in the boxing ring.

Nelson Mandela Park Public School, Toronto

(image via: Edwards13)

Built in 1917, Toronto’s Park Public School underwent a multimillion dollar renovation that included the school’s name being changed to Nelson Mandela Park Public School. Much of the structure’s imposing architectural elements and Beaux Arts detailing both inside and out were retained in the renovation while students learn the reasons why their school, located so far from South Africa, was named for someone whose fame knows no national boundaries.

(images via: Toronto Star, HiMY SYeD and CBC.ca)

Located in in downtown Toronto’s Regent Park neighborhood, the school’s official renaming ceremony on November 17th of 2001 was attended by none other than Nelson Mandela himself. Mandela took time out from his third trip to Canada (during which he accepted honorable Canadian citizenship) to visit the school named for him and spend time with some of the students.

Mandela & Biko Mural

(image via: Hot 106.5FM)

The epithet “man of the people” suits the late Nelson Mandela more than most who’ve been casually dubbed as such, and his accomplishments are perhaps greatest treasured by the lowest levels of South African society. Here in one of Cape Town’s rougher neighborhoods, a well-worn mural depicts anti-apartheid freedom fighter Steve Biko alongside a younger Mandela.

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Larger Than Life 10 Monuments Honoring Nelson Mandela

Submerged sea vessels have long been destinations for diving tourists or (intentional or accidental) marine life habitats, but what if they could serve some function still visible on the surface of the water, like a memorial to those lost when the ship sunk?

The New Concordia Island Contest winners, Alexander Laing and Francesco Matteo Belfiore, propose slicing the section of the Italian cruise ship that crashed in January of 2012 and planting a garden in the resulting voids, leaving the lower, still-submerged areas as habitat zones.

The contest itself “aims to rethink the disaster of the ship Costa Concordia as exceptional opportunity to imagine the future of the wreck and that of the Island of Giglio. It is also a chance to wonder about needs for architecture to build new landscapes on traces and remains of a traumatic event …. The jury has selected the projects that have responded in a more comprehensive way to the questions raised by the contest, interweaving visionaries contents to pragmatic and real solutions.”

The clean and simple solution of the winning proposal defers to both nature and humans, a tribute to the disaster as well as the lives lost. Other intervention propositions of runner-up submissions trended toward either extreme: leaving the wreck mainly as-is and building around it, or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, creating underwater passageways and making the remaining structure physically accessible to people.