Form Of Monuments Research Articles

Imaging the Middle Ages: Twenty-First Century Revitalizations at Santiago de Compostela

Abstract: Since the Middle Ages, Santiago de Compostela has been home to one of the most famous pilgrimage destinations in Europe. Throughout its history, its success as a pilgrimage site has most often been signaled by large-scale building projects. This essay addresses how Peter Eisenman's Cidade da Cultura de Galicia (CCG), an architectural complex and cultural center overlooking Santiago de Compostela, mediates and responds to contemporary efforts toward the production and revitalization of the pilgrim experience within the city. While not as obvious as the interventions that occur along the route, the CCG is in fact a materialization of the goals of the revitalization initiative, a vision of secularized touristic pilgrimage for the twenty-first century, which is enacted through Compostela's successful image economy. The twentieth-century revitalization efforts are peculiar for the distinctive nature of their engagement with a medieval past, and the strong connections drawn between modern pilgrimage and its medieval counterpart. This article is concerned with the material evidence of competing interests in the revitalization process and specifically with how they relate to institutional interventions initiated by the regional government. The regional government's interests were often pursued in monumental form: in the late twentieth century, the Xunta operationalized a comprehensive cultural policy that was principally enacted in architecture. Examining the CCG's own past, as well as the medieval narrative of Compostela's history that it materializes, offers a new framework for understanding the role of built space in—and its relation to—the politics of pilgrimage revitalization within the twenty-first-century context.

Wooden Church Architecture of Kargopol and the River Onega Areas in 17th–18th Centuries

The article is devoted to the analysis of the typological diversity and artistic and expressive means of wooden church architecture of Kargopol’ area in the 17th–18th centuries — one of the most interesting regions of the Russian North. An examination of the configurations of the roofing of the main volumes demonstrates the widespread existence of various types. The cube-shaped churches of Kargopol’ area represent a significant part of the monuments of this typological subspecies, also localized in the Lower Onega River and southern White Sea region. At the same time, in Kargopol’ area there is a concentration of temples with a wedge roof and a “barrel” top. The research of spatial solutions shows that the octagonal churches of Kargopol’ area stand out noticeably against the background of such universal and extra-regional compositions as “an octagonal structure on a quadrangle with a refectory” or cross-planned churches. Tower-shaped churches, like the six-walled bell towers of Kargopol’ area, can also be seen against the background of the fortification architecture in the Lower Onega River, which received a powerful impetus in the 17th century in connection with the construction of the Kargopol, Ust-Mosh and Turchasovsky forts. Kargopol refectories “with free communication” are also becoming a kind of local phenomenon. The main feature of the ensemble character of Kargopol architecture is the connection between the constituent elements with the help of porches, galleries and passages. Field surveys of monuments and the use of archival sources on the history of temple construction in Kargopol’ area testify to the colossal creative potential that was fully realized during the 17th–18th centuries in the picturesque variety of forms of both individual monuments and general ensemble solutions. No less important is the fact that the Kargopol’ tradition did not remain closed in itself; its spread to adjacent regions and interweaving with the architecture of the Lower Onega River and on the White Sea coasts scales up the architecture of Kargopol’ area and makes it one of the most striking and large phenomena in the wide panorama of wooden architecture monuments throughout the Russian North.

Wybrane motywy archeologiczne z zakresu pradziejów i wczesnego średniowiecza na monetach europejskich z lat 1992-2022

Coins are not only a means of payment, but also a means of cultural communication. Both their obverses and reverses contain epigraphic and iconographic elements that together create an image. Among the iconographic elements, there are motifs understood as a repeating decorative element, but also as an expression of a certain type of idea. Archaeological motifs reflect their form of archaeological monuments or their elements, while their subject matter commemorates not only the monument itself, but also various related aspects researched by archaeologists. The aim of the considerations was to examine the numismatic form of commemorating archaeological heritage. The presented prehistoric and early medieval motifs appearing on European coins in the years 1992–2022 were first analyzed in terms of the form of their depiction on coins, then the archaeological themes with which these motifs are connected were taken into account, and on this basis axiological considerations were possible, aimed at answering the question – why a given motif was placed on the coin.

