pockets esme
of
memory
fieldhouse 1
2
... the same piece of ground would be supporting the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva and the ancient temple over which it was built.1 Sigmund Freud
As this wave of memories flows in, the city soaks it up and expands.2 Italo Calvino
3
pockets of memory introduction Cities are webs of memory pockets; inanimate objects holding truths and untruths, a concrete diary of what has gone before and the sequence of events, experiences and emotions that lead up to what we see and feel now.
4 Through the construction of a thinking machine, comprising manifestations of the pockets, I am igniting the possibility of parallel worlds existing.
Memories are resuscitated
back to the consciousness and given present context so that they may exist as equally as each other.
I intend to uncover those things on the periphery that have been either
forgotten or hidden over time.
The pockets of memory are collections of images, stories, relics, maps and signs, a patchwork quilt of events that have taken place over an indeterminate period of time brought together in one place at one time.
This concept of curated knowledge leads to
clues and routes which are based on emotions and narratives.
The individual pocket
itself is a physical container, with the contents of each pocket signifying more than the physical entity itself but acting more as a catalyst to further interpretation.
It has
the potential to speak of the entire evolution of one place. The collection may be used to work out what something was, what it could be, potentially a tool to predict memories.fig
4
5
figure 1 initial investigation into the concept of memory pockets; photomontages superimposing possible events which have lead to a visible clue on an inanimate object
I have taken inspiration from Diller and Scofidio’s suitCase Studies and their innovative use of media and presentation to represent ideas more complex and emotional than statistics.
The installation encompasses a suitcase for every state of America and
is an exploration into the tourism specific to each state.
The cases are displayed
alphabetically and according to a grid, yet embody feelings beyond this order and relating to the experiences of millions of people.fig.
3
6 In creating and curating the pockets I have chosen to explore methods inspired by the Situationists and their theories of psychogeography and dĂŠrive, which are based on the thought that purely instinctively, particular emotions are attached to particular places. fig. 8
I refer to experiments such as the Naked City which fragments the map of Paris to
highlight only those places with most significance to social relationships.fig.
2
The name itself, Naked City, seems to describe a process of taking something away or removing a mask to reveal deeper truth and meaning.
Each pocket of memory has a story to tell; these are complex stories with twists and turns, layers of language and meaning, traces scratched on top of each other.
These
stories do not stand alone of course, they are merely sentences, in chapters, in whole books; the memories create a narrative.
At first unknown and seemingly irrelevant, the
objects offer clues to what has happened before; the bricked up doorway, the painted over road name, the dog whose owners moved house but left a sign of warning.fig.
1+5
7
figure 2
figure 3
A psychogeographical map by Guy Debord + Asger John of the Situationist International
Diller + Scofidio’s Tourisms: suitCase Studies exhibition
By considering timelines of single spots and objects, I can begin to imagine a world where segments of time are pieced together and memories work together. Laws of time do not permit one space to have two contents of differing era but the pockets hold the possibility to allow this, by presenting one place yet layers of events and meaning.
In
City & Memory 3, Italo Calvino makes reference to this concept:
8
As this wave of memories flows in, the city soaks up and expands... written in the corners of streets, the gratings of the windows ... the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.3
Calvino’s Invisible Cities also speaks of ‘Hidden Cities’ and ‘Cities & the Dead’ as well as of the unborn, where instead of air, there is earth, cities beyond those which we can physically see and experience but exist just as validly.
I aim to continue on from Freud’s thoughts on preservation in the sphere of the mind and expand the theory to a physical context, he puts forward the idea of Rome not being a “human habitation but a psychical entity”.4
The pockets of memory are a catalyst for
imagining a city where since its conception, nothing has been destroyed and instead all structures still stand next to each other, in dialogue and sharing stories. question, will they even speak the same language?
I pose the
In order to explore my idea, pockets of memory, I will first of all investigate the different uses of memory employed in context with architecture and what ideas they bring about.
Following on from this initial investigation and through the use of some key
precedents, I will look at specific uses of memory as a tool in architectural design and question the powerful nature of this tool.
