Arch 1710 Architecture and Memory
Spring 2009
Memory and Architecture: the art of remembering or forgetting?
January 27, 2009
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, (1939)
directed by William Dieterle
Johannes Gutenberg and
the Printing Press (1439)
Der moderne Buchdruck
('The Modern Book Printing‘)
in Bebelplatz, Berlin.
one of six sculture pieces created
as part of 'The Walk of Ideas' initiative for the 2006 FA World Cup.
Victor Hugo’s Protagonist
in Notre Dame de Paris (1831)
The Cathedral of Notre Dame
in Paris (1163-1345)
Divrigi Great Mosque, Turkey ,
13th c. AD. West Portal.
architectonics of representation
(geometry and inscriptions)
Divrigi Great Mosque, Turkey ,
13th c. AD. West Portal, detail
architectonics of representation
(geometry and inscriptions)
Armenian Monastery in Akdamar Island in Lake Van, Eastern Turkey
Cathedral Church of the Holy Cross (915-921 AD)
Armenian Monastery in Akdamar Island in Lake Van, Eastern Turkey
Cathedral Church of the Holy Cross (915-921 AD)
Armenian Monastery in Akdamar Island in Lake Van, Eastern Turkey
Cathedral Church of the Holy Cross (915-921 AD)
Armenian Monastery in Akdamar Island in Lake Van, Eastern Turkey
Cathedral Church of the Holy Cross (915-921 AD)
Armenian Monastery in Akdamar Island in Lake Van, Eastern Turkey
Cathedral Church of the Holy Cross (915-921 AD)
Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, 691 AD.
Mudbrick house advertising chicken sales,
Eastern Syria, 20th c. AD.
Batammaliba house, Benin- West Africa
Inscription of the body on architectural surfaces
Building surface and the poetics of the body
Departure
Everything seen...
The vision gleams in every air.
Everything had...
The far sound of cities,
in the evening,
In sunlight, and always.
Everything known...
O Tumult! O Visions!
These are the stops of life.
Departure in affection,
and shining sounds.
Arthur Rimbaud
PNCA Building, Portland Oregon, with its facade as a transcription of
an Arthur Rimbaud poem “Departure” into a language of differently sized squares
and rectangles.
PNCA Facade, Randy Higgins
Arch of Titus, commemorating the capture and sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
Arch of Titus, Rome
Arch of Titus, commemorating the capture and sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
monument, n.
A statue, building, or other structure erected to commemorate a famous or notable person or event. Something that by its survival commemorates and
distinguishes a person, action, period, event, etc.; something that serves as a memorial.
[< classical Latin monumentum, monimentum commemorative statue or building, tomb, reminder, written record, literary work <
From: monere to remind +
Compare Anglo-Norman monument tomb, Old French, Middle French, French monument (end of the 10th cent. in sense ‘tomb’, also in Old French as
moniment; late 14th cent. in general sense ‘anything that preserves a memory of something’, 17th cent. in sense ‘lasting work of literature, science or
art’, 18th cent. denoting edifices which are imposing by virtue of their grandeur or antiquity), Spanish monumento (1207), Portuguese monumento
(a1284), Italian monumento (1292).
With sense 1, compare Welsh mynwent (< classical Latin monumentum) graveyard. With the phrase monuments of letters (see sense 3b), compare
classical Latin monumenta litterarum. With sense 4d, compare earlier use of French monument of a work of literature (see above), and also use of
classical Latin monumentum in Horace Odes 3.30.1, where the poet compares his literary work to a bronze monument.]
Oxford English Dictionary
6. Sc. A ridiculous or objectionable person or thing; a laughing-stock, a fool, a rogue.
1866 T. EDMONDSTON Etymol. Gloss. Shetland & Orkney Dial., Moniment, a ridiculous person, a fool. 1871 W. ALEXANDER Johnny Gibb xlix. 335 Oonless
the ‘viackle’ saw ye ever sic a moniment o' a thing, Meg sud be..pitten o' the hen reist. 1922 Swatches o' Hamespun 79 ‘Upsettin' moniment,’ snarled the
middler, ‘pride gyangs afore a fa'.’ 1956 Banffshire Advertiser 5 Apr. 8/5 ‘Ye young monniment,’ snarled the guardian of law and order, and charged. 1968 G.
M. WILLIAMS From Scenes like These ii. 30 ‘I cannae pay ye the full five pounds a week,’ he'd said, hairy-faced old monument that he was. 1979 J. J. GRAHAM
Shetland Dict. 53/2 Dere he was, waanderin aroond laek a moniment.
Ruins as commemoration: Old Parthenon as a ruin in the 5th century Acropolis
Athenian Acropolis in ealy 19th c.. Edward Dodwell, Views in Greece (1821)
Parthenon and its historical “burdens”
Stripped Parthenon and the Athenian Acropolis
Alois Reigl
The first Conservator General of monuments
in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
He wrote:
“Monuments in the sense of this law are...
works of the human hand since whose inception
at least sixty years have passed.” (1903)
Late Baroque classicizing: Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1691-1765) assembles the canon of Roman ruins
and Roman sculpture into one vast imaginary gallery
Roma Antica
1755 Oil on canvas, 186 x 227 cam
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart
“A monument is what art history chooses to celebrate and proclaim a monument” and
therefore deserves to be “preserved” (Nelson and Olin 2003: 2).
Apartment before demolition, Rome, Italy
Architecture: art of remembering or forgetting?
MOVE: Police bombing
of a West Philadelphia
neighborhood,
May 13, 1985
Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, Washington DC
Jochen Gerz,
Monument against fascism
October 10, 1986-November 10, 1993
Column of galvanized steel with a lead coating,
1200 x 100 x 100 cm, weight ca. 7 t., underground
shaft with viewing window, depth 14 m,
concrete footing, 2 steel styluses
for signing the surface, text panel.
Site: Hamburg-Harburg,
Harburger Ring at the corner of Hölertwiete/Sand,
Harburg-Rathaus S-line train station.