Architecture and cultural memory
Does historic architecture enable a form of collective memory? Taking a lead from John Ruskin, I argue yes. Memory is representing the past to oneself. The representations one uses to do this need not be mental, and the memories for which they are the vehicles can be collective. Despite the widely h...
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| Veröffentlicht in: | Heritage and war / edited by William Bülow, Helen Frowe, Derek Matravers, and Joshua Lewis Thomas |
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| 1. Verfasser: | |
| Format: | UnknownFormat |
| Sprache: | eng |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2023
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Tag hinzufügen | Zusammenfassung: | Does historic architecture enable a form of collective memory? Taking a lead from John Ruskin, I argue yes. Memory is representing the past to oneself. The representations one uses to do this need not be mental, and the memories for which they are the vehicles can be collective. Despite the widely held view of architecture as an abstract art, some buildings do represent, symbolising what Susanne Langer called ‘an ethnic domain’—the distinctive form of life of a society or culture. In allowing us to experience their meaning, those buildings act as vehicles of collective memory for earlier forms of life. Given this, their loss in war (or otherwise) amounts to loss of shared memory for the cultures from which they sprang. We may still have knowledge of those cultures—there are many ways to retain information about them. But we will, as Ruskin says, no longer remember them. |
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| ISBN: | 978-0-19-286264-8 |