Memorial of the 1980 Río Sumpul Massacre, Chalatenango, El Salvador: the participatory design and collaborative realization of a grassroots project

In the aftermath of the 1980 Sumpul Massacre in Chalatenango, El Salvador, survivors established the Asociación Sumpul to honor and perpetuate the memory of their history. They initiated a memorial park project in the remote site of Las Aradas in 2017 where yearly commemorations are held since 1990. An international research initiative emerged to facilitate the project’s participatory design and collaborative realization, which now nears completion. This offers a unique perspective on the interplay between local and global dynamics in community-based architecture. This presentation also highlights a recent project by the association—the Historic Memory Museum in Las Vueltas village, part of a comprehensive community facility. These two projects have a dual nature, deeply rooted in local, ancestral, and popular dynamics, linked with a dense network of local stakeholders and universal aspects of space and appropriation. These initiatives grapple with the fragility of their context. In a region where war scars linger and official recognition is elusive, the projects operate independently of governmental and religious institutions. This autonomy fosters creative freedom, enabling participatory design in collaboration with the communities. However, it also presents substantial challenges as these communities face economic, cultural, and political marginalization nationally. Through these case studies, we explore architecture's potential as a tool for resilience and community building in a postwar landscape. Conversely, we examine how this unique context shapes an architectural language that is locally rooted and universally shareable.