„Mít oči k vidění i k pláči“ aneb jak tlumočit bolest minulosti

Abstract

The text deals with possible approaches towards the representation of pain in architecture, especially among monuments and memorials. Pain is approached as a historical event, having its own orientation towards the past, present, and future. Conceived as such, pain can also stand for our (collective) memory. While the dominant mode of representation consists of straightforwardly reminding people of past traumas, a strategy that can easily be weaponized for a political agenda and is still harder to experience authentically, a new generation of monuments takes different approach: instead of relying on historical context and an a priori knowledge, it mediates the experience of pain as such.