The city as a living museum: reimagining the architecture of industrial monuments through psychogeography and collective memory in Nelson, British Columbia
Date
2021-04-15
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Abstract
Contemporary development is often
designed within prescribed metrics of cost
and performance ratios - perhaps with some
consideration for the programmatic utility and
outward presentation of the building - though
rarely does it reflect the past history of the
site on which it occupies. It is not common
for a new development to seek to ascertain the
collective subconscious that inhabits the echoing
vestiges of its long-established location, one of
monumental importance to the city it markedly
takes its place within. Albeit a global phenomenon
of modern practice in design, a specificity of
locale, programmatic intent, and architectural
premise are identified within this thesis as an
exemplary study of this proposed rethinking of
development - through Guy Debord’s Dérive.
Any city to undertake this process would require
its own depth and breadth of understanding
critical to its particular genius loci to materialize a
renewed condition of its neglected monuments.
Through a collection of research and
design - influenced by the Situationists (the
Dérive), and urban theorists including Aldo
Rossi, Kevin Lynch, and Christine Boyer - the
city of Nelson, British Columbia will be analyzed
through the frameworks of monumentality,
collective memory, and psychogeography to
revitalize abandoned industrial monuments as
the initial movement for the city to be perceived
and experienced as a ‘living museum’ of historic
sites, and stories. Many heritage buildings have
been preserved (to various degrees) largely
within the downtown core of the city, however
the precursor industrial monuments have not
fared as well against the various conditions of
time in an evolving city. As the catalyst for the founding of Nelson, primary industries and
historic transportation routes long served as the
backbone of all development, yet they are the
least respected in terms of their heritage value on
the immense sites they occupied. This makes the
abandoned industrial monuments of the city the
largest gaps in the urban fabric, and prime areas
for a conception of recovery, and adaptation, to
the contemporary dilemma of land utilization.
A total of five historic ‘monuments’
throughout the city have been examined and
architecturally illustrated anew as the first in
a series of alternate proposals for an episodic
rejuvenation of the urban landscape. Each
of these sites has a long history of industrial
importance in Nelson and have since fallen into
disuse. Establishing them as core community
spaces with programs both reflective of their
collective histories, and of relevant contemporary
use, will serve not just to revitalize the individual
monuments, but further goals to stimulate future
holistic development in neighbouring areas.
While the five locations do not have a unifying
design style or physical linkage (due to the nature
of reflecting their unique origins and memories),
they each have specific histories, including
architectural narratives, and are all connected
via the drifting perceptions of the urban dweller
through the method of the Dérive. By reestablishing influential monuments of the city
into public spaces with a concentrated collective
memory (as well as individual experience), and
connecting them with relevant transportation,
significant historic places will be made accessible
to the community, further revealing the unique
conditions and stories that allowed for the urban
form of Nelson to come into being.
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Keywords
Monumentality, psychogeography, urban acupuncture, situationists, collective memory, genius loci, architectural intervention, urban archeology, architecture, permanence, The Dérive, urban armature