Newborn Monument
Twenty-four-metre steel lettering unveiled on independence day in 2008 and repainted each year.
The Newborn Monument was unveiled on 17 February 2008, the day Kosovo declared independence, on the square beside the Palace of Youth and Sports. Designed by Fisnik Ismaili with the Ogilvy office in Pristina, it spells the English word NEWBORN in block capitals of welded steel, about three metres high and twenty-four metres long, and weighing some nine tonnes. On the first day the letters were painted plain yellow and signed by thousands of people who came to the square.
Since then the monument has been repainted each year around the anniversary of independence, turning it into a piece of civic commentary as much as a sculpture. Past treatments have carried the flags of recognising states, barbed wire marking the barriers to travel for Kosovo passport holders, and designs made by schoolchildren; in some years the letters have been rearranged or partly dismantled. Visitors climb on the letters and walk through them, and the square around is used for gatherings and open-air events.
Highlights
- Unveiled on 17 February 2008, the day of the declaration of independence
- Twenty-four metres of welded steel lettering, about nine tonnes
- Repainted every year with a new design around the anniversary
- Free-standing on a public square and open at all hours
