Modern Cult of Monuments and Memorials

Useful Links:

World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

Reflecting Absence: Future Memorial for the World Trade Center.

National 9/11 Memorial

Project Rebirth

Bibliography for the curious:

Schorske, Carl E.; 1981. "The Ringstrasse, its critics and the birth of urban modernism" in Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture. CUP Archive, 24-115.

Discussion:

Chorus discussants: Molly Cousins, Hannah Sheldon-Dean, Madeleine Filloux, Christopher Elsworth, Lindsay Barnes, Bradley Hanson, Emily Alvarez

Posted at Feb 04/2009 02:44PM:
Molly Cousins: For the Chorus tomorrow... So far I've read the Forty article and have just started Gutman. I want to read Harbison too. I want to follow up on some of what we talked about on Tuesday and ask some questions relating to how the efficacy of a monument changes over time. I also want to talk a little bit about the idea that "architecture is an art of forgetting," because I'm not sure I agree with that statement.

Posted at Feb 04/2009 05:04PM:
keffie: That is a good start, Molly, and I think you can push this even further (and thanks for getting this ball rolling...) You say that you aren't convinced by the argument that architecture is an art of forgetting. Why? Do you think that people always need objects, material, things external to themselves to remember - is architecture then an art of remembering? And to your first point about the changing meaning, efficacy, etc. of monuments over time - what are some of the specific conditions that lead to that change (and might these, in some way, support the assertion about architecture and forgetting?)

Madeleine Filloux 5:54 pm
So far, I've read everything except the section from Monuments and Memory: Made and Unmade which I will hopefully get to later tonight. One interesting discussion topic that struck me while doing the readings is the idea of linearity and its effect on the significance of monuments and memory. Reigl emphasizes linearity as crucial to the historical value of monuments. Yet, Gutman frames the whole basis of his argument about the Ground Zero monuments around a non-linear approach to time. The official site of Ground Zero is contrastingly characterized by its linear design. Memory itself strikes me as the very opposite of linear. Forty talks briefly about the "haphazard" way that objects trigger memory. If this is indeed the case, then the linearity of historical value should be subject to the "impossibility of memory" as described by Forty. On the other hand, perhaps by trying to create a monument in rigid temporal linearity is an attempt at creating a substitute for what our memory will eventually lack (in this case the monument is part of the art of remembering as mentioned above by Keffie). I'm also more generally interested in the differences between intentional and unintentional monuments. Reigl discusses them in some depth by attaching to them different values (age value, historical value, art value, etc.). Gutman provides a possible example by contrasting the very intentional touristy "official site" with the more unintentional "street site" of Ground Zero. Another interesting idea addressed in the readings is the question of the void as a monument. Reigl explicitly states that "a shapeless pile of rubble is no longer able to convey age-value" and disregards the void as a potential monument. But Ground Zero in its most haunting and intriguing form was exactly that: a pile of rubble. Harbison references the void-esque monument of Benjamin Franklin's house by Robert Venturi and writes that "a main archetype of the monument is a featureless hulk or picture of emptiness on which the attention is paradoxically concentrated." The MOVE article also talked about the void that the MOVE house created when it turned its porch into a bunker and eliminated the area of transition between public and private. The idea of the void also calls to mind Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin which has an empty passageway that cuts through the middle of the museum to represent the void left by the Holocaust. It seems that, contrary to Reigl's assertion, the void is not only valid but important as a form for a monument. How does negative space act differently than positive space in terms of memory? Is one more compelling than the other? Perhaps, one represents an art of forgetting and the other an art of remembering: negative space forcing remembrance and positive space embodying that which we can forget.

Hannah Sheldon-Dean I've read everything now except for the Harbison, which I'm hoping to get to soon, and all these questions look great to me so far. To add a few: why is it that there has to be an "official site"? Why isn't the "street site," which is formed by the very individuals that the official site is presumably meant to serve, considered adequate for the purposes of memorialization? I mean this not just in the context of Ground Zero, but in that of all monuments, at least those attached to an event at a specific place. It seems that impromptu monuments spring up so quickly and readily that they might work at least as well as official monuments do, and what's more, their ephemeral and yet ongoing nature can reflect the changing collective memory of an event in a way that more permanent monuments cannot. The Gutman article mentions "plurality of accounts and narratives" that begins to vanish with the rebuilding - why should it? Isn't in the best interest of the community to preserve that plurality? How might the collective memories of different events be different today if the monuments that signify them hadn't concentrated their narratives artificially?

