Description: This innovative study of memorial architecture investigates how design can translate memories of human loss into tangible structures, creating spaces for remembering. Using approaches from history, psychology, anthropology and sociology, Sabina Tanovic explores purposes behind creating contemporary memorials in a given location, their translation into architectural concepts, their materialisation in the face of social and political challenges, and their influence on the transmission of memory. Covering the period from the First World War to the present, she looks at memorials such as the Holocaust museums in Mechelen and Drancy, as well as memorials for the victims of terrorist attacks, to unravel the private and public role of memorial architecture and the possibilities of architecture as a form of agency in remembering and dealing with a difficult past. The result is a distinctive contribution to the literature on history and memory, and on architecture as a link to the past.
Brief description: Sabina Tanovic is an architect, and a postdoctoral researcher at Technische Universiteit Delft, The Netherlands. In 2017 she won an international architectural competition to design a Memorial Museum and a Research Center for Sarajevo's 'Tunnel of Hope'.
Review Quotes: 'It is dense with ideas and references: this is not an easy read, but it is a worthwhile one, written from the fresh perspective of a designer. The bibliography is extensive, indicating the real learning which Tanovic has brought to the topic.' Roger Bowdler, Church Monuments