Monuments: Spaces of Intended Public Use Vs. Actual Locations of Use

 Both Los Angeles and San Francisco created elaborate city halls, with the hope of establishing a city center and place of public use. However, the true landmarks, or monuments that actually captured the public’s attention and serve as a space where people spend their time are far more unsuspecting and are nowhere near as formal.

In the West’s hub of sophistication would you even believe me if I told you the most oft used “monument” to date is not the city hall with its elaborate domed ceiling and sweeping staircase but instead a tourist spot along the highway between Sacramento and San Francisco that is complete with…. Wait for it: a mini train.

 

San Francisco's City Hall                              San Francisco's Nut Tree 

California’s legendary roadside shop, Nut Tree, features 393,000 square feet of retail space, 140,000 square feet of office space, 216 apartment units, a 2-acre amusement park and a 3.4-acere event center. It includes an airport, a toy shop, a sophisticated gifts and notions shop, a bar serving imported beers and cheeses, an elegant restaurant and even an aviary.  The whimsical space trumps the San Francisco City Hall on public recognition any day of the week which begs the question, how do you create a monument, a location that helps to define local identity, without resorting to commercial tactics? How do you engage the visitor or resident without resorting to a mini railroad? Are monuments of actual use doomed to be cheesy theme parks forever? Is the public that shallow?

In the case of Los Angeles, their city hall is completely trumped by nearby Disneyland. Charles Moore, sarcastically or not, considers the play-acting that takes place there to be a successful response the public environment, “Disneyland it appears, is enormously important and successful just because it recreates all the chances to respond to the public environment, which Los Angels does not particularly have.” (99, Moore)  Los Angeles’s city hall, though a tall and dominant architectural feature in the city has failed to inspire invested public life within its walls. Commercial buildings are quickly developing around and looming over the structure, making it less and less distinct. Though the use of height was a valid gesture at making the city hall important and a catalyst for a bustling city center, it inevitably failed to inspire much life within or around the building. Which begs the question, why? What does Nut Tree and Disneyland have that the city halls are unable to convey? Above all it appears, no matter how cliché or superficial Nut Tree or Disneyland are, they both engage the public consistently. They seem to fill the public’s need for distraction, entertainment, indulgence and distraction.

So, is there a way to capture this attention and funnel it into a public building? Can the amusement park and the monument combine forces or are they too essentially different? As an eternal optimist, it is my hope that they can be combined in some way so that public interaction in monumental spaces is encouraged to its fullest. It is my hope that formal architecture can support public entertainment in a genuine way. It is also my hope that monuments are not relegated to be a rarely thought of, stained and aging statue or an empty city hall but a space where public entertainment and commerce joins forces with reverent spaces of public service.

Sites of Memory

I found that this weeks readings covered a very broad range of memory sites. From Moore’s essay examining Disney Land and freeway intersections as monuments and Davis’ excerpt on discriminating intentional monuments in Lange’s Searching For A Center in Writing About Architecture, to Jone’s sociological and political examination of the Ground Zero memorial and Violi’s analysis of the Tuol Sleng Museum of the Crimes of Genocide. Fabrice Fouillet’s Colosses photo essay of enormous monumental statues from around the world was a refreshing finale compared to the heavy and emotional readings.

Collectively, all of the readings offered different insight into the many facets of memory architecture. The decision to erect a memorial museum, trauma site, or memorial is much more intertwined then I had previously thought. Issues of social context, politics, nature of the trauma, discrimination, authentication, and attraction are just a few of the many pieces that must be carefully considered when creating (or maintaining) a site of memory. 

Violi poses two questions early on in her article, Trauma Site Museums and Politics of Memory, that resonated with me. “What aspects of that past should be re-presented, and how? And more than anything else: ‘are all these authentic?” and “Is it possible to maintain the ‘authenticity’ of such places, or does their conversion into a museum inevitably transform them into something other than themselves?” (both pg. 42) These questions keep churning in my mind, yet, I still am unable to answer them. 