Emily Alvarez I have read everything except for Monuments (The Built, the Unbuilt, and the Unbuildable). I agree with the proposed question. I also think it is very interesting the difference between people who have experienced the event visiting a memorial versus people who are going to experience the event through their visit. For me, reading the first article about 9/11 was really touching because so much of it dealt with emotions and memories and hopes for the building's future which is really interesting to reflect on knowing how its life ends. The second article focused more on visitors to Ground Zero and their disappointment with it, like it was supposed to look exactly like it did right after the attack. Their thoughts of it looking "not damaged enough" is something that angered me and I'm sure many other readers who watched the buildings burn in real-life instead of on television. The idea of sites and buildings being "alive," protecting or fostering life is also very interesting. The idea of architecture of forgetting is very interesting though I am also unsure of how much I agree with it. I do think I agree with the idea that memory and forgetting are tied together. The different values that buildings may have also brings up many good points to discuss, such as which are the most valid and if they really oppose each other as much as Riegl proposes that they do.

Posted at Feb 04/2009 08:24PM:
bradley hanson: Some initial thoughts: Forty suggests "...that any practice aspiring to deal with memory can only do so by taking into account what memory struggles in vain to resist. An art cannot deal with memory without also confronting forgetting" (16). What does this confrontation entail? How much forgetting must be committed in an effort to memorialize? Harbison talks a great deal about the scale of monuments. Could a theory be devised that suggests that the larger the scale of a monument, the greater the level of “exclusion”? Are monuments of a more human scale less forgetful?

I also wonder, thinking more generally about the readings, to what extent memorials are about forgetting because they become citations of themselves, or, trying to state this another way, because they become more about themselves than about what it is they ostensibly commemorate? What do people who visit, say, the Lincoln Memorial or Mount Rushmore “remember” or “forget”? Do some people perhaps visit just to experience the monument? (Whatever that might mean.)

Posted at Feb 04/2009 09:29PM:
Molly Cousins: Does anyone have any background in the more psychological/scientific aspects of memory and forgetting? I think that would also be a really interesting conversation. I took Intro Psychology and we touched briefly on how memories are encoded and stored and how they decay, but I'm by no means an expert on the matter. One thing that has stuck with me and I'll bring up tomorrow is that the more the human brain actively tries to "forget" an experience, person, memory, etc. the more that memory is actually reinforced... interesting in its own right, but particularly so in reference to our debate on whether or not architecture is an art of forgetting. This one fact sort of skews my view on the matter; I think ideally architecture is meant to be an art of remembering rather than forgetting, but over time as those who the monument means "most" to fade away the monument and the memory linked to it also lose their potency and become almost distorted. Then again, as the Harbison article suggests, perhaps distortion of memory can happen at any time.

Posted at Feb 04/2009 10:00PM:
keffie: You all are addressing very interesting and provocative points. I think this will be a great discussion tomorrow. Molly, to answer your question about memory and forgetting: we aren't going to deal with psychological or scientific perspectives but we will be exploring theories of memory from sociological and archaeological perspectives a little later in the semester (starting next week, in fact!).

Some general points/comments/questions: I am noticing some trends in your thoughts and questions that I thought I would draw out. The first, most complex and contentious, is the question about whether architecture is an art of memory or forgetting. I don't think we will come to a concensus about this one, but come armed with your opinions, examples, and questions to keep the conversation going. Brad, I think you bring up a very interesting point about monuments ultimately becoming monuments to themselves. The second theme I noticed in your comments is the question of how time affects and effects architecture (and how we percieve time in general - is it linear or more nuanced than that?). Madeline brought up Riegl's contention that old buildings are monuments, but a pile of stones isn't. Where, according to Reigl, is the line between artifacts, ruins, and crap? I think we can all agree that there are some MAJOR problems with his argument, but we should unpack them a little more. The third, tying into both the first and the second themes, is the question of permanence, ephemera, presence or absence in monuments. What makes a monument and how does it's physical make-up have an effect on how it is perceived and received?

Posted at Feb 05/2009 01:44AM:
Lyndsey Barnes: These are fantastic! I love the central question of architecture encouraging remembering or forgetting as a type healing. I'd like to expand upon that with the idea of the importance of the physical building versus the symbolic significance of it. In the Nelson and Olin reading, many references are made to the great difference in the New York skyline after the Twin Towers were destroyed. People then question what should be done to commemorate the Towers' absence, if anything at all. However, others are concerned with what the Towers symbolized - everything from world peace to "the worst of capitalism." How should the memorial be used to recreate the presence of the Towers - symbolically, physically, or neither?

Also, I'd like to talk about the effects that monuments have on different generations. The technique of memorial of absence (for example, for the World Trade Center) might have a particularly strong effect on those who knew the space before the structures were destroyed. But later generations will only know what the skyline looked like from pictures. Is the effectiveness of the memorial of absence diminished, because the later generations no longer feel the trauma of the tragedy? Or is this a necessary step in the healing process?