I will be investigating the possibility that
these ideas may lead to not only a heightened, more personal understanding of one’s urban environment but that they may inform a sensitive design approach which employs the layers 9 of memory and meaning of urban sites.
Using Dundee as my theatre for experiment, it is not difficult for me to follow a series of dérive and rely heavily on instinct to take me from one place to the next, due to my limited emotional attachment to Dundee after only living in the city for less than half a year.
This allows a pluralist approach without conscious prejudice, although accepting
that who I am and all of my own experiences and memories will determine decisions taken in some way.
Consciously I will be on the lookout for understated beauty, the subtleties
of our urban environment.
The process of movement is significant in the construction of the pockets, its function as cognitive mapping which takes partial views of cities, that is only the parts needed to connect a narrative. In her essay titled, Haptic Journeys, Giuliana Bruno refers to the “touristic drive to survey and embrace particular terrain”, in order to orientate
10
figure 4a photos showing my first exploration into the construction of literal pockets with the t-shirt representing one spot. [in this case, Bell Mill in Dundee] Each pocket contains memories according to particular types of clue [photos, resident interviews, signs, maps and relics]. The pockets represent a timeline of events, exploring the experiences of those who have used the building during its lifetime; Bill the pigeon who inhabits the derelict mill now, Kenny the mechanic whose business was located on the ground floor and Mary Slessor, the missionary, who worked at the mill in the 19th century whilst attending the church next door. These clues encourage connections between this pocket of memory and others as diverse as overflowing bins in the centre of Dundee in 2009 to Nigeria in 1876, in the aftermath of the slave trade.
11
figure 4b the next step was to create a prototype of a pocket which could attach to others to form a patchwork quilt of memories, something which could accommodate an infinite amount of pockets as I discover more places and other people make different interpretations. The pocket itself is sub-divided to house different types of clue, as explored previously. This particular pocket investigates the ruined cathedral of St. Andrews which offers a rich tapestry of events and experiences past, it also connects itself back to Bell Mell and the ‘Heaven and Hell’ area of Dundee through the Wishart family. Jute was chosen as the material with reference to it being the primary industry that drove the growth of the city of Dundee.
oneself and our need to climb to the tallest points, whether natural or manmade, to create a panorama; “fabricated spatial observation opening doors to narrative space.�5 I am interested in my project being part of the human need to make sense of things, to order chaos to an extent, yet still appreciate the chaotic nature of something, as can be witnessed in narrative structure, memory theatres and the labyrinth, to name but a few relevant examples.
12
the relationship between memory and architecture I have chosen to present four discussions which explore the concept of memory applied in architectural terms, diverse approaches illustrated in both theories and actual projects, which in turn will have their own influence on the built environment.
As SĂŠbastien Marot
declares, it is no secret that memory has the potential to be an instrument, material and dimension in architecture.6
I intend to articulate how I am reading and understanding
memory in creating the pockets.
traces triggering memories Firstly is the idea that inanimate objects, not excluding living things such as trees, have the ability to outlive humans and therefore experience more than one person could personally articulate. into the pockets.
It was with this thought in mind where I began my investigation
In this instance, events from a generation ago, or more, leave their
mark and through observation of these scars, a memory is triggered of something occurring
13
figure 5a photomontage representing the transition over time from temporary + functional to permanent + functionless. [the doors are even welded shut now]
figure 5b photomontage representing the constructed stairs that lead to an empty plinth, the memory of an architectural vision
in the past using walls as unofficial gravestones.fig
6
Stephen Bates talks of a design sensitivity which refers to “the associations derived from experiencing an event of space contribute to the atmosphere which we sense, and over time [and through absence] this becomes embedded in the process of remembering.”7
14 This point also introduces the idea of collective memory or as I would like to refer to it, urban memory, as a more meaningful description than the word history, where it is society’s experiences that shape our own behaviour and reactions.
the memory of an objects Secondly, a concept which implies the possibility that what the object has witnessed has created a memory of its own and it thus has the potential to tell many stories. This thought in opposition to the physical nature of the first point, where the memory itself is born from simply observing a corporeal thing.
