702-621 Urban Design Theory

Assignment 3: Essay

No.32 Bad Memories

What (if anything) should be done with the urban remnants of disaster, horror and tyranny?

How, if at all, can urban memory be erased or transformed?

Name: Yin Ling Lee

Student ID: 312273

Tutor: Carrie White

Session: Tuesday, 5.15-6.15pm

Date: 7th June 2010

1650 words
Tragedy-hit places in various parts of the world New Yorks Ground Zero, Sarajevo,
Hiroshima, Auschwitz, etc are sites of trauma, which Maria Tumarkin termed as
traumascapes. Visiting such sites creates the understanding that nothing is left unchanged
in the powerful, religious atmosphere.1 These places are shattered, strewn with ruins, and
the increasing apathy caused by popular culture and media results in connotations these
places have with generic images of disaster ruins. However, ruins contain hidden truths of
deep emotional essence, 2 and once they are destroyed, the memories of the disaster will
fade away. It is the duty3 of the living to remember, to prevent the deceased victims of
tragedy and their stories from disappearing without trace.

Bad memories may be of significant importance to people affected by disaster, horror or

tyranny. Collective memories derived from shared meanings of the past are rooted in the
lives of the people in the said collective, and collective remembering happens in private as
well as public settings. But when memories transcend time, space and individual capacity of
memory, they are independent of the society that collectively remembers them, and become
low-intensity but ever-present. 4 For instance in Auschwitz the intense Holocaust trauma
carries through although the victims had long gone. Trauma victims also possess their own
painful memories, for example Cyclone Tracy survivors in Darwin have Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder, which made them afraid of the sounds of wind, flying corrugated iron sheets,
and so on.5 However, trauma and repression do not necessarily dictate collective memories,
especially if trauma survivors constitute a minority of the population. Their input would only
influence the memories of the public sphere if they could express themselves in accordance
with social and political motives or contemporary interests.6

To preserve or erase bad memories is a decision of a places governing authority, and

motives behind the preservation or erasures may not be purely for the sake of trauma
victims. After Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin in 1974, efforts by the government, media, health
and social care professionals are directed towards a complex reinstatement of normalcy,
something local survivors insist is impossible. 7 Hence, most Western trauma sites are

1
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary Australia,
p362.
2
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2005, Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy, Australia:
Melbourne University Press, pp189-191.
3
Winter, Jay, 2006, Remembering War, New Haven: New York University Press, p279
4
Kansteiner, Wulf, May 2002, Finding Meaning in Memory: a Methodological Critique of Collective Memory
Studies, History and Theory 41, Wesleyan University, p189.
5
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary Australia,
pp313-315.
6
Kansteiner, Wulf, May 2002, Finding Meaning in Memory: a Methodological Critique of Collective Memory
Studies, pp186-187
7
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary Australia,
enshrouded in controversies. The Holocaust Memorials, Daniel Libeskinds Jewish Museum,
the Berlin Wall and so on signify the attempts to address Germanys pragmatic, symbolic
present and future. Intense nationalism turns these places into icons, telling overpowering
stories of monolithic, definite triumphs and losses. 8 Hiroshima also underwent spatial
cleansing to clear stains from the past and reconstruct the meanings they evoke. Policies
of urban restitution aim not to erase, but to re-inscribe the atom bomb memories, and the
nuclear war site is labelled a peace city.9 Another case would be the nationalization and
sanctification of Australias Port Arthur historic site. Unfortunately, the complex interests of
commercialization/tourism and nationalism/history generated new cultural, economical and
social relations and caused the gentrification of the local community.10

Remnants of disasters are never directly suppressed, cleansed and forgotten, instead, the
actions taken in dealing with them mystifies and encrypts the tragedys memories and
meaning.11 Thus, museums, monuments, sculpture, etc. play significant roles in dealing with
bad memories. There is an incremental tendency to translate historical events into
museological forms.12 Monuments with their hard, polished form rooted firmly to the ground,
attract and repel attention at the same time.13 Memorial museums preserve deep, resonating
evidences of trauma in their archives, memories that heighten the psychological
connotations of national heritage and cultural superiority.14 The Nanjing Massacre Memorial
Museum asseverating the Japanese slaughtering of 300000 people in 1937 is one such
example. Lifelike sculptures, relief carvings, bleak, symbolic landscaping all exude a
compelling grief that moves Chinese visitors to tears and Japanese war veterans to kneel in
remorse.15

In addition, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) designed by
Troppo Architects is a successful testament to the Cyclone Tracy. Directing visitors in a
cyclonic flow to see displays of houses from the pre-cyclone era and Tracy Trauma

p339.
8
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary Australia,
pp369-372.
9
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary Australia,
p216, 282-284.
10
Tumarkin, Maria M. 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary Australia,
p165.
11
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary Australia,
p284.
12
Williams, Paul, 2007, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities, Prologue.
13
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary Australia,
p280.
14
Williams, Paul, 2007, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities, p186
15
Williams, Paul, 2007, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities, p10;
Qi, Kang, 1999, Memorial to Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, p15.
dwellings, with prelude sensations of cyclonic sounds in a dark room, made the museum a
powerful, moving experience, especially to cyclone-affected visitors. 16 The willingness of
people to remember the disaster also provided an appropriate context for the museum, as
an earlier gallery was demolished when it was too soon to relieve the painful memories. The
remembering of Cyclone Tracy was not a triumphalism narrative or a commercial excuse,
but was appropriately respected. The museum connects Darwins past to the present and
offers an insight to visitors of the fragile lives of the locals.17

