Urban Form and Memory Discourses: Spatial Practices in Contested Cities

Abstract

Cities are central to ethno-national conflicts, where tailored myths and memories are used to lay claim to the rightful ownership of certain sites. In this context, spatial practices that harness memory become a critical part of a purposive reconstruction of the past, and memory discourses become a major constitutive facet of contested cities. This paper explores the relationship between current memory discourses and urban design and spatial practices in contested and divided cities, examining building projects and planning practices. The execution of official policies of erasure is also explored through the destruction of buildings and the continuing effect of transmitted memories on individuals' use of the city. This paper aims to illustrate how several aspects of memory, which are of increased significance in conflict situations, affect the city as spaces are designed to project certain meanings, to reflect mythologies related to official historical narratives, and to embed certain images into the fabric of the city and into the imaginations of its residents.

Notes

^1. Other cities have also been critiqued for urban ‘image production’ connected to capital and corporate power. See for example Edward Soja (2000, 133–36).

^2. The targeting of cities in particular was described by a group of Bosnian architects in a publication entitled Mostar '92, using the term ‘urbicide’.

^3. The Al-Aqsa mosque is located in the Haram-al-Sharif.

^4. The names of all interviewed shopkeepers listed in the text have been anonymized.

^5. A total of 61 Cypriots, 33 Turkish-Cypriots and 28 Greek-Cypriots were interviewed for this purpose in April and May, 2011.

^6. Ten Greek-Cypriots and 14 Turkish-Cypriots expressed this view.