Trenches at Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial Site

Caribou Statue and Index of Fallen Soldiers (added post battle) - Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial Site

It was by chance that I stumbled upon this memory site; Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial in Beaumont-Hamel, France. It is a memorial site commemorating all of the Newfoundlanders who fought in the Battle of the Somme on 1 July, 1916. An estimated 820 soldiers lost their lives, many of which have no grave. A bronze statue of a Caribou, the emblem of the Newfoundland regiment, was erected shortly after the memorial opened in 1925 and sits  atop a mound overlooking the landscape that was once war ground and trenches. The memorial also includes a visitors center, opened in 2001, that provides historical information and memorabilia about the battle. What caught my interest of this site was a photograph (below) of the trenches which still remain within the landscape. The trenches also still hold remnants of battle. Looking at this site from the context of Violi's article, this would be considered a Trauma Site. Although the trenches have been maintained and untouched, the incorporation of the statue and visitors center were added to the site years after the actual battle. Do these incorporations to the trauma site enhance the memorialization process, or do the transform this site into something else? 

The focus of Lange’s Searching For A Center, specifically Moore’s essay and Davis’ point of view reminded me of readings from Robert’s Theory class last semester. One reading in particular, from Architectural Theory Volume 2, discusses the dynamics of city squares. A Pattern Language1977) by Christopher Alexander discusses his theory based on empirical study on and anthropological investigation of social interaction within public space. He touches upon the size of the site, occupancy, and anthropometry of the visitors. I think that Alexanders research and writings are the answer to the questions posed by Moore and Davis; creating intentional monumental spaces that will be utilized by the surrounding public.

Its the Thought that Counts

It’s the Thought that Counts

Assigning a meaning to a structure is a big undertaking. Proclaiming a structure means “this” or represents “that” is something, which can be argued, which only makes it more difficult for an architect to take on a project, especially one immersed in memory and nostalgia.

Nostalgia is a uniquely human attribute. We tend to skew past events in our mind whether it be a more positive or more negative outlook, some level of interpretation occurs. This is a fascinating function of humans because, not only does an architect have to account for the “collective memory” of a community who is backing the memorial, and/or represented by the memorial, but an interpretation of the collective memory itself by the architect adds another level of disconnect from the original events. This is not to say that these “layers” necessarily distort the memorial into something meaningless, but rather these layers usually seek to cleanse an event of “noise” such as propaganda, scheming, motives, etc…As it has been said so many times before, hindsight is 20/20 vision.

When I say this, I think of the Safdie Holocaust memorial. Safdie, like in his design for the PEM, takes into account all aspects of the intent, content, and context of the structure, this time building for the memoriam of the Holocuast – the horror, the controlled atmosphere, the individual experience of man, and the “light at the end of the tunnel” were all present ideas in his design. What I enjoyed most about Safdie’s design though, is his recognition that this horrific circumstance ended. The world learned, and grew from that experience. In a way, he knows he cannot “re-present” the agony of the events, so he instead chooses to weave together a narrative of entire experience of going, being, and maybe living through the Holocaust.

There is no point in trying to “re-present” the Holocaust. I strongly believe, there is no way I could go to any memorial and truly feel the way the victims of the Holocaust felt for so many reasons, but there are two very big reasons:

1)     A visit to a memorial site of museum is a moment in time – maybe 1 to 3 hours? I cannot understand or relate to a lifetime of hate directed towards me in that short amount of time. The irreversible physiological scars those prisoners had are not something that can be created or experienced again.

2)     The physical agony is not re-creatable.

A memorial can strive to “re-present” but it cannot fully. For that reason, I appreciate that Safdie did not attempt that, but rather approached the structure as a narrative. The floor plan at times directs the viewer as to what order he/she experiences that space. The structure is physically imposing a certain travel throughout the space, thus ensuring a specific narrative for the viewer.  Safdie even went so far as to

“…tucked fire sprinklers — as well as mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems — out of sight, to prevent associations with gas chambers...Rather than create a dark museum, the architect and his collaborators let the content of the exhibits communicate the terror of the Holocaust”.

Safdie knew the sprinklers could be interpreted as part of the experience of the museum rather than a stipulation of building codes. He was that careful with constructing his narrative, and that to me is a brilliant way to approach a memorial. The idea of a memorial space as a narrative makes perfect sense to me because story-telling does not proclaim to be truth or fact, but more visceral, and emotional. A narrative is upfront with the fact that it is there to communicate a specific message, and it may not be universal.

Maybe then, assigning a meaning to something is not the intent of a memorial. Maybe it is a mood point? In the article about the design for Ground Zero and Libeskind, we looked at the relationship between words and structure. If the structure does not make sense without words, is it functioning as a memorial? If it is too abstracted, too disconnected, too incoherent, and the general public cannot understand it for it’s intended purpose, is it then not a memorial? Philip Nobel wrote, “Language was so central to Libeskind’s efforts... When words and form are disconnected, the meaning is lost on the form”.  

                  This brings me to a question I posed a couple weeks ago, can we understand architecture, or even just form without words? Are words getting in the way from experiencing form on a more instinctual, basic, raw level?

                  

Architecture and Collective Identity

While reading Paul Jones’s “Architecture and Commemoration: The Construction of Memorialization,” I was reminded of the Palau Güell by Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain), how its architecture served as an exhibition of Catalan nationalism and identity. At a time when Catalonia’s economy was thriving from a prosperous industrial revolution, many of the newly bourgeois class began to focus on creating a rebirth of a national identity that reflected Catalan pride. They did this by forming a national character, turning to Catalonia’s past to help frame its present and future. For years, Catalans lived in a repressed society under King Phillip V of Spain. His attempt to eradicate Catalan culture and identity and his attempt to supplant the “Spanish way” onto the people of the region only fueled the Catalan resolve in preserving culture and identity.

            One such Catalan to do this was Eusebi Güell, a textile entrepreneur and a prominent figure in Catalan politics. In 1885 Güell commissioned Gaudi to design his family residence in the El Raval neighborhood in Barcelona. The Palau Güell not only functioned as his residence but also as a place where he could entertain his elite contemporaries and other dignitaries. Güell spared no expense in the building of the Palau—Gaudí used only the finest materials including the finest woods and stone, detailed ironwork, stained glass windows, and furnishings. In comparison to the rest of the buildings in the neighborhood, the Palau Güell is a monumental sight. It is a seven-story structure built to fit within the narrow landscape of its neighborhood. Evidence of Catalan identity, as well as Güell’s, are clearly visible on the onset. In between the two front gates is the Catalan coat of arms with a helmet crown and a phoenix placed above. Gaudí’s representation of the coat of arms resembles that of the coat of arms of the Aragonese monarchs of the 13^th and 15^th centuries. The latter depicts a fire-breathing dragon above the crown while Gaudí’s version uses a phoenix, a symbol or rebirth or resurrection. In the phoenix Gaudí places the rise of an independent Catalan nation, back to what most Catalans considered was its most natural state. Another representation of the coat of arms appears on the interior of the Palau in a stained glass window at the top of the main staircase and in the carpet that adorns stairway.

Aragon Coat of Arms

Coat of Arms at Palau Guell

            In the Palau Güell, both Güell and Gaudí saw it as a way to represent the hopes of a people and to push a political agenda. The goal for Catalans then (as it is today) was to return Catalonia to its glorious independent state, free of Spanish rule that attempted in vain to destroy their culture and identity. The architecture symbolically unified them as a nation. I think this is very similar to what Libeskind’s attempted to do with the architecture for Ground Zero. But I question if it’s indeed possible for that to happen in a country of diverse cultures where many feel disenfranchised. Can it really be feasible to expect a monument to represent the experiences and history of a diverse group? Ground Zero represents a horrific event that happened in one country. The new architecture at the site seeks to unify but does it create a collective identity?

Trauma Sites - A Matter of Distance

This week’s theme of Creating Sites of Memory turned out to be a particularly powerful one. I found Patrizia Violi’s Trauma Site Museums and Politics of Memory to give a well-rounded look at memorial architecture. For me,  it really helpful to look at two completely different trauma sites and learn more about how they were designed, but more importantly why certain decisions were made.

Before reading Violi’s article, I was not really familiar with the Cambodian Genocide. I felt like reading about the trauma site with little background information or historical context on the actual genocide put me in a similar position as the museum visitor.  I say this because I think we are all used to walking into a museum and being handed a pamphlet with information or reading plaques along the walls as we explore. With the Tuol Sleng Museum of the Crimes of Genocide, however, very little informational material is made available to museum visitors. My first reaction to this lack of material was a surprised, ‘well that makes no sense.’ As I read more about the way the museum is laid out, that decision started to make a lot more sense to me, and I think the fact that it is designed to be more of an immersive experience than a historical knowledge transfer is a really powerful choice. Empathy is getting harder and harder to come by in our society where we hide behind computers and text or email instead of calling. For this reason, to be able to leave a museum with a real feeling of what these victims endured is a special thing.