A Visual Approach to the Damage Diagnosis of Monoliths from the Monquira Archaeological Park - El Infiernito in Colombia

Natural stones of monuments represent an important part of our world’s cultural heritage but deteriorate by the direct or indirect interaction of mineral and stone weathering. Application of damage indices improves stone damage diagnosis and is very appropriate for the determination of necessary preservation procedures as well as the long-term survey and maintenance of stone monuments. The sandstones used at El Infiernito in Villa de Leyva, Colombia, today show weathering damages of partly extreme intensity. In-situ surveys allowed damage mapping to identify major causes of damage and to understand their relationship with stone and environment characteristics. In this research, the results of describing the state of deterioration of the pre-Hispanic phallic monoliths in the Archaeological Park of Monquirá "El Infiernito", are presented in the form of monument visual posters. On the basis of the visualizing of weathering forms at representative monoliths, the state of deterioration is precisely characterized and evaluated. The monument mapping and photographic documentation method can also be useful for reassessing weather damage in the framework of long-term monitoring and maintenance of monuments. This article presents the methodology of mapping weathering forms of stone monuments by using a visual classification system developed over the years with various applications.

Cultural and religious heritage enhancement initiatives: A logic-operative method for the verification of the financial feasibility

The relevance to develop effective interventions for the enhancement and reuse of the disused religious heritage is increasing. In the present research, a logic-operative method for the verification of the financial feasibility of a redevelopment project is proposed. The articulation of the developed methodological approach into six steps is explained. Moreover, the defined method is applied to a functional reconversion project related to a former church located in the city of Bologna (Italy) and to be carried out through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) operational tool. In particular, the new intended use to be introduce in the religious building is identified consistently with the current needs of the communities and by examining the reference market demand and supply at different scales (urban, regional and national), in order to define adequate uses able to respect the historical identity and past memories of the asset, to enhance its monumental forms and to become a significant new landmark for the territory. The outputs obtained from the implementation of the proposed method attest the feasibility of the initiative from the private investor point of view. In this sense, the method can constitute a useful tool for Public Administrations to define transformation sustainable strategies on the deconsecrated heritage.

PRESERVATION OF THE HISTORICAL PART OF THE CITY OF BELGOROD AS A CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL HERITAGE OF THE REGION

One of the main priorities of urban development programs of our time is the preservation and regeneration of cultural heritage. The process of preserving historical territories in the city center is an effective solution to strategic urban development tasks that can affect neighboring territories. Most of the territories of the Belgorod OCN are now located in the central part of the city and occupy a significant part of its territory. In the future of development, it is possible to create open-air museums with the creation of new public spaces. The analysis of the means of application and world experience of the modern process of museification of the historical part of the city is carried out. The main qualities that historical buildings should have in modern use in order to achieve a high level of comfort are determined. The existing system of the historical center of the city of Belgorod and its elements in the form of historical and architectural monuments is analyzed. An urban planning analysis of the location of the last Belgorod fortress in the historical center of the city was carried out. The factors that influence the definition of the subject area of projects for the transformation of historical territories are identified: external (social, environmental, urban planning, security and rehabilitation) and internal (economic, planning, constructive, aesthetic). The concept of the conservation project proposal should be based on a comprehensive museification of historical and cultural heritage objects located within the boundaries of the territory of the historical center of the city.

Remembering the Herero-Nama Genocide in Namibia

Remembering the Herero-Nama Genocide in Namibia

Private Memory in Public Space

Commemoration in public space is usually associated with the creation of official objects related to important events or individuals, most often in the form of monuments or plaques. In the paper, the author considers alternative forms of commemoration which, by existing in the social space, invade privacy, taking into account not only artistic activities such as Stolpersteine/Gunter Demnig’s “stumbling stones” but also, for example, candles or flowers at accident sites. So, the author examines non-monumental forms of commemoration and considers the questions related to the reception of these objects, including their penetration into common cultural spaces.

