Abstract
Remembrance Now: 21st-Century Memorial Architecture is a grand title for a book that claims to tackle the immensely vast and complex topic of memorial architecture. It is a collaborative endeavour by British architecture writer, Michèle Woodger, and practicing architect, Tszwai So. In the typical genre of architectural publications, the book is richly illustrated and brings together a selection of 45 contemporary memorial projects and seven interviews with prominent architects whose projects are also included in the book. According to the authors, the book represents a crystallization of their long-term discussions about what remembrance architecture constitutes globally. The book fits into a relatively recent focus on the specificity of memorial architecture, such as Spencer Bailey’s In Memory Of: Designing Contemporary Memorials (2020), in the sense that it aims to demonstrate architectural richness in a wide array of creative approaches towards preserving and designing spaces of memory.
In their separate introduction texts, Woodger and So briefly acknowledge debates surrounding ‘toxic legacies’ and the contested monuments dedicated to them, and stress that the contemporary ‘memorial landscape’ is changing. The authors purport to situate memorials within a larger context and argue that in this way it becomes clear that each of these projects is ‘allowing a great many otherwise silent voices to speak’ (p. 10). Drawing on his experience in architectural education, So explains that the aim of the book is ‘provoking reassessment of thought when considering memorial architecture’ (p. 12). For this reassessment, the authors selected 45 examples of contemporary memorial architecture, dedicated to various historical and current-day events, such as the 1912 El Grito de Alcorta rebellion in Argentina, South Korea’s Chonnam National University demonstrations in the 1980s, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The selection criteria are, however, unclear and opens space for scrutiny, especially since Tszwai So includes his own projects in what one would expect to be an objective demonstration of ‘remembrance now’. Projects featured in the book are briefly described, since photographs, sketches and architectural plans effectively convey main characteristics of the memorials.
Interestingly, even though the book is focused on the architectural aspect of remembrance, it does not make a distinction between different typologies of memorial architecture. The authors use ‘memorial’ as an all-encompassing term and somewhat romantic concept explaining that at ‘the centre of it all is that alchemic element called memory’ (p. 14). The romantic and poetic approach to the idea of building memorials – typical in the field of architectural production – is quite prominent in the featured introductory dialogue between the two authors entitled ‘Remembrance Now: Memory and Design in Dialogue’. The text is also framed by So’s hand-drawings that are likely supposed to reinforce the somewhat jumbled tone of the dialogue. Here, So stresses the importance of a memorial as a ‘method for curating narratives of the past’ (p. 15) whereas Woodger questions the very notion of ‘collective memory’; So then concludes that ‘memories cannot be collective’ due to the impossibility of fully transferring lived experiences. While the authors do mention the existence of scientific sources and the ‘huge amount of academic debate’ (p. 16) about what constitutes collective memories, it is not clear what they refer to. In fact, it is rather surprising that there are no references whatsoever to the rich body of research dedicated specifically to the history, effects and implications of memorial architecture. While the authors do touch upon some pertinent and timely issues, such as the impact of globalization on de-contextualization of architectural language, the lack of substantiation through acknowledging existing research renders the conceptual framing of the introductory dialogue rather superfluous.
In the same vein, the authors discuss the notion of ‘never again’ as the very raison d’être of memorials, which has become almost absurd when atrocities keep happening all over the world, and which is a highly relevant and timely issue. Unfortunately, the issue remains unexplored in the book and their conversation continues through a rather diverse set of topics such as ‘identity and narratives’, ‘healing through nature’ and ‘the physicality of grief’, all of which are touched upon only superficially and only sometimes in relation to memorials explored further in the book. Some highlighted topics, such as ‘remembrance now and then’ are more confusing than helpful since one has to guess how the title is even connected to the discussion. On the positive side, this potentially works as a teaser for an engaged reader to independently explore what constitutes the ‘now’ in the book’s collection of contemporary memorials (and how is it different from the ‘then’ which needs to be explored elsewhere).