The Villa Grimaldi in Chile seems to take the exact opposite approach to its trauma site. Whereas very similar events took place in both the Villa Grimaldi and Tuol Sleng, the ways in which their memorial sites are commemorated could not be more different. The Park for Peace at the Villa Grimaldi seeks to create a distance from the actual events. From the description Violi provides, it seems entirely possible to be in the Park for Peace and have no idea that anything horrific ever happened on site. Obviously there are political reasons behind the design of the park given that the democracy in Chile had only recently been established when the park was built, but regardless, it makes me wonder if this quieter approach to memorialization means as much. As Violi describes it, you have to really know about the Park for Peace in order to seek it out, as it is not publicized as an attraction of any kind. Aside from the political factors, I wonder if the difference in trauma site approaches between the Villa Grimaldi and Tuol Sleng could be a result of cultural differences to the reaction to such traumatic events.

Overall, Violi really seemed to circulate around the idea of distance. Is it better to have a memorial site that evokes a feeling of closeness to the victims or create distance from the trauma? Does it depend on the culture of the trauma site? 

Landmarks: Use Value vs. Historical Value

Within this week’s readings we learned about landmarks: what a landmark is, what makes a landmark successful, if some landmarks are worth saving, and if some landmarks lose their iconicity over time.  One topic that was at the center of discussion was Millennium Park.  Millennium Park has become a major attraction in the city of Chicago and has become one of the greatest parks of the 21^st Century.  Boston Globe architecture critic Robert Campell described the park saying:

“Magical artworks, a delightful cafe, theaters, an outdoor concert venue, a world-class art museum next door… inventive gardens, an ever-changing pool for wading and running, a bike rental pavilion- the list of delights seems endless”.

It truly is a beautiful public park that has created new iconic images for the city.  As a Chicago native, I have visited Millennium Park frequently, almost every time I am in Chicago.  As it is just a few blocks from the train station, I often take a train into the city and always make a point to walk through Millennium Park before I do anything else.  I have attended many  free concerts in the pavilion, ice-skated in the rink in the winter, had photo shoots in front of the Bean with friends, cooled off in the fountains in the summer, it truly is an extraordinary place filled with a variety of activities for the users.  Campell also mentioned how the park is a great place for people-watching because it is filled with people.  The park always seems to be filled with life at all times with the many different people interacting with the various sculptures and attractions.  It is an amazing 21^st Century Park that has caused many to rethink the way they are building public outdoor spaces today.  Perhaps we will begin to see more interactive parks surface as a result of the success of Millennium Park.  

According to Lange, the definition of a landmark is a building or other place of outstanding historical, aesthetic, or cultural importance, often declared as such by civic authority.  Some common landmarks include museums, libraries and churches.  However, in today’s world, the idea of a landmark is becoming a little fuzzier and harder to distinguish.  When trying to evaluate what makes something a landmark, the critic plays a vital role.  Some factors to take into consideration when critiquing a possible landmark are its history, its present-day context, and the way it effects the public. 

In the reading, it described how Alois Riegl came up with five values for conserving art and architectural artifacts at the turn of the nineteenth century.  The categories include historical value, artistic value, age value, use value, and newness value.  Riegl believes that the best use of a building is not as a museum (historical value) piece but as part of a city that continues to grow (use value).  To her, the use value was more important than the historical value.  In a way I think both are important.  We look at many old museums or churches today and think of them as a landmark purely because of their important place in history.  However, a building that becomes a part of the city around it and enriches it with life, like Millennium Park, can also be considered a great landmark. 

Is the use value of a landmark really more important than the historical value of a landmark?  This question can be applied to the topic of Olympic Architecture.  ‘Instant Monumentality’ is often a term used to describe Olympic Architecture.  Oftentimes, host cities design large scale, monumental structures that are focused on one sport or activity.  This, in most cases, results in a wasteland of structures that gives a feeling of emptiness.  In the reading, Wergeland describes the Athens 2004 Olympics saying:

“A staggering 21 out of 22 venues lie abandoned since an event lasting just three weeks has held, and the magnificent stadiums are now over-run with rubbish and weeds.  But the most striking ‘legacy’ has been the huge sums spent and wasted on venues to hold sports with little following in Greece.  And yet the madness does not end there: annual ‘maintenance’ of the empty sites has cost 500 million since the event”. 