Sociokulturel betydning af tragtbægerkulturens tidligneolitiske flintøkser

Sociokulturel betydning af tragtbægerkulturens tidligneolitiske flintøkser

TWO ARTISTICALLY FINISHED MUSLIM STELES OF THE 14th CENTURY FROM KUBACHI (DAGESTAN, RUSSIA)

The article describes two tombstones of the XIV century. in the form of high trapezoidal stone slabs (the lower end is narrower than the upper part) from the largest artistic center of Dagestan - the village of Kubachi. They are located in the medieval Muslim cemetery "Bidakh Khuppe" (in the lane with Kubach - "Cemeteries on the other side"), 1.5-2 km south of the old part of Kubacha, in the lower half of the northern slope of Mount Tsitsila. The monuments under consideration are decorated at a high artistic level with late Kufic relief Arabic inscriptions and floral ornaments. The inscriptions were made at different times in the “blooming kufi” style by the same master stone cutter, calligrapher and ornamentalist, which is proved by the commonality of the forms of both monuments, the technique of their carving, the peculiarities of their decorative finishes, the ornamental style, and the unity of the compositional schemes of the decor. The name of the master who made these monuments is unknown. The article clarifies the existing in the decor of the monuments and certain differences in the style of the letters of the Kufic inscriptions, the details of the ornamental compositions of the central fields, which, obviously, are associated with the different times of the manufacture of the stelae. On the monument number 2 there is a date - 783 AH / 1381-82. (according to the Gregorian calendar); there is no date on monument No. 1. The author of the article believes that monument No. 1 was made 12-15 years earlier than monument No. 2.In the article, both tomb stelae are considered as highly artistic works of Muslim art based on the features of the decorative finish of the letters of the relief Arabic inscriptions of the curb strips, their proportionality and proportionality, as well as taking into account the expressive floral ornament of the central fields and the framing epigraphic border strips, the unity and interconnection of the details of the compositions of the central field (stele No. 2) and upper side corners.

Notes on the African Burial Ground National Monument, New York City

Notes on the African Burial Ground National Monument, New York City Erich Kessel Jr. (bio) What does a national monument to a forgotten slave cemetery confer upon the history to which it refers? And what does the form of the monument itself do to how we are meant to grasp this history? In a germinal form, these questions occupied me as I approached the African Burial Ground National Monument, a structure that takes up about a quarter of a small block enclosed by Duane and Reade Streets in New York City amid a towering complex of federal administrative buildings. The monument sits atop a larger span of land that, following a 1697 law in the recently established Province of New York, became a burial plot for slaves and free blacks who had been banned from being interred alongside white parishioners.1 Andrea Frohne’s history of the site points to a 1735 map that marked the plot as the “Negro Burying Place,” reflecting its situation within the racial geography of Manhattan’s sprawling slave estate.2 After 1794, the burial ground was closed and within a century became a plot that would be occupied successively by a department store, a credit reporting agency, and finally a federal building—each erecting an architectural stage in a process of forgetting that transmuted slave society into a multicultural democratic space. Preparatory excavation for a new federal government structure in 1991 once again unearthed the racial history of the plot. The site’s 300-plus year history thus is an archive of this forgetting, and this is the problem that the monument seeks to redress. The monument project was set in motion when the site was named a National Historical Landmark in 1993, following a law signed by George H. W. Bush halting further construction on the plot after two years of protest over the destruction of what Black community members saw as sacred ground. In years following this new designation, researchers at Howard University partnered with General Services Administration (GSA) officials to conduct extensive archaeological research to attempt to reconstitute a history of the erstwhile Negro Burial Ground; their excavations suggested the presence of as many as 15,000 skeletal remains on the site. From this process, a total of 419 skeletal remains were exhumed, and later reinterred in a 2003 ceremony when [End Page E-47] the memorial site was officially dedicated. As an event that drew on West African funerary practices and traditional African religious sites, the ceremony was intended to re-sacralize the space, establishing it as a place of reflective contemplation. As the future of the site became a question at various levels of government, the nomenclature tied to the location shifted—from the “Negro Burial Ground” to the “African Burial Ground.” For Frohne, this shift marks the influence of pan-African and Afrocentric community organizations in the process of protecting the plot; the framing of the space more broadly was shaped by a desire for “a return to Africa (at times a homogenous one)” that could unite the varying arts, cultures, and spiritualties of the diaspora.3 Such a desire played a central role in the design competition run by the GSA for the creation of a monument. The proposal that won the competition was designed by Rodney Léon, a Haitian American architect, in association with Nicole Hollant-Denis and AARIS Architects. Through its visual and processual design, their plan for the site pursues one kind of affective relationship between the Black diaspora and Africa as a lost homeland, wherein the imagination and performance of a return to West Africa repairs an experience of absence, lack, and forgetting. Understanding the aesthetic potentialities of monumentality helps to illuminate how the architects recruited monumental form for the project of remembrance. Writing in early twentieth-century Vienna, the conservationist and art historian Alois Riegl offered a paradigmatic description of the monument. For him, the category defined “a work of man erected for the specific purpose of keeping particular human deeds or destinies (or a complex accumulation thereof) alive and present in the consciousness of future generations.”4 His is a distinctly anthropocentric definition of monumentality, and it also implies that...

