Manifesto_Revision 1

LOST MONUMENTS – Making & Breaking the Icon,

“Where history ends, memory begins.”

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The ruthlessly defacing or dismantling of one icon has secured the iconic status of its successor. It is not the formal expression of the monument itself that makes it iconic but the ceremonious annihilation of one icon in order to set the stage for the creation of another. ‘The visual defacement of a monument in an attempt to erase it from history serves only to preserve the memory of the ill fated through the very act of its obliteration’. The ‘new’ monument is defined by its difference from the ‘old’ monument. Absence is more noticeable than presence, so through the act of eradication we place the condemned in the category of memory where it is further elevated towards the iconic, the unforgettable.

The site represents the sum of all the buildings which have occupied it. It becomes a site of ‘invisible archeology’. The destruction or resurgence of a monument marks a time; it is a formal documentation of an event. A new container to be constructed must assume the aura of generations of buildings and connect the historic memory of past buildings. It will end the cycle of architectural cannibalism through its ability to absorb and contain past memory while allowing future history. To restrict architectural reincarnation, the container must oscillate between absence and presence, countering the relentless cycle of change. The monument alters but does not destruct. It absorbs and incubates change as it forms with both history and memory.