Topographies of Memories

This book explores new approaches towards developing memorial and heritage sites, moving beyond the critique of existing practices that have been the traditional focus of studies of commemoration. Offering understandings of the effects of conflict on memories of place, as manifested in everyday lives and official histories, it explores the formation of urban identities and constructed images of the city. Topographies of Memories suggests interdisciplinary approaches for creating commemorative sites with shared stakes. The first part of the book focuses on memory dynamics, the second on Nicosia, the divided capital of Cyprus, and the third on physical and material world interventions. Design practices and modes of engagement with places of memory are explored, making connections between theoretical explorations of memory and forgetting and practical strategies for designers and practitioners.

Anita Bakshi is Instructor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University, USA. She has studied the relationship between place and memory in divided cities with the Conflict in Cities Research Programme at Cambridge University, UK, and exhibited original maps and drawings documenting her ethnographic research in partnership with the UNDP.

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Contortions of Memory.- Chapter 3. Tracing Times in Place.- Chapter 4. The Reserve of Forgetting.- Chapter 5. Remains of the Day.- Chapter 6. Modes of Engagement.- Chapter 7. Materializing Metaphor.