sl:
>I am no stranger to the reality of Serbian "ethnic cleansing" because the
>entire maternal side of my family where ethnic Germans living in Yugoslavia
>prior to and during WWII, afterwhich, with Russian help, the Serbs
>"cleansed" Yugoslavia of its German population. George Brenner (maternal
>grandfather of the brothers metabolic) is buried (1945) in a Serbian dug
>mass grave.
i was having a conversation regarding 'architectural monuments', or those
buildings of an era which are chosen to represent the larger currents of
schools of thought.. and came upon a discussion of buildings which could
be representative of the 20th century, via steve's design-l query. the
subject of 'Alcatraz' island in the San Francisco Bay came up as an icon
of great popular (tourist) appreciation. a prison, i thought. that is
the last place i would want to go for a tour. then, my friend's friend
was at a German concentration camp (Buchenwald?) and we compared notes
on what these places were; focussing on the latter we agreed that going
to a place where human life was exterminated, en masse, must be at the
heart of evil, hell itself. i wondered, with all those dead souls, if
it had any unique 'charge' to it, for the solemn visitor, observer. i
then said that i thought Concentration Camps are of great architectural
value to understanding the cultural order of the built environment today.
i wish that 'architectural (his|her-)stories' would include these aspects
of economic/social/political building in their narratives of civilization.
that is, to recognize and remember, rather than ignore and forget. bc
>I am no stranger to the reality of Serbian "ethnic cleansing" because the
>entire maternal side of my family where ethnic Germans living in Yugoslavia
>prior to and during WWII, afterwhich, with Russian help, the Serbs
>"cleansed" Yugoslavia of its German population. George Brenner (maternal
>grandfather of the brothers metabolic) is buried (1945) in a Serbian dug
>mass grave.
i was having a conversation regarding 'architectural monuments', or those
buildings of an era which are chosen to represent the larger currents of
schools of thought.. and came upon a discussion of buildings which could
be representative of the 20th century, via steve's design-l query. the
subject of 'Alcatraz' island in the San Francisco Bay came up as an icon
of great popular (tourist) appreciation. a prison, i thought. that is
the last place i would want to go for a tour. then, my friend's friend
was at a German concentration camp (Buchenwald?) and we compared notes
on what these places were; focussing on the latter we agreed that going
to a place where human life was exterminated, en masse, must be at the
heart of evil, hell itself. i wondered, with all those dead souls, if
it had any unique 'charge' to it, for the solemn visitor, observer. i
then said that i thought Concentration Camps are of great architectural
value to understanding the cultural order of the built environment today.
i wish that 'architectural (his|her-)stories' would include these aspects
of economic/social/political building in their narratives of civilization.
that is, to recognize and remember, rather than ignore and forget. bc