Aldo Rossi talks of the city as a “theatre
of human events” that absorbs feelings and events, each new event containing a memory of the past and potential memory of the future.8
The pockets I speak of share similarities
with Rossi’s ‘locus solus’, unique spots within the city, determined by space and time as the result of a series of events.
This introduces the challenge that if we could
somehow learn the language of the object, we could listen to those stories. of Memory, John Ruskin alludes to this by suggesting:
In his Lamp
15 figure 6 Through historical research and flights of the imagination, I have been able to attach more meaning to the buildings I live next to, including the discovery of the nickname ‘Heaven and Hell’ for the area in reference to the location of Wishart Church above the John O’Groats public house, now a nursery and plastic retailer respectively.
... it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting that that of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess, of language and of life.9
16 mnemonics and movement The third idea involves the role that architecture plays in the art of memory and mnemonics.
After all, the memory theatres of Robert Fludd and Quintilian among others
involve routes through pieces of imagined architecture.fig.
7
As Frances Yates explains in
her book The Art of Memory, sequences of rooms in whole houses or municipal buildings, decorated with images and ornament, allow the participant to walk a route and articulate an ordered speech, using their mind only.
Of course, in an age of printed scripts and
electronic autocue, this does not seem like such an achievement but the thought that a person in a time predating the printing press could memorise, off by heart, a speech that lasted for an hour reveals there are perhaps aspects of human capacity that we have forgotten over time.
The significance of movement is not to be underplayed in the realm of architectural memory, nor my project.
Richard Sennett once described urban history as being constructed of
flesh and stone and the motion of the city being intrinsically linked to the circulation
17
figure 7 Robert Fludd’s Memory imagined architecture
Theatre,
pieces
of
of bodily fluids, an analogy which appeared with the humanist thinkers and the integration of object and subject.10
I am inspired by Georges Descombes’ method of mapping impulse,
a process that by description of what is there and what is not there, begins to allude to a prior condition.
Indeed, Israel Rosenfield describes the understanding of our
surroundings as “exploring it with our hands, our eyes and the movements of our bodies; our recollections, and recognitions of the world are intimately related to those very
18 movements we use to explore it... in fact we are all ‘redoing’ the past.”11 the architect’s memory You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore. The city will always pursue you.12 C.P.Cavafy
The fourth and final point I wish to explore is the inescapable truth that architects will always apply a certain amount of their own memory to the projects they design, in a way taking a memory from one place and attaching it to another.
This is with the ambition
to capture that desired emotion to be experienced whilst in a particular space, to even enforce a particular feeling, whether positive or negative.
Daniel Libeskind’s Holocaust
Tower springs to mind in this instance and his clear intention to instil at least a tiny fraction of the doomed procession associated with the holocaust into the experience of the visitor at the museum-cum-memorial.
figure 8 an interpretation of Guy Debord’s ideas on psychogeography to illustrate Bill the Pigeon’s personal relationships to particular places in Dundee and the connections between them: “Spatial development must take into account the emotional effects ... the atmospheric effects of rooms, hallways, streets, atmospheres linked to the gestures they contain. Architecture must advance by taking emotionally moving situations as the material it works with.” Guy Debord, SI
19
Georges Descombes suggests that any person experiences a city through their own personal memory of and association to somewhere else more familiar; being in one place, remembering another, it is almost like being in two places at once.
Whilst discussing the work
of Descombes, David Cooper, in reference to Gertrude Stein, made the statement, “each structure both (obviously) has a history and (less obviously) is a (his)story.”13
+ fig. 9-10
It is this less obvious individual memory I am interested in uncovering.
20 memory as an architectural tool Sever the connection between memory and architecture and you rob students of their most significant reservoir of ideas.14
In reference to Marot’s proposition of his neologism, sub-urbanism, my concept, pockets of memory, is best articulated with the understanding that any site today (whether urban or rural, but perhaps more significantly urban) is almost saturated with history, events and memory.
