Memorials and Trauma

After reading Paul Jones's "Architecture and Commemoration:The Construction of Memorialization. i feel like memorials should help us consider trauma and rethink and re-actualize the past. As events and circumstances unveils in the present, a memorial's destiny recall the past and provide conditions for new responses in future. Which makes me think Is it possible to conceive of memorials that focus on that warning as the key elements of concern connecting the past and future? Can we build memorials that, while addressing events and honoring victims and survivors, contribute to acts of remembrance, demand proactive engagement, and envision a better world?

The article by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean presents the information on a historical museum and how Moshe Safdie revitalized the whole museum by creating long walkways with side galleries, each providing a chapter the a story. By assigning a deep meaning and experiential space within a structure, I was left with a question in my mind How do we convey the design of the public spaces and memorial spaces? How do we position ourselves as an architect, teacher and student while working on such projects?

To my understanding i think neither art nor architecture can compensate for public trauma or mass murder. What architects can do is establish a dialogical relation with those events and help frame the process towards understanding.