That, said Voytek Gorczynski, the founder of Abstrakt, is precisely the idea.

“Her comments as to the design being visceral and brutal, I take that as a compliment — that was the intention,” said Mr. Gorczynski, who was born and raised in Poland and jailed there for political activism as a student.

He said the design was an attempt to literally illustrate the organizers’ estimate that Communist regimes around the world had caused the deaths of 100 million people. The monument would feature 100 million 5.6-millimeter squares, laid over 14 concrete walls joined into seven inverted V shapes. When seen from a platform incorporated into the memorial, the squares would become pixels, Mr. Gorczynski said, forming an image that has yet to be selected.

Right now, the renderings show an image of a mass grave of Polish officers killed by Soviet troops in the Katyn forest during World War II. At the front of the monument, a sculpture shows one victim lying facedown.

Mr. Gorczynski said the design was specific to the site, and to the views it afforded of the adjacent Supreme Court building, which is regarded as one of Ottawa’s most significant buildings. “What bothers me is a lot of people are commenting on it without seeing what it is,” he said.

But Ms. Blumberg said that monuments related to wars and terrible historical events “that are really widely acknowledged to be truly great,” like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington and Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, have taken a different approach. “They all try to rise above the subject and talk to what we’ve learned and what this means for the future of humanity,” she said.

Many critics argue that the site was turned over to Tribute to Liberty, the nonprofit group behind the memorial, without an appropriate public process. The Department of Canadian Heritage, which is responsible for the project, did not respond directly to that accusation.

“A variety of sites were looked at, but this one was considered the most appropriate, given the proponents’ requirements, the theme and proposed scope of the project,” the department said in an email.