"The debate is the memorial!" and "the memorial is the debate"

The following text is about Peter Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which was ultimately constructed in 2005 after long debates. What is the difference between "The debate is the memorial!" and "the memorial is the debate" ? I think the former is referring to the time when the memorial is not constructrd yet while the latter referring to the period after the construction of the memorial. Am I right? The former is saying that the subject of the debate is whether or not to construct the memorial while the latter is saying that the memorial is present in front of us and the debate is now about its concept and function.

Context:

But it also suggests the embodiment precisely of the spirit of some graffiti sprayed on to the earmarked site’s temporary fencing in 1997, which declared: ‘The debate is the memorial!’. However, it is, paradoxically, a ‘reverse embodiment’ inasmuch as the slogan would now read: ‘the memorial is the debate’. In other words, the sentiment expressed by the graffiti of keeping the debate alive, fluid and public has ended up being enshrined in Eisenman’s design in defiance of the graffiti’s obvious fear that no memorial site would be able to do this.