Manifesto IV

LOST MONUMENTS – Making & Breaking the Icon,

“Where history ends, memory begins.”

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The constant breaking down and rebuilding of our surroundings are a modern manifestation of the ancient act of Iconoclasm through which the precious and the disposable become interchangeable. While intended as kind of visual defacement that effaces the memory of the destroyed-this event may none the less preserve the memory of the condemned in the very act of obliteration.

Ruthlessly defacing or dismantling our icons to secure the iconic status of their successor we place the damned in the category of memory where they are further elevated towards the iconic, the unforgettable.

Rousing strong emotion in the viewer, the iconic is both desired and detested. By absorbing and incubating change it has the power to exist in both history and memory.  It is this power that renders it everlasting.

The new container is neither placed nor integrated. It restricts architectural reincarnation by simultaneously preserving and destroying.  Fat with the auras of generations of buildings it contains their historic memory while providing a platform for the development of new order. Representing both absence and presence it oscillates between container and contained. Through the consumption and deformation of the familiar the generic becomes iconic.