Natural reserve fund of the western part of the North Pokuttya highland: structure and problems and prospects of optimization

Objective. Analyze the structure and features of the nature reserve fund within the western part of the North Pokut highland and find out the problems and prospects for its optimization. Methods. Field, analysis, processing of stock materials of environmental services, remote sensing methods, cartographic. Result. The nature reserve fund of the western part of the North Pokuttya highland forms one regional landscape park, 15 reserves, 37 natural monuments, 12 protected tracts, three arboretums and five parks-monuments of garden and park art. The largest in area is the Dniester RLP (19,556 hectares), which accounts for 96% of the total area of the NPF in the region. A large number of valuable natural objects: caves, rocks, ledges, karst funnels and abysses, springs are located outside the Dniester RLP. Suggestions for optimizing the protection of valuable objects that need to be preserved. Valuable objects need protection in the form of geological monuments of nature and karst-speleological reserves for their further preservation, as karst abysses and funnels, occasionally at the foot of rocks become places of accumulation of household waste of the local population. This leads to loss of value of the natural object, pollution of the environment, deterioration of the ecological condition of the territory. Conclusions. We propose to create a karst and speleological reserve for the preservation and protection of caves, karst fields in the vicinity of Isakiv. As a geological monument of nature, it is necessary to protect large karst abysses ("vertebrae") and the cave "Pokutyanka" with a length of about 935 m. It is necessary to create hydrological monuments of nature to preserve high flow sources, waterfalls on travertine rocks. They are concentrated along the slopes of the Dniester.

1820: Poetics “In the Spirit of Outlawry”

ABSTRACT Far from simply a miscellany of what are now canonical poems, Keats's 1820 volume (1820) puts forward a consistent program of radical poetics. “We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us.” I argue that 1820 unfolds a theory and practice that experiment with what poetry refusing a “palpable design” might look like. The romances in 1820 are read thematically as dramas of successful or unsuccessful attempts at controlling the desires of the other. In all the poems the poet seeks to disclose in form and language something acting beyond the reach of the poet's knowledge and management. He formulates lyric poetry as ephemeral and performative, poetic language as independent of its maker's orchestration as “venturing syllables” and as “Chattertonian” (native English) and not “Miltonic” (“artful” and imposed), stanzas as occasions for expansive, that is, paratactic, syntax, and furthermore as deformances of the monumental sonnet form. This project, the article concludes, explains Keats's displeasure at his editors’ inclusion of Hyperion, a poem whose “march” is “undeviating” and written with a “god's” foreknowledge, in a book that experiments with the idea of a poet only as facilitator of an independent artistic life.

