Architectural memory between phenomenology and critical theory: A comparative framework
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines how architectural memory is produced and contested in the context of phenomenological accounts and critical theory. It proposes a comparative framework structured around five analytic dyads—continuity/rupture, place/exclusion, identity/construction, narrative/instrumentalisation, and memorialisation/contestation—and applies it to three emblematic works: Zumthor's Kolumba Museum in Cologne, Scarpa's Brion Cemetery at San Vito d’Altivole, and selected memorial projects by Peter Eisenman. Through close reading of material articulation, spatial sequencing, and curatorial stance, the study argues that architectural memory operates as a “double exposure”: simultaneously grounding experience in embodied place while revealing the ideological procedures that stabilise or unsettle what is remembered. The framework clarifies how design tactics (e.g., palimpsest masonry, choreographed thresholds, serial fields) make memory legible, and how institutional narratives can broaden or narrow the public's claim to remembrance. The contribution is twofold: methodologically, it offers a transferable protocol for pairing phenomenological insight with critique; substantively, it demonstrates how the same project can host attachment and contestation without resolving one into the other. The article concludes with implications for design practice, conservation, and museum governance, indicating how architects and curators can stage productive tensions that keep collective memory open, reflexive, and publicly negotiable.
Authors: Maroun Kassab, Chuloh Jung
Institution: Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University
Language: English
Subfield: Architecture
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,500
OpenAlex ID: W7128301019