Monuments and their functions in urban public space

ABSTRACT

The aim of the article is to present and discuss functions of public monuments in relation to different dimensions of geographical space. The authors discuss public spaces, monuments, public art, based on a mixed-method approach and an analysis of scientific literature as the main research method. The theoretical discussion is supplemented with the results of Internet searches and an analysis of media supplements, and specific examples are given, including some from Poland. An additional method was autoethnography, which involved an analysis of cultural phenomena based on the authors’ experience. The analysis revealed that monuments were part of public art and thus enriched public spaces in cities. They fulfilled different important functions: artistic, symbolic, commemorative, political, social, religious, marketing, and mixed. Additionally, the monuments reflected the contemporary transformation of ideas and social orders and therefore also reflected contemporary urban debates. They were products of social relations, powers, ideas, identities, and the collective memory reflected in the urban spatial structure of cities. The authors conclude that the examples presented in the demonstrate that monuments perform various functions in urban public spaces. From a spatial perspective, the role of monuments depends on their different impacts on people’s perceptions and interpretations of space.

KEYWORDS:

• monument
• Poland
• public art
• public space
• urban space

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable, critical comments which helped to improve the article. Additionally, Professor Lee Jolliffe, University of New Brunswick, Canada, and the journal’s editors are thanked for their comments.

Notes

1 The translation from Swedish to English was done by co-author Håkan Appelblad.

2 Thrift (2003, 98) states: ‘Trying to think about a world based on these flows of goods and people and information and money has occupied the attention of geographers to an increasing extent.’

3 The TripAdvisor ratings were sourced from https://www.tripadvisor.com/ on 20 July 2018.