Place and Memory

http://blog.preservationleadership.org/2013/12/04/old-places-matter-memory/#.VP4TPWR4pNu

Caffe Reggio
Manhattan, New York
James and Karla Murray
jamesandkarlamurray.com

Hello Everyone:

Memory is a powerful thing, especially memories of places.  Memories of places can be happy ones like a sipping a delicious perfectly made cappuccino at a charming sidewalk cafe on a sunny with someone you love.  Places can also evoke sad memories such as the room of my parents previous home, where my dad passed away on the sofa.

Today we revisit Tom Mayes's ongoing series "Why Do Old Places Matter?" to look at how old places play a role in memory.  In short, "Old places help us to remember."  Whether they are good, bad, or indifferent memories, architect Mary DeNadai put it best, "Old buildings are like memories you can touch."  It is a very succinct way of explaining how old places, regardless of building type, serve as containers and are embodiments for our memories.

Quote from The Lamp of Memory
Seven Lamps of Architecture (1880)
John Ruskin
slideshare.net

The connection between place and memory is a universal effect.  Nineteenth century architectural critic John Ruskin acknowledged this phenomena in The Lamp of Memory, from Seven Lamps of Architecture  (1880).  He wrote, "We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her."  Mr. Mayes asks, "But how important are places to memory?  Does preserving old places-and the memories they represent-matter?  Do the individual and collective memories embodied in old places help people have better lives?"

To answer this important questions, Tom Mayes first turned to Randall Mason, the chair of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania. Prof. Mason told Mr. Mayes. "Memory is essential part of consciousness."  Think Marcel Proust's (in) famous madeleine which triggered his memories of a place.  Memory has been and continues to be the subject of much scholarship emanating from philosophers, scientists, writers, historians, to Sigmund Freud, to historian Pierre Nora who coin the phrase Lieux de Memoire-"Site of Memory."  Among the volumes of academic writings on place and memory, much analysis and criticism has been centered on the way memory is formed or manipulated, including what preservationists choose to champion and why.  Nevertheless, when accounting for what preservationists choose to save and why, "...most of these writers seem to support what the geographers Steven Hoelsher and Derek Alderman refer to as" "...inextricable link between memory and place." (Hoelsher, Social & Cultural Geography, 348, 2004)  Places hold our memories, even when they are controversial or questioned.  As Messr Hoelsher and Alderman write, "What...groups share in their efforts to utilize the past is the near universal activity of anchoring their divergent memories in place."

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
1963
en.wikipedia.org

Places are also important triggers for individual memory, such as personal memories and collective memories shared by society at large.  Citing Diane Barthel's discussion on the relationship between individual and collective memory regarding religious buildings in Historic Preservation: Collective Memory and Historic Identity, Mr. Mayes writes:

Religious structures play a specifically significant part in the collective memory as places where moment of personal history become part of the flow of collective history.  This collective history transcends individual experiences and lifetimes."  (Barthel, Kindle Locations 1199-1200)

Think about the important national sites that bear witness to the blending of these two types of history and how they are linked to place.  Think about the World Trade Center or the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial.

One mechanism that drives the connection between place and memory is mnemonic aids-they remind us of individual memories (Proust's madeleine) and collective memories (the song We Shall Overcome), yet they also move people to investigate broader social memories they do not fully recognize.  Quoting Pierre Nora, Mr. Mayes writes, "Memory takes root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures, images, and objects..." (Nora, Les Lieux des Memoire)

Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Center towers
panynj.gov

Tom Mayes refers to environmental psychologist Maria Lewicka and studies on "historical traces" and "urban reminders."  Ms. Lewicka states, 

Urban reminders, the leftovers from previous inhabitants of a place, may influence memory of places either directly, by conveying historical information, or indirectly-by arousing curiosity and increasing motivation to discover the place's forgotten past. (Lewicka, Journal of Environmental Psychology 28, 211, 214, 2008)

Key points to remember, "Old places seem to both to trigger memories people already have, give specificity to memories, and arouse curiosityabout memories people don't know."

Slave cabin in Barbour County near Eufaula, Alabama
gutenberg.org

Tom Mayes now poses the question, "...why is this 'place memory' important?"  Reminding the reader of an earlier post about community, Mr. Mayes writes, "...that old places contribute to a sense of continuity that is necessary for people.  Memory contributes to the sense of continuity.  Memory also gives people identity-both individual and a collective identity." Citing Steven Hoelsher and Derek Alderman, he continues, 

Whether one refers to 'collective memory,' 'public memory,' 'historical memory,' 'popular memory,'  or 'cultural memory.' most would agree with Edward Said [who stated] that many 'people now look to this refashioned memory especially in its collectives forms, to give themselves a coherent identity, a national narrative, a place in the world.  (Hoelsher, 348-49)

It is that sense of identity, provided by memory, that defines who we are as individuals and as a society.

Vietnam Veteran's Memorial (1982)
Maya Lin
Washington D.C,
tpzoo.wordpress.com

Memories and identities can also be contested. People have argued over the meaning and significance of old places such as: restored southern plantation houses which may evoke the memories of slavery, a battlefield that could recall memories of the victors and vanquished.  Even memorials like Maya Lin's Vietnam Veteran's Memorial and the World Trade Center have the subject of debates over their significance and appropriateness.  Even the conception of old place change over time-be reinterpreted as our conception of who we are changes.

The important to remember is, "The fact that these argument occur highlights the importance of the place.  Regardless of conflicting points of view, the place itself transcends a specific interpretation.  The place is the vortex, the common ground, the center-point, and the focus where divergent views about memory can be felt and expressed."  A place's continued existence allows for that revision, reinterpretation, and reevaluation of memory to take place over time.  Citing Paul Goldberger, Mr. Mayes writes, "the continued existence of the place....allows new memories to be created."  As a person trained in historic preservation, Blogger was taught to assess the significance of a historic sites from the context of architecture and design.  However, Mr. Mayes asks us to consider the words of late New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp who wrote, "The essential feature of a landmark is not its design, but the place it holds in a city's memory.  Compared to the place it occupies in social history, a landmark's artistic qualities are incidental."  (New York Times, 2006)

Memories survive even after a place is long gone.  Think of all the wonderful and not so wonderful places you have been to in each of your lifetimes, thus far.  One of my favorite places to eat was Ed Debevic's on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles.  It was a fifties type diner where the servers dressed up in costume and entertained the guests as well as serve great food.  The place is gone but the memory lingers.