A foundation stone laying ceremony of a memorial park for 64 Vietnamese naval soldiers who were killed in a 1988 battle against Chinese invaders on Gac Ma (Johnson South Reef) of Viet Nam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago in the East Viet Nam Sea will take place on Friday.

After the ceremony, the official construction of the park will kick off within this year and is expected to be completed in 2016.

The construction will be funded by contributions from trade unions, workers, people and agencies nationwide, as well as from donations of Vietnamese communities in foreign countries.

After launching a contest in July 2014 to find the best design for the park, the organizers, including the VGCL, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs, and the Central Committee of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, have selected two designs that will be combined to create a masterplan for the monument.

The two chosen designs are titled “Hành trình khát vọng” (Journey of Aspiration), created by the Architectural Research Center under the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Planning and Architecture, and “Những người nằm lại phía chân trời” (Those Falling on the Horizon), whose creator is Ly Thi Lieu, at Oanh Vu Fine Arts and Photography Co. Ltd..