Hannah Sheldon-Dean: I loved hearing what everyone had to say in the discussion yesterday – the question of whether monuments do/should act primarily as agents of healing in the present or as remembrances for future generations is such an intriguing one. I think it’s also important to consider that it’s just not the people who live through an event like a war or 9/11 who might be going through a healing process as a result of it; entire societies are scarred indefinitely from things like that, and monuments as a means of healing can continue to be useful for generations to come. Another interesting note: I’m in a class on the history of print culture, and yesterday afternoon we had a very similar discussion about whether writing promotes memory or forgetfulness, and what we give up when we put things down in writing – or, in the case of our class, stone or whatever other concrete material. I think that goes along with what some of the readings have said about even things like scraps of paper acting as memorials, and an interesting facet to add to our discussion would be what we think of non-architectural monuments and how they can work in conjunction with more conventional ones.

Commentaries
Madeleine Filloux 02-08-09
I thought the question posed during Thursday's discussion, "What exactly are we remembering with monuments and memorials?", is a particularly compelling one. We discussed the answer in terms of 9/11. Is the 9/11 memorial supposed to help us remember the attack on capitalism, the individuals who died, or the national impact? How can something aim to memorialize such a complex event? It seems to me that these questions are unanswerable without some sort of concept of "collective memory." Maybe I'm just projecting from what I've read so far in this week's readings, but I think that an effective monument/memorial should speak on a level beyond that of the individual. This way, instead of silencing the plurality of narratives discussed by Gutman, the monument can speak to them all on the collective level. On Thursday, we used Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial as an example. It is subjective enough that it leaves room for individual narrative, yet it also maintains some basal level of objectivity (with the list of names and the unified materiality). The idea of collective memory solves many of the problems discussed on Thursday. The question of authorship is less problematic if the author acts as part of a collective to make a monument that reflects that group memory. Also, I think it helps answer the idea brought up that the 9/11 memorial acts differently for those who witnessed the actual event and those who did not experience it. Personally, I think that the function of the memorial should be the same for both of these groups. Its purpose is to respond to our collective memory of the event which doesn't hinge on whether we saw the burning in real life or on the TV screen. I was also intrigued by the question of context/location of memorials brought up on Thursday. Is it necessary to identify a memory with a location (temporal or physical) in order to be remembered? And if architecture really is a "living" art (always changing), how is associating memory with a building synonymous with attaching memory to a location? Maybe architecture is as close as we can come to something static to hold our memories. Thursday's discussion also had me wondering about the spatial relationship of monument to memory. Should the density of the memorial reflect the density of the tragedy? The Gettysburg memorial seemed to try to do this to some extent by leaving markers haphazardly where the fighting occurred. At some point, there must be physical limitations to this approach. The devastation caused by 9/11, for example, was so immense that it seems nearly impossible to capture. Is this when we should employ the void? When the physicality of the monument cannot possibly reflect the weight of the memory?

Posted at Feb 09/2009 09:41PM:
Bradley Hanson: I enjoyed the discussion last Thursday and have spent some time over the past several days digesting the various points. The WTC monument certainly presents a challenging and complicated case study, and I am sure we will have more to say about it this week. My thoughts, though, linger on some of the larger theoretical issues raised in class. One of the suggestions offered was that a monument can and/or should serve to quiet the marketplace of memories. Once established, a memorial works to “fix” the collective sense of the commemorated event, person, place, etc. My sense was that this theory treats this quieting and this fixing as positive and necessary actions. Is that always so? As a collectivity, do we require an orderly shared field of memories? Another issue that I have thought about a bit is the idea that a monument need not be understood or approached as merely a static entity. In fact, one argument advocates, memorials, for various reasons, can remain quite dynamic and vibrant. This, to me, is an appealing idea and one I hope we continue to pursue. Combining these two thoughts raises an additional question: Is it a contradiction to suggest that societies actually “fix” collective memories within a dynamic and changing materiality? How does this operate?

Posted at Feb 11/2009 08:15PM:
erin calfee: To Bradley- I totally agree (with what i think is your point). I think a lot of times monuments attempt (through their creators) to present some sort of static memory, but tend to take on a life of their own was created. I think their dynamic nature is a result of interacting with the population that comes to see them, bringing their own memories and interpretations of events to this common location, where stories mix. A lot of times I forget that people visit memorials and monuments and talk to each other. For instance, the only reason the Maya Lin's memorial has significance to me is because it prompted my dad to share his memory of friends being drafted and his feelings at the time. I don't really think a stone structure can tell a story, but it can help a society remember a story by prompting people to share their memories, which, in turn, changes the collective memory and the interpretation of the monument. This makes me wonder about what memorials do though in a society when everyone with a related story has passed away.

Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology