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Consumerism and Monumentality
2005.11.30 18:06
Monuments seem to be more personal now-a-days; I'm not sure about the "need for introspection," however. As demonstrated by the Vietnam War Memorial, personal interactivity is a key ingredient in what make it a successful monument--the leaving of 'mementos', the tracing of the name, the literal reflections of the visitors in the wall itself.
Note that memorial interactivity is not a new thing either, it had just been ritualized over centuries, and today's seeming lack of collective memory may be just as much a reaction to now stale rituals. There may be valuable lessons to learn from the spontaneous memorials that occur where car accidents deaths happened.
The Modern Movement in architecture pretty much worked to erase the collective memory of architecture, so the lack of collective memory in architecture, at least, is no longer a new thing.
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