Architecture and the Social Frameworks of Memory: A Postscript to Maurice Halbwachs’ “Collective Memory”

Authors

  • Can Bilsel University of San Diego

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15320/ICONARP.2017.14

Keywords:

Halbwachs, Maurice (1877-1945), Collective Memory, Social Frameworks of Memory, Sites of Memory, Architecture, Monuments, Memorials and Social Reception, Les Cadres sociaux de la mémoire (1925 book), La topographie légendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte

Abstract

This paper offers a commentary on Maurice Halwachs’ writings on “collective memory” in the years between 1925-1945. Architectural and urban spaces figure prominently in work of the French sociologist since he maintains that memories survive in the longue durée only to the extent they are indexed into architectural places, and mapped into an urban and historical topography. This comes with a caveat: in his pioneering study of “collective memory,” La topographie légendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte: etude de mémoire collective, Halbwachs highlights the discrepancy between the archaeological record preserved in material culture—for example ancient ruins and monuments—and the living memory of a religious community. Likewise, in his study of working classes, Halbwachs’ neologism, “collective memory” is defined as a deliberately unstable, and socially constructed category.

 The provisional and fluid definition that Halbwachs assigned to “collective memory” offers an insight into our present predicament. In the last decades, the ability of architecture, urban design, and architectural conservation in framing and preserving a stable and unified cultural heritage has been profoundly challenged. This paper makes the case for moving away from merely technical inquiries that understand architecture and places as “sites of memory” to a new direction that builds upon Halbwachs’ social frameworks of memory. It is thanks to Halbwach’s pioneering, if incomplete, work on “collective memory” that we may understand how the emerging and open-ended social formations transform architecture and urban spaces.

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Author Biography

Can Bilsel, University of San Diego

Can Bilsel is Professor of Architecture at the University of San Diego. His research bridges the fields of the history and theory of modern architecture, urbanism, and housing, the history of archaeology and museum reconstructions, the history of architectural conservation, cultural theory, and postcolonial studies. He is the author of Antiquity on Display: Regimes of the Authentic in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, published in 2012 by the Oxford University Press. Bilsel is currently co-editing, with Juliana Maxim, Architecture and the Housing Question a book that will feature the research of 15 authors from around the world. Bilsel received his Ph.D. in Architecture at Princeton University, a Master of Science degree from MIT School of Architecture, and a professional Bachelor of Architecture from METU (ODTÜ) in Turkey. For nearly a decade Bilsel was the Chair of the Department of Art, Architecture and Art History, and the founding Director of the University of San Diego’s Architecture Program. In addition to his tenured professorship at the University of San Diego, Bilsel teaches seminars in the PhD and Masters programs in Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA. 

References

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Douglas, M. (1980). Introduction: Maurice Halbwachs (1877-1945) The Collective Memory (pp. 4-6). New York: Harper&Row.

Halbwachs, M. (1925). Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1925.

Halbwachs, M. (1941). La Topographie légendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte: Étude de mémoire collective Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

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Published

30-06-2017

How to Cite

Bilsel, C. (2017). Architecture and the Social Frameworks of Memory: A Postscript to Maurice Halbwachs’ “Collective Memory”. ICONARP International Journal of Architecture and Planning, 5(1), 01–09. https://doi.org/10.15320/ICONARP.2017.14

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2017)

Section

Articles

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