Residents' Collective Memory of Urban Street and Lane Spaces:A Case Study of the Confucius Temple Block in Nanjing City

Along with the rapid globalization and urbanization,primitive ecological environment and cultural life atmosphere of urban streets and lanes have degraded,memories of the city have been lost,and cities have shown the tendency of convergence and homogenization.Taking the Confucius Temple Block for example,this paper applied cognitive map,oral interview and GIS spatial statistics to study residents' col ective memories of urban street and lane spaces,and found that the locals' collective memories of streets and lanes in the Confucius Temple Block declined gradually in the sequence of "aura area" → "secondary aura area" → "buffer area" → "blind spot area",and "civilian" urban design concept was claimed as the major incentive of the decline.Streets and lanes as important components of urban public spaces have specific historical connotations and genius loci,and they deserve wide concern from the academic circle and the society for their function of protecting collective memories of residents.

Blank Spots in Collective Memory:A Case Study of Russia

The dynamics of collective remembering are examined by analyzing what happens when a 'blank spot'in history is filled with information that had previously not been available or publicly acknowledged. Taking Russian accounts of the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 as a case study,it is argued that 'schematic narrative templates'that shape deep collective memory give rise to a tendency to maintain this memory and help it overcome the 'narrative rift ' that occurs when embarrassing episodes from the past are publicly acknowledged. Schematic narrative templates are set forth as underlying strong conservative forces that resist change in collective memory at a deep level. It is suggested that debates grounded in formal history may help overcome this resistance to change but that such efforts will be limited as long as the forces of deep collective memory are not recognized.

Between Old and New: Urban Interventions in German City Centres

The collective memory of European cities is preserved not only in monuments and urban artefacts,but also in the minute structure of urban parcels and blocks,in the layout of streets,squares and natural elements.This memory,often canceled and partially removed during last century,survives beyond its material dimension,also through the representation of its image transmitted to us through iconographic documents.Through these documents we can imagine these spaces that have slowly built up over time as real lieux de mémoire.The rebirth of those places inside German historical centers is based on different levels:the morphological layout of urban spaces and blocks,the typological solution of each house,the urban image recreated,between philologic re-proposal and critical reinterpretation.The aim of regaining its lost historicity depends on the appropriateness of architectural and technical solutions adopted in each project,beyond too simplistic oppositions between terms like Old&New or Authentic&Fake.In this sense,such case-studies are not to be understood as nostalgic attempts to reproduce the city as it was,nor as artificial simulacra or hyperrealities,but as mature examples of critical reconstruction,according to the meaning introduced in the European debate since the 1970s.

Reconstruction of the remembrance:Palace of Culture in Slantsy

Impressive public architecture has a power to influence and imbue a space with a legend and cultural and social values and accumulate collective memories.A Palace of Culture,or Dvorets Kurtury in Russian,represents a socialist belief,commonwealth,and peopled democracy.The monumental Stalinist Palace of Culture is a multifunctional public architecture that was built as a sociocultural epicenter in many Soviet cities.The case of the Palace of Culture in Slantsy,which is a mining town in Leningrad Region in Russia,may be an eloquent projection of this building type and its era.The edifice is currently under reconstruction after its abandonment for a long time,thereby entailing the reincarnation of citizens1 memories and the creation of new hopes and experiences.