There are a number of generalizations and unsubstantiated statements that are, in fact, personal impressions presented as the factual state of things (e.g. ‘didactic elements, although still there, are often less heavy-handed or more oblique’ (p. 20)). So also stresses, while referring to Lisa Feldman Barret’s work as an authority on constructing emotions (which is arguable), the importance of neuroscience for architectural practice, asserting that architects can construct experiences and, by extension, emotions. While calling out architects’ commonly subjective approaches to design tasks and their ego in designing architecture (such as memorials), So invites them to not only ask what moves people but also how people are moved. One would expect to see some examples of this in the book, such as the impressions or experiences of visitors to memorials, but that is not the case. Instead, one can argue that the book does the opposite by including So’s memorial project for the Belarusian Memorial Chapel in London as one of the important contemporary projects that demonstrate what ‘remembrance now’ means. So writes emphatically about his own design, asserting that it is ‘a subtle reminder of those distant tragedies – while inside, in prayer, new, happier memories are made in light-filled chapel’ (p. 55). Any reflections by visitors to this memorial would have been a very welcome reinforcement of the authors’ arguments against inauthentic and egoistic way of designing spaces for remembrance.
The most interesting examples featured in the book are the ones that show how design can make an impact and be meaningful precisely through architecture absenting itself – where the materiality of a newly built architecture is replaced with the immaterial, but felt, presence of a designer. For example New Zealand’s White Chairs Memorial – a temporary memorial to commemorate 185 Christchurch 2011 earthquake victims – is seen as a part of natural deterioration by the artist, Peter Majendie, or Rwanda’s Nyamata Church Genocide Memorial Centre, where the focus of designers was on maintaining the memorial site’s sense of place through innovative technology instead of building new structures.
The book aims to defend the premise that architecture can successfully manage to preserve memory and aid healing. For example, the Babyn Yar Synagogue (2021) is described as a ‘cabinet of wonders’ and a ‘place of fascination’ since it is conceptualized as a large pop-up book, the very opening of which constitutes a collective ritual (p. 52). The memorial is further reinforced by prayers and blessings inscribed on the walls, such as Shema Israel and Kaddish, that are ‘turning a nightmare into a good dream’ (p. 53). The text explaining the poignancy of this particular memorial opens with Volodymyr Zelensky’s 2022 statement following the war damage to the Holocaust memorial, located just outside of Kyiv: ‘What is the point of saying “never again” for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar?’ (p. 51). Only a year later, as the unprecedented destruction of Palestine by Israel’s bombs is broadcast on our screens, the world witnesses that ‘never again’ in the context of the Holocaust remembrance, in general, and Zelensky’s statement, in particular, was meant to address what Viet Thanh Nguyen explains as ‘unjust memory’ – remembering only our own. This alone makes the title and the goal of the book outmoded.
Surprisingly, there is no single example from post-Yugoslavia independent countries known for their rich memorial architecture and culture. The absence is even more curious since the book is printed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country with particularly complex and prolific remembrance culture and not without innovative architectural memorial expressions. This tiny detail is only a hint at the problematic, but unexplored, relationship in this book between the ‘apolitical’ polished veneer of architecture and the inherently political nature of memorial architecture in the age of decolonization.
Even though the book’s brief overview of contemporary memorial architecture can be informative as it includes a number of less familiar examples, such as the Mausoleum of the Martyrdom of Polish Villages (Poland), the Flowing Paperscapes of the War Memorial (Taiwan), and unrealized concept designs, such as the Thunderhead 2SLGBTQI + National Monument (Canada), it makes no major contribution to how we understand memorials. While the book promises to make us look at memorials in a different light, it only reinforces the problematic approach that is singularly focused on the architectural end-result. In fact, it can be considered a common architectural special journal issue uninterested in truly changing the firmly established business-as-usual of architectural production that, for example, rarely relies on collective efforts in practice, but instead on the architect as authority. Projects featured in the book are accepted at face value, based on the pronouncements that their designers, patrons and publicists have made about them. Architects and students of architecture, and potentially general audiences, will nonetheless appreciate having a well-illustrated and informative coffee-table book on this important topic.
