Memorials as Healing Places: A Matrix for Bridging Material Design and Visitor Experience

Abstract

Memorials are increasingly used to encourage people to reflect on the past and work through both individual and collective wounds. While much has been written on the history, architectural forms and controversies surrounding memorials, surprisingly little has been done to explore how visitors experience and appropriate them. This paper aims to analyze how different material aspects of memorial design help to create engaging experiences for visitors. It outlines a matrix of ten interconnected dimensions for comparison: (1) use of the vertical and horizontal axis, (2) figurative and abstract representation, (3) spatial immersion and separation, (4) mobility, (5) multisensory qualities, (6) reflective surfaces, (7) names, (8) place of burial, (9) accommodating ritual, and (10) location and surroundings. With this outline, the paper hopes to provide social scientists and practitioners (e.g., architects, planners, curators, facilitators, guides) with a set of key points for reflection on existing and future memorials and possibilities for enhancing visitor engagement with them.

Memorials from the perspective of experience: A comparison of Spain’s Valley of the Fallen to contemporary counter-memorials

“…Taking a cultural psychological perspective, we can say that experience of memorials results from the irreducible tension between individuals selectively engaging with the environment on the basis of their personal history and the possibilities and constraints each site affords in terms of meaning making, sensory experience, forms of action, and so on. Departing from this two-way engagement between memorials and visitors (Stevens and Franck, 2015), the field studies presented here aim to provide an empirical ground to discuss what forms of engagement a traditional memorial, such as the Valley of the Fallen, affords compared to counter-memorials, such as the MMJE and the 9/11 Memorial (see also Wagoner and Brescó de Luna, 2022).…”

(De)Linking with the Past through Memorials

“…The involvement experience in enhancing memory is not only related to the process of remembrance, it also incorporates the psychological and social needs of society. The concept of experience allows visitors to find "comfort in remembrance and healing in reflection" [52] (p. 10). Furthermore, memorials in general share these characteristics with urban parks and landscape architecture projects, which makes them a type of cultural landscape [8].…”

“…After the Second Word War, the conventional figurative representation of memorialization became insufficient to comprehend the painful and unthinkable memory. In order to enable different interpretations of the past, memorial sites emerged in abstract and minimalistic art forms, allowing for openness of experience and involvement [52].…”

Between War and Peace, Past and Future: Experiencing the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

“…To be sure, a defining aspect of HPMP is its location, close to the explosion’s hypocentre. When a memorial is constructed at the site of the traumatic events it is already affectively charged with the site’s history 7 (see Wagoner & Brescó 2022 ). Despite addressing this question through a single-case study involving three non-Japanese researchers (one of them as a participating subject), we can conclude by highlighting the enormous power that a place like the HPMP exerts on those who visit it, regardless of their background.…”

“…In line with new methodological approaches, such as the sensory and video ethnography (Pink et al, 2017), we are interested in studying the visitors' contextualized meanings and feelings at these sites, including their atmospheric qualities (Sumartojo & Pink, 2019). To this end, we propose an innovative methodology based on the use of subjective cameras (subcams), particularly tailored to study the possibilities offered by different memorials (see Wagoner et al, 2022). In what follows, we first outline some key features of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park , controversies surrounding it and our theoretical framework for understanding visitor's meaning making.…”