The pockets address the notion that it is actually neither acceptable nor
intelligent to ignore these factors or indeed neglect to use them as a tool; that a place is not one thing at one time but part of a process. Adam Caruso, in his essay titled ‘The Emotional City’, explains that theories of the future city are irrelevant without discussion about how the real city emerged.15
The current state of affairs involving
single developers taking over vast areas, once owned by several hundred land owners is responsible for the heterogeneity of cities being slowly scraped away.
figure 10a site plan showing point of impact by aeroplane + subsequent destruction of buildings
21
figure 9 Bijlmermonument, Amsterdam by Georges Descombes and Herman Hertzberger
figure 10b walls + seats wind around the tree that “saw it all�
As the Memory Theatre unintentionally demonstrates, the human mind is a powerful machine and is more than capable of imagining a city where all things from throughout history, destroyed and survived, were to stand together; what stories could they tell us? advice would they give?
What
Would heterogeneity be reborn?
As Freud observed when writing about memory, nothing perishes once it has been created
22 in the mind.
I believe we must not let the notion that time physically prevents such a
city existing distract us from realising the relationships between points on a timeline and how one affects the other.
in situ interpretation Whilst designing his urban park in Lancy, Switzerland, Georges Descombes refered to ‘redefinition of site’ which draws on his own very personal memories of his childhood spent there but also the collective, urban memory of the town itself; the disparate houses which once stood there previous to being wiped out for vast residential projects of suburban sprawl, the stream and ancient boundary lines which dissected the sites before the motorway covered them.fig.
11
Descombes actually intended to use all these things to
inform the landscaping but essentially to leave it up to the ‘in-situ’ interpretation of the walker and their ability to navigate four-dimensionally.16
figure 11a Descombes’ drawings of the different segments of the adventure park to be negotiated by the user.
23
figure 11b the pedestrian tunnel emerging from under the main road which wiped out the site’s original dissections.
the art of forgetting “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”17 As a result of working on a competition entry to masterplan the Lancashire town of Bacup, it occurred to me that we have reached a peculiar time where urban situations have arisen such as civilisation initially surrounding itself around a river, for proximity to drinking water, a food source, defence or transport, or all of the above; over time the
24 river dictates road orientation and location of amenities, even place names.
Then the
town grows so much, there is not enough space for the river anymore so it is culverted underground to allow for more road and more building.
The memory of the river is in the
layout of the town and the names but it is nowhere to be seen.
This phenomenon has been
studied by students of Sheffield University in the nearby town of Accrington.fig.
12
I have predominantly discussed the resurrection of memory as a positive process in architecture, a cure to urban amnesia so prevalent today amongst prolific inner city development.
However, I would not want to ignore the concept of the ‘art of forgetting’,
where the severance of a memory is in fact the primary objective, in order to bury pain and loss associated with a certain building or place where echoes of experiences before are too much to bear.
I recognise two main methods of dealing with this; the morphing of
a certain building or object, metaphorically suppressing the power it once represented and the total annihilation of the object, including its rubble, as is witnessed with the houses of notorious murderers.
25
figure 12 Richard acts as ‘gutter fisherman’ in the town of Accrington, identifying the presence of the river Hyndburn culverted under the shopping streets, arousing intrigue from the public.18
An example of the former I have witnessed in Berlin, a city that within my lifetime was divided in two and forced to coexist, worlds apart.
During a recent visit, I decided
to walk the route of the Berlin wall as much as my legs would take and was fascinated to observe different reactions to its tragic past.
Firstly, the desolation of the wall
within central areas and its replacement by a line of cobbles, parked on by coaches of tourists, its once forbidding height physically, but perhaps more symbolically reduced to
26 two dimensions. Secondly, the discovery that amongst disused rail tracks and industrial sheds, large portions still stand, still wearing its political graffiti but removed of all its fear and power.fig.
13
For now, the city seems to be adhering to an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ philosophy.
memorialisation In contrast to objects designed to forget, there are also those objects designed specifically to remember either an historical event or figure; what I refer to are memorials.
