Sites of Memory: Perspectives on Architecture and Race & Landscapes of Memory and Experience. (Sites and Memory).Edited by Craig Craig , Edward Gordon 1872-1966. British theatrical producer, director, and designer whose innovative productions and simplified stage designs influenced modern theater. Evan Barton BARTON, old English law. The demesne land of a manor; a farm distinct from the mansion. . Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press. 2001. [pounds sterling]18.95 LANDSCAPES OF MEMORY AND EXPERIENCE Edited by Jan Birksted. London: SPON SPON Sponsor Press. 2001. [pounds sterling]29.99 Site and memory are mainstays of current academic discourse. Both books remind us that these concepts though useful also contain traps. The 12 essays in Sites of Memory roam over many subjects: African-American places, memorials, black college campuses and the body among other things. Contributions, of uneven quality, provide rich documentation of the role of race in the social and cultural development of American architecture American architecture, the architecture produced in the geographical area that now constitutes the United States. Early History American architecture properly begins in the 17th cent. with the colonization of the North American continent. and landscape, analyses of race as a spatial category and a wide range of conflicting ideas about its meaning and importance for African-American cultural identity. For most of us, these essays will make visible what has been previously invisible. For this we should thank the editor. There is, however, evenness in the way private and public, individual and social sites and memories are presented. This results in a narrative with no centre and no sense of what is part of a shared African-American experience and what is wholly personal. As a result we are left wondering what is more and less critical to the understanding the role of race in the making of American culture and its physical landscape. Landscapes of Memory ranges over memory, vision, representation and philosophy. Some of the essays, again of uneven quality, address landscape and memory, others do not. They remind us that terms like memory and site can become so broad as to be almost empty of meaning. The essays range from the American desert to China, from discussions of gardens, landscape and architectural projects to exegeses of landscape texts and to the camera lucida. Although offered as an illustration of why and how landscape studies can engender en·gen·der v. en·gen·dered, en·gen·der·ing, en·gen·ders v.tr. 1. To bring into existence; give rise to: "Every cloud engenders not a storm" important theoretical and methodological advances, they are all deeply embedded Inserted into. See embedded system. within either conventional architecture historical or current postmodern post·mod·ern adj. Of or relating to art, architecture, or literature that reacts against earlier modernist principles, as by reintroducing traditional or classical elements of style or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes: and poststructural approaches. |
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