Architecture of memorialisation: the Spitfire and the making of a memorial icon

ABSTRACT

During the Second World War, the Supermarine Spitfire played a pivotal role defending the British nation, notably during the 1940 Battle of Britain. Drawing from the aircraft’s historiography and its continuing afterlife, we discuss the constitutive elements supporting the Spitfire’s transformation from war plane to memorial icon for the British wartime experience. In the context of this machine as memorial, the elements comprising what we refer to as the architecture of memorialisation are narrative permanence, enchantment of war technology, dialogic geometry of remembrance and commemorative adaptive capacity. These elements work to silence war, killing and death and in so doing justify a nation’s values, its moral compass. While these four elements may be unique to this aircraft, the architecture of memorialisation is a conceptual framework for analysing other types of memorials including those that are contested or which reflect regimes of power or cultures of remembrance very different to those of the United Kingdom (UK). Diverse social and cultural contexts will reveal different constitutive elements of the architecture of memorialisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Spitfire aircraft
• memorial
• memorialisation
• war heritage
• Second world war

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Catherine Palmer

Catherine Palmer - social anthropologist, Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland; Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories, University of Brighton, UK, (https://www.brighton.ac.uk/cmnh/index.aspx) coordinator for Heritage in the 21^st Century research theme. Research focus: heritage, identity and materiality; embodiment; post-conflict/memorial landscapes; tourism, cultures of the coast. Joint book series editor Routledge Advances in Tourism Anthropology (with Jo-Anne Lester), author of the Routledge monograph Being and Dwelling through Tourism: An anthropological perspective. Using the concept of dwelling from Martin Heidegger and Tim Ingold, the book draws philosophy and anthropology into a conversation with tourism studies through a focus on museums, heritage, airports, the body and the relational significance of time, place, history and memory. Publications: Brexit; development; embodiment; heritage, materiality, kinship and belonging; the British Royal Family; ’being a chef’; maps and mapping; photography. Edited books Tourism and Embodiment (with Hazel Andrews), Creating Heritage for Tourism (with Jacqueline Tivers) and Tourism and Visual Culture: Volume 1 Theories and Concepts (with Peter Burns and Jo-Anne Lester).

Geoffrey Bird

Geoffrey Bird – Professor, School of Communication and Culture, Royal Roads University, Canada; Project Lead for the War Heritage Research Initiative; Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories, University of Brighton, UK, https://www.brighton.ac.uk/cmnh/index.aspx Geoffrey has over 30 years in the field of education, tourism and war heritage, working in Canada and overseas both in the public, non-profit and private sectors. His PhD in 2011 from the University of Brighton explored the relationship between tourism, remembrance and landscapes of war in Normandy. As Project Lead for the War Heritage Research Initiative (https://warheritage.royalroads.ca), he has written, directed and produced over 30 short documentary films. The films have focused on sites of memory in Canada linked to the world wars and local guardians of remembrance. Geoff was lead editor for Managing and interpreting D-Day’s sites of memory: Guardians of remembrance. His experiences include serving as an officer in the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve, as a heritage guide at the Vimy Ridge National Memorial Park in France, to consulting with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and in the design of the Vimy Ridge centenary commemorations in 2017, with Education First Tours and involving 10,000 students.