As we cans see, the aftermath of the Olympics is often detrimental to the host countries.  There is a sense of lifelessness once the Olympics leaves.  The facilities either become abandoned or they are used infrequently drawing way smaller crowds.  Kayser Nielson calls it a ‘state of placlessness’ when a place loses its identity at certain sites.  The article also states how post-Olympic architectural design features are robbed of the context that initiated them and, as a consequence, appear to us only as vacant objects, emptied of referential meaning and bereft of their previous iconic value.  That brings me back to my question, does use value trump historical value when distinguishing if something is iconic?  To me, using the case of the Athens Olympics as an example, I think the buildings in a way lose some of their iconicity when they become abandoned.  In a way, it’s kind of like they had their 15 seconds of fame and then they lost their celebrity.  It doesn’t mean we are any less nostalgic on the buildings, however, the short-lived fame and dramatic fall from a monumental work of architecture to an abandoned facility causes one to question the iconic-value.  I don’t think the fact that it is abandoned makes it less iconic, there are plenty of ruins and abandoned structures around the world that can be considered iconic.  I think the difference is those structures had a longer life than just a few weeks.  As a result, I think the use value of a landmark does play a key role.

Olympic architecture should strive to be more like Millennium Park in Chicago.  That is a hard statement to say seeing as how they are two very different works of architecture with very different functions and at a very different scale.  However, as we look at the way Millennium Park impacted the city of Chicago, we discover how bold investments in architecture can benefit a city.  Millennium Park had a positive effect on Chicago in more ways than one, impacting a few things such as condominium development, office development, and hotel construction near the park.  Millennium Park is like a fine wine, it just keeps improving with age.  If Olympic architecture would strive to think more about the impact of the facilities on the city after the Olympics, they would probably become more successful.  

  

Life Span of Landmarks

"Preservation is the job of finding ways to keep those original buildings that provide the city's character and continuity and of incorporating them into living mainstream. This is not easy.Its is much simpler to move a few historical castoffs into quarantine, putting the curious little "enclave" or cultural red herring, off limits to the speculative developer while he gets destructive crate blanche in the rest of the city" - Hixtable from her essay "whats Worth Preserving"

what is the purpose of preservation? Should it showcase the architecture of previous generation? Should it purely be remained untouched in terms of architecture and repaint the space that displays its essence? Over the past couple of years, as i looked more into the preservation by the architects around the world , i came across extremely unique preservation where elements of postmodern design like proto-futuristic shapes are combined to historical architecture making a aesthetically figurative object.

THE RESTORATION OF CONVENT DE SANT FRANCESC…

When I think of about a preservation , I think about an old historic building true to its physical organization in the field of proximate social exchanges among the public in a coherent fashion, an eccentric ornamentation, and the use of modern techs showcasing the architecture.

On the other hand, it is important for a preservation to have the essence of its origin. In reading "What's worth preserving" Huxtable points the "facadism" renovation project 2009 of Henry Miller's Theater in New York City, I do agree with her there's no point in saving facade and destroying everything behind it. This makes me of the architecture of the movie set. The movie sets are designed just to showcase the scene and everything else is decayed structure. They are not designed in relation to its context. Lots of time and money are spend to capture a scene and after that it is destroyed.

The reading Even Smith Wergeland " When Icons Crumble-The Troubled  Legacy of Olympic Design", I began to wonder are we leaving in an era of "moment". Lots of time and money was spend to create a memorable structure as an example OAKA. With the change of time and purpose the roots of the structure seems to be rotten and decay. And to this it makes me eager to compare it with a movie. If the movie is successful they would be able to pay off the expense they send. And in this way,over the period of time if the landmark i.e., the building structure  have the engagement and purity  within its context and materials. Would you think of it as temporal iconicity.

This brings me think of how should a landmark be? Like Millennium Park in Chicago wher the Mayor is still borrowing money to pay off the loans to run the park or like Athens Olympic Stadium where Greek economy crumbled.