Scale of the Nation: Alberto Giacometti's Miniature Monument

In 1939, Alberto Giacometti proposed an unusual work for the Swiss National Exhibition: a tiny head placed on a wide pedestal, which gave rise to dramatic scalar effects. This essay places this little‐known episode at the origin of Giacometti's post‐war experiments with scale, and argues that those experiments emerged out of a historical context – Switzerland's tense negotiation of national identity in the 1930s – in which monumental forms of sculpture could no longer fulfil their political functions. By untethering the bigness of a monument from its scale, Giacometti's little head disclosed scale's more profound social operation: to formalize and embody our historical practices of engaging with vast structures, including the political structure of the nation. This alignment of aesthetic and political scale suggests how a new phenomenological account of modern sculpture, indebted to Jean‐Paul Sartre rather than Maurice Merleau‐Ponty, calls into question modernism's supposed negation of the monument.

Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia

Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia

Історико-культурна ідентифікація карпатського пограниччя

Research objective. The aim of the work is to reveal the historical and cultural identification of the Carpathian border. The main principle is a comprehensive approach to solving tasks. The methodology of the research is based on the methodological principles of the historical approach to the analysis of historical phenomena, as well as the use of theoretical, cultural, art approaches, which allowed to reveal the relationship between ethnic groups, regions and countries. The scientific novelty of the study is an attempt to comprehensively cover the identification of the Carpathian border in the historical and cultural aspect. Conclusions. The general characteristic of the history of the settlement of Ruthenians, Lemkos, Verkhovynkos, Boykоs, and Dolynians from the period of Kievan Rus to the present is revealed. It is noted that the Carpathian region is a unique natural and cultural area, which by the specifics of relief, natural conditions and climate has carved a unique layer of culture of the inhabitants of the mountains. One of the most striking manifestations of the Carpathian region is the traditional forms of settlement and related architectural monuments, the study of which can serve as an important source of research on ethnic history and cultural and historical interethnic relations; historical evidence of the high material and spiritual culture of our ancestors; a valuable arsenal of knowledge for the further development of culture and, in particular, an excellent source of inspiration for contemporary artists in creating a new environment; strong evidence of the way of life in previous historical periods; an important factor in the process of educating the younger generation in the field of emotions and the formation of aesthetic thoughts, etc. It is proved that the historical events of different epochs, the influence of the policy of merging peoples and cultures have certainly caused great damage to Ukrainian traditional culture. Today the local features of the regions are being transformed, which leads to the loss of uniqueness and originality of cultural phenomena of ethnographic groups of Ukrainians both in the Carpathian region and far beyond.

Disrupted and Unsettled: An Introduction to Monuments, Memorials, and Italian Migrations

Disrupted and Unsettled: An Introduction to Monuments, Memorials, and Italian Migrations

Monuments for deserters: A particularity of German memory culture

This paper examines the changing face of deserters in Germany and the gradual entry of monuments dedicated to them into German memorial culture. The multiple changes in the perception of the Wehrmacht (united armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935-1945) deserters during the last 70 years from cowards and traitors to (anti-)heroes to victims is the result of generational shifts and changed political contexts. Deserters from the Wehrmacht were a taboo subject for a long time. Over the course of the past thirty years, their story has been reappraised. It now has a visual presence in the form of counter monuments which challenge notions of traditional heroic military virtues and the place of resistance in modern political German culture. Counter-monuments, which had their origins in Germany in the 1980s, were always intended to be provocative, for they sought to disrupt a discourse that had become anachronistic, even unbearable in the eyes of many. Whether they will continue to have a presence, whether further deserter monuments will be built, or whether a future retrospective evaluation will show these monuments to have been an ephemeral and singular phenomenon, is still uncertain.

