Exploring the architecture of cultural memory : design for the documentation and conveyance of history in Verulam.

Abstract

It would seem that it is in times of change and transition, when identities are being re-assessed or rewritten, that society looks to the past for guidance hoping to gain knowledge of how to “go on in the world”; it is a search for some meaningful, useable past that can be used as a springing point for present and future development. This dissertation forms a component of a similar search. It asks what the value of the past and cultural memory, a group phenomenon, is to present and future societies. Most importantly it investigates how architecture engages with cultural memory, asks what the nature of the engagement is and what the advantages of such an engagement are to people. The investigation tackles the issue of architecture as a form of non-verbal communication and investigates how that communication is carried out and in particular the modes it assumes when communicating cultural memory – it asks where cultural memory is located in architecture. The aim of this research is to formulate methods or professional attitudes which could obviate the role architecture could continue to play in the evolution of society.