Garden Design Travels

The Dublin Grounds of Remembrance in Dublin, Ohio

Grounds of Remembrance in Dublin Veterans Park is a tribute to the men and women who have served our country in war and peace. Dublin Veterans Park is located on approximately one acre of land in Historic Dublin near the Dublin Public Library along the Indian Run. The Grounds were dedicated on Memorial Day, 2009 and serve as the ceremonial backdrop for Memorial Day and Veterans Day observances.

It is a one acre-park honouring the service of veterans and their families. On a site with no prior military significance, the project eschews a traditional “monument” in favour of promoting the act of habitual walking and social gathering, reinforcing community remembrance and creating new significance for the land.

The site, which leads into a deep ravine, is situated on a marginal ravine right-of-way that forms a doughnut around the 1840s village cemetery. Over the past thirty years, Dublin’s nineteenth-century settlement of 750 people ballooned into a golf suburb with 30,000 people, nearly abandoning the historic village and resulting in the newly built library and school turning their backs on the historic cemetery. This new veterans park is key to the City’s programme to revitalize the heritage settlement.

The project was designed to create a formal place for public gathering, with spaces for intimate contemplation. The copper Loggia, with its panoramic window, shelter, and bronze poem wall laser-cut with two stanzas of Emerson’s Concord Hymn, stands as a formal ceremonial backdrop. It serves as the hub for Veterans and Memorial Day celebrations and as a daily retreat for visitors.