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10 Mythic Pieties of Permanence Memorial Architecture and the Struggle for Meaning Jeffrey F. Meyer Successful monumental architecture has “presence,” an arresting quality that seizes the attention of the viewer/participant. More than sheer size, it must also express a certain relationship to past history and future hope. With regard to the past, the monument must establish its own authenticity by showing its justification in a mythic foundational idea or event. And for the future, it must create a sense of permanence, a feeling in the beholder that it, and the ideals for which it stands, will last forever. These are implicit intentionalities, of course, indirect messages conveyed by the architecture rather than directly stated. Related as they are to the western preoccupation with history, these compulsions of architecture have been most clearly expressed in the impulse to memorialize humans and their deeds. In a culture where life and events are seen as unique