Memorials as Spaces of Engagement: Design, Use and Meaning

Memorials are more diverse in design and subject matter than ever before. No longer limited to statues of heroes placed high on pedestals, contemporary memorials engage visitors in new, often surprising ways, contributing to the liveliness of public space. In Memorials as Spaces of Engagement Quentin Stevens and Karen A. Franck explore how changes in memorial design and use have helped forge closer, richer relationships between commemorative sites and their visitors. The authors combine first hand analysis of key examples with material drawn from existing scholarship. Examples from the US, Canada, Australia and Europe include official, formally designed memorials and informal ones, those created by the public without official sanction. Memorials as Spaces of Engagement discusses important issues for the design, management and planning of memorials and public space in general.

The book is organized around three topics: how the physical design of memorial objects and spaces has evolved since the 19th century; how people experience and understand memorials through the activities of commemorating, occupying and interpreting; and the issues memorials raise for management and planning.

Memorials as Spaces of Engagement will be of interest to architects, landscape architects and artists; historians of art, architecture and culture; urban sociologists and geographers; planners, policymakers and memorial sponsors; and all those concerned with the design and use of public space.

Quentin Stevens is Associate Professor of Urban Design at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, and previously worked at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, UK. He is author of The Ludic City and co-editor of Loose Space, The Uses of Art in Public Space and Transforming Urban Waterfronts.

Karen A. Franck is Professor in the College of Architecture and Design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA. Memorials as Spaces of Engagement addresses two topics she has explored previously: uses of public space in Loose Space and intentions and consequences of design decisions in Design through Dialogue and Architecture from the Inside Out.