Qatar 2022 World Cup Worker Deaths Monument Concept

This concept memorial was created by 1 WEEK 1 PROJECT as a monument to the migrant workers who have died building Qatar’s stadiums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Over a thousand people have died so far (with quadruple that amount currently forecasted by the time the tournament starts), and to try and put this startling statistic into perspective, 1W1P have envisioned this monument to remember the dead.

In the World Cup Memorial, each block of concrete represents a lost life, with four blocks making up a single storey of the tower. The conceptual monument (that will of course never be built) is scalable to account for the rising death toll with blocks being simply stacked on top of each other to continue the spiralling tower.

The 1W1P collective describe what they do as ‘spontaneous architecture’, and attempt to frequently deliver small architectural concept designs. Notable projects in the past have included animated architecture and Pope Benedict XVI’s retirement quarters, but this is a protest against FIFA, and the international construction firms such as Carillion for the unethical treatment of construction workers building the 2022 World Cup stadiums in Qatar.

Backstory to the Qatar 2022 Deaths

The negative publicity being aimed at the Qatar 2022 World Cup tends to mainly focus on the blatant corruption that went into the emirate winning the bid to host the tournament in the first place. To rub salt on the wound, Qatar has recently been awarded the 2019 World Athletics Championships, but unfortunately the fact that so many workers are dying building the stadiums is receiving relatively little airtime.

Over a thousand migrant workers have already died building the stadiums — you know, like real people with faces and families and stuff — and this number is only expected to climb as these third-class citizens continue to be overlooked. A significant percentage of these deaths were caused by falling from height, cardiac arrests from forced completion targets in Qatar’s extremely hot climate, and as you might expect several suicides.

International building contractors, most notably the UK based Carillion are turning what must surely be the blindest eye in the history of blind eyes to these deaths. Although they are responsible for building the stadiums, liability is being avoided by setting up a long chain of subcontractors, sub-sub-contractors, sub-sub-sub-contractors etc. to distance themselves from the health and safety infractions.

If migrant construction workers continue to die at this rate during the construction of FIFA’s football stadiums then the death toll would reach 4,000. But this figure would no doubt be exacerbated by the inevitable last-minute completion rushes these kind of projects face. Given that a lot of the migrant workers have had their passports taken by their employers, it looks they’re in it for the long haul. Please someone just devolve FIFA already.

Read more about the fate of the construction workers in this BBC News article.

A shocking statistic represented physically: if the death rate is not reduced the resulting monument will be 1.5km tall, 5 times higher than any of Doha’s skyscrapers.