“Landscapes” of memory

• Published in: Festival dell'architettura magazine 2022-02 (57/58), p.58-67
• Main Author: Claudia Pirina
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: archetipo funebre; cimitero di žale; memoriale di kampor
• ISSN: 2039-0491; 2039-0491
• DOI: 10.12838/fam/issn2039-0491/n57/58-2021/897

The mystery of permanence is the theme investigated by Claudia Pirina in the forms of the sacred and in those architectural systems capable of relating man to the divine. These forms are perpetuated over time, in a circularity that becomes essence, stimulating reminiscence. They are forms of the transposition and representation of mnemonic images, delegated to the remembrance of the absent object (or person), activated by perception and by the senses. In this text, however, we are not interested in investigating only the forms themselves, but rather the ability of some architects to «bring together distant forms, in time and in the mind, [to] bring together a time with another time, [to] create short circuits; another idea of time». Two works, not contemporary to us, are used as examples for their ability to interpret differently, sometimes oscillating ambiguously between one term and the other, what Teyssot recognizes as a fundamental problem of funeral art: «invention as opposed to repetition»: PleČnik’s Garden of the Dead in the Žale cemetery in Ljubljana and Ravnikar’s Kampor Memorial on the island of Rab.