With regards to memorials, museums and monuments, Williams raised the issue of
memorials slowly deadening the impact of the histories they were erected to represent.
Memorial museums may be blending in rather blandly with urban insertions of historical
commemoration like heritage districts, conventional war memorials, statues of long-dead
leaders, unnoticed bridges, fountains and plaques. He discussed the viability of physical
commemoration installed in the midst of the actual streets where traumata were in
metropolitan locations. Museums may provide substantial interpretation in protected
enclosures but memorials in the midst of ongoing living history better suit the ever-
changing outdoor streetscape. For instance, Gunter Demnigs Stolpersteine18 placed along
Berlins streets is as powerful as the new Jewish Museum Berlin. 19

Fig. 1 Stolpersteine in Berlin-Friedrichshain, sourced from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stolpersteine_Frankfurter_Allee,_Berlin.JPG

16
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary Australia,
p296.
17
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary Australia,
p297
18
Created by artist Gunter Demnig, Stolpersteine are stumbling blocks each inscribed with details of a
Holocaust victim, installed on the street where he/she last resided. Over 4000 have been laid on pavements
throughout Germany and Demnigs efforts are still ongoing. - Kingstone, Barbara, 22 September 2005,
Stolpersteine: Gunter Demnigs homage to the Holocaust, Jewish Tribune, sourced from
[ http://www.jewishtribune.ca/tribune/jt-050922-19.html ] on 1 June 2010.
19
Williams, Paul, 2007, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities, p181.
Besides imposing hard structures adding to the built environment to commemorate trauma,
the appropriation of public space users also transform the memories in urban space. For
example, after the September 11 attack, roughly 100,000 fliers of missing persons were
posted by their loved ones and these fliers became memorials where people add messages,
flowers, etc. and social institutions began creating commemorative murals.20

Sometimes, bad memories should not be retained, as they consolidate bitter social
segregation, emphasize on redemption and reduce the capacity of forgiveness. Instead of an
emphasis on remembering, a higher moral and political motive would be to forgive and
forget, 21 to prevent atrocities from occurring again. A pleasant occurrence of this was
encountered by Maria Tumarkin in Tasmania, three years after the 1996 massacre in Port
Arthur. Only the roofless structure of Broad Arrow Caf provides an inkling of where twenty
civilians were shot. A memorial garden, visitors centre and interpretation gallery emerged so
harmoniously that the place is unimaginable as any setting other than a friendly touristy
one.22 Besides that, most memorial museums echo a message of peace, for instance in the
Nanjing Memorial a peace bell and monument are prominent markers of entry and exit of the
site.

Memories of trauma should be preserved to educate the future generations on the atrocities
of the past, and so far the idea of memorial museums surfaced as an ideal way to serve as
remembrance. Isenstadt, too, has supportive views of memorial museums, and asserts that
architecture, through material presence or ordered space or both, acknowledges the terror
and weakness of humans, and with these memories teaches us to overcome them.23 As
Maria Tumarkin quoted,

Traumascapes have the power to let us know what (pain, loss and violence)
happened here, but also what is still to come. They are real, they are not going
away. Because even though its all over and done with, it is going to be always
there waiting for you.24

Regardless of the urban, architectural or individual effort, the effectiveness of remembering

and the message that ultimately passes on is what matters in the end.

20
Williams, Paul, 2007, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities, UK: Berg, p65.
21
Williams, Paul, 2007, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities, pp187-188.
22
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2005, Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy, Australia:
Melbourne University Press, pp48-49.
23
Williams, Paul, 2007, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities, p180
24
Tumarkin, Maria M., 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary Australia,
p376-377.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kansteiner, Wulf, May 2002, Finding Meaning in Memory: a Methodological Critique of Collective
Memory Studies, History and Theory 41, Wesleyan University

Kingstone, Barbara, 22 September 2005, Stolpersteine: Gunter Demnigs homage to the Holocaust,
Jewish Tribune, sourced from [ http://www.jewishtribune.ca/tribune/jt-050922-19.html ] on 1 June
2010.

Qi, Kang, 1999, Memorial to Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, p15.

Tumarkin, Maria M., 2002, Secret Life of Wounded Spaces : Traumascapes in the contemporary
Australia,

Tumarkin, Maria M., 2005, Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy,
Australia: Melbourne University Press,

Williams, Paul, 2007, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities, UK: Berg

Winter, Jay, 2006, Remembering War, New Haven: New York University Press