Rossi spoke of there being two main permanences in the city, one being
districts of housing and the other being monuments.
He comments on the unique nature of
the monument as having a function which relates solely to time and not to use and blames this so-called pathological quality on hindering the process of urbanisation in that area.
This suggests that when using memory as a tool, it is important to remember it is
exactly that, a tool, and part of a much bigger, more layered, picture. That is not to say that the designers of memorials in recent years have not begun to shift
figure 13 Big chunks of the Berlin wall still standing as they did in less populated areas of the city. Some pieces lie abandoned on their side for anyone to climb over.
27
away from the purely iconic or nostalgic.
There are examples where rather a more subtle,
relevant solution is produced, one which resonates with those affected and looks to the future as well as the past.
Once again, I refer to Georges Descombes, this time working
with Herman Hertzberger on the Bijlmer memorial in Amsterdam, where Descombes described the appropriate response as a process of revealing, not inventing.fig. 9+10 One wonders where the inspiration comes from for such a project memorialising as contentious an event as a
28 plane crash within a city, the answer; simply the “tree that saw it all”.19 conclusion Derrida asserted that the city may never return to nature if it becomes uninhabited because of being “haunted by meaning and culture”.20 As architects, we are facing the challenge that any given spot in a city is now congested with layers of memory, many of which will have been forgotten or hidden over time by an infinite amount of blank canvases that others have assumed.
I conclude that it is memory which brings meaning to experience, meaning which allows us to articulate in our minds what we are seeing and what we are feeling, in essence orientating us. Aldo Rossi attributed the soul of the city to memory, I consider memory to be the personality of the city.
I propose that it is memory which transforms a building
or enclosure into architecture and as designers, we should take responsibility for being part of the process, with a past and a future, and not just in one moment of time.
Each
move we make will leave its mark and create its own memory.
I believe that buildings and cities should offer more questions than answers. David Littlefield, in Architectural Voices, speaks of there being no reason why the imagination should cease as soon as the design process ends.
We follow routes prescribed to us and
do not allow for individual instinct and emotions as more relevant guides.
The pockets
of memory are the roots for a process of discovering the meaning of our surroundings and 29 creating unexpected connections.
It will be individual interpretation that is the force
which continues the idea through a winding path.
Through the exploration of memory pockets, I have captured a starting point to the design process which encompasses a combination of thorough and factual research with active imagination.
I believe these to be two essential ingredients that can happily co-exist
in a symbiotic relationship.
The next step in this process will be to include the
knowledge and imagination of others in order to introduce a stronger sense of collective, or urban, memory and bring greater meaning and attachment to our cities.
Why should we be obliged to prefer a nostalgia for the future to that for the past? ... Could not the ideal city, at one and the same time, behave as both a theatre of prophecy and a theatre of memory?
21
Colin Rowe/Fred Koetter
30
bibliography Andreotti, Libero; 1996; Theory of the Derive and other Situationist Writings on the City;
Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Barcelona
Bastéa, Eleni; 2004; Memory and Architecture; University of New Mexico Press; Albuquerque Bevan, Robert; 2006; The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War; Reaktion Books; London Betsky, Aaron; 2003; Scanning: The Aberrant architectures of Diller + Scofidio; Whitney Museum of Modern Art; New York Bruno, Giuliana; 2002; Atlas of Emotion; Verso; London Calvino, Italo; 1997; Invisible Cities; Vintage; London de Botton, Alain; 2006; The Architecture of Happiness; Penguin; London Descombes, Georges; ed. Tironi, Giordano; 1988; Shifting Sites; Gangemi Editore; Rome Ford, Simon; 2004; The Situationist International; Black Dog Publishing; London Freud, Sigmund; 1963; Civilisation and its Discontents; The Hogarth Press; London Hejduk, John; 1998; Such Places as Memory: Poems 1953-1996; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge Littlefield, David; 2007; Architectural Voices; Wiley-Academy; Chichester Marot, Sébastien; 2003; Sub-Urbanism and the Art of Memory; AA Publications; London Rossi, Aldo; 1984; Architecture and the City; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge
31
Ruskin, John; 1894; The Crown of the Wild Olive; Ballantyne, Hanson & co; Edinburgh Sadler, Simon; 1998; The Siuationist City; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge Schama, Simon; 1995; Landscape & Memory; Harper Collins; London Steiner, Rochelle; 2000; Wonderland; The Saint Louis Art Museum; St Louis Virilio, Paul; 2000; A Landscape of Events; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge
32 Wheeler, Michael and Whitely, Nigel; 1992; The Lamp of Memory: Ruskin, Tradition and Architecture; Manchester University Press; Manchester Yates, Frances; 1966; The Art of Memory; Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd; London
Caruso, Adam; 2000; The Emotional City; http://www.carusostjohn.com Rasor, Mitchell; 2006; Well-timed: Site Works of Georges Descombes; http://www.mrld.net/ pdfs/descombes
images figure 1
photomontages by author
figure 2
Ford, Simon; The Situationist International; Black Dog Publishing; 2004
figure 3
p.66; Betsky, Aaron; Scanning: The Aberrant architectures of Diller+Scofidio; Whitney Museum of Modern Art; 2003
figure 4a+b
photographs of thinking machine process by author
figure 5a+b
photomontages by author
figure 6
photographs of thinking machine process by author
figure 7
p.55; Yates, Frances; The Art of Memory; Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd; 1966
figure 8
map by author inspired by Guy Debord’s Psychogeographic methods
figure 9
p.2; Rasor, Mitchell; Well-timed: Site Works of Georges Descombes; http:// www.mrld.net/pdfs/descombes
figure 10a+b Article, ‘Growing Monument’ by Georges Descombes and Herman Hertzberger; AA Files 1999 No. 39; Architectural Association figure 11a+b p.69 + 71; Marot, Sébastien; Sub-Urbanism and the Art of Memory; AA Publications; 2003 figure 12
p.150 + 151, Littlefield, David; Architectural Voices; Wiley-Academy; 2007
figure 13
photographs by author
33
end notes 1
Quote taken from Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents; Chapter 1
2
Extract from Calvino’s City & Memory 3 in Invisible Cities
3
Ibid
4
Quote taken from Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents; Chapter 1
345
Quote taken from Guiliana Bruno’s essay, Haptic Journeys, as featured in the exhibtion catalogue entitled Wonderland
6
In reference to Marot’s introduction to his thesis on Sub-Urbanism and the Art of Memory
7
Quote taken from Stephen Bate’s essay, The City of Things, as featured in the book Papers 2 by Sergison Bates
8
In reference to Peter Eisenman’s introduction [and quote] to Rossi’s Architecture of the City, The Houses of Memory: The Texts of Analogy
9
Extract from §10 in John Ruskin’s Lamp of Memory
10
Referred to by Guiliana Bruno in her essay, Haptic Journeys, as featured in the exhibition catalogue entitled Wonderland
11
Israel Rosenfield, The Invention of Memory, quote taken from Bruno’s Atlas of Emotion
12
Extract from Cavafy’s poem, The City, taken from Eleni Bastéa’s introduction for Memory and Architecture
13
Quote taken from David Cooper’s essay in Descombes’ Shifting Sites
14
Quote taken from Eleni Bastéa’s Memory and Architecture
15
In reference to Caruso’s essay, The Emotional City, found at: http://www.carusostjohn.com
16
In reference to Georges Descombes in Shifting Sites
17
Quote taken from Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
18
Univsersity of Sheffield students Richard Gaete-Holmes and Kirstin Aitken’s site exploration as described in Carolyn Butterworth’s essay, Of All We Survey, featuring in Architectural Voices
19
Quote taken from Rasor’s interview with Descombes, featured in his essay, WellTimed: Site Works of Georges Descombes
20
Quote taken from Derrida’s Writing and Difference, used in Eisenman’s introduction to Architecture and the City
20
Quote taken from Rowe and Koetter’s Collage City, featuring in Shifting Sites by Georges Descombes
35