LITERARY REPRESENTATION OF FEAR IN EVERYDAY LIFE DISCOURSE OF 1930S SOVIET UKRAINE (OLENA |ZVYCHAINA’S NOVEL «FEAR»)

The article is devoted to fiction representation’s research influence of the fear’s, as part of the totalitarianism everyday practices 1930’s, on the creation «homo sovieticus» identity. The everyday history studies are important component of the memory and identity studies. The Ukrainian memory studies pay attention on the traumatic historical experience, while the west European scholars are fixed on the socio-cultural history of the everyday life. The benefit of this study is combine both research approaches. This provides an opportunity to explore social totalitarian everyday life from the view of the reconstruction outlook and identity of the «homo sovieticus». We used discourse-analysis’s methodology for this research, thethought about that our communication is reflection of our identity and the nature of social relations. As applied materials wechosen diaspora writers’ texts, the novel «The Fear» by Olena Zvychayna and memories by Dokiya Humenna and ValerianRevuc’ky. All these authors were witnessed Stalin’s repressions, and later they wrote about it. Olena Zvychayna described the fear as terrors’ instrument, which defined soviet peoples’ everyday life. For example, the practices of the night arrests. The thousands of people across the country were arrested between the first and third hours every night. Those systematic practices of intimidation became the part of the whole physical terror in 1930’. As a result, we can see «a faceless person» in fiction about that period. His main characteristics are depersonalization of personality, and unification of appearance according with sovieticus aesthetic. In contrast, fear is personified and has a face. Its connected with certain persons in collective imaginations of the soviet people, for example Stalin or Yezov, and otherі, who represented the totalitarianism system punitive practiceses of the system. The practice of collective meeting was another element Stalin’s intimidation tactic in the 1930’. The collective meetings were devoted to stigmatization particular persons with nonsovieticus outlook. As a consequence, it formation еру collective intimidation system. The aesthetics of pessimism and physical fall arosed in the everyday life of people in fear and was opposed to canons’ beauty and optimism tj socialist realism. Everyday life’s realistic showed many contrasts between normative aesthetic with the cult of the beautiful human body, optimistic socialism’s labor and gloomy totalitarian aesthetic. We can see some main oppositions in the novel «The Fear», such as: monumental forms collective life and man loneliness; mass Soviet celebrations and uncolored everyday life; party meeting with bravura marches and forbidden wedding in the church. At same time, the totalitarian reality’s aesthetic influenced on the personality’s moral degradation and value system of the person. As a result, it transformed soviet people in victim and executioner in one person. In conclusion we remark that the fears’ phenomenon was determinative in shaping «soviet man» Stalinist’s period. The systematic practices of intimidation formed the man depersonalized, identified with mass. Another definition such people – «faceless person». He or she needs appropriate aesthetic, which contrast with of the canon’s soviet realism aesthetic. The fear to stand out lays in the such Stalin’s system base.

The Slapstick Routine of Parisian Monumentalism: Robert Desnos and Jacques-André Boiffard’s “Pygmalion and the Sphinx” (1930)

This essay considers the 1930 essay “Pygmalion and the Sphinx” by Robert Desnos, originally published alongside Jacques André-Boiffard’s photographs of Parisian monuments in the journal Documents. I focus on Desnos and Boiffard’s tragicomic depiction of the municipal council of Paris’ failure to reconcile a fragmented sense of national identity through the erection of public monuments. As implicated by its title, “Pygmalion and the Sphinx” compares the “statuemania” of the Third Republic to the Greek myth. As Desnos and Boiffard reveal, within the monumental form is an antagonism between the civic ideal of ‘Pygmalion’ and the brute substance of the statue’s material, or the Sphinx. This tension inevitably collapses the idealist endeavour of monumentalism; a moment of folly opened by the laughter it evokes. Boiffard focuses the pedestal of the monument, and the rigidity of its material when exposed against the urban landscape. These photographs launch a base materialist perspective repeated by Desnos in his comic imagination. This term is further contextualised by the writings of Georges Bataille in Documents, whereby laughter is integral to the critique of idealism. In this essay, I read Desnos and Boiffard alongside Bataille to illuminate how monumentalism prepares its toppling in the ‘fall’ of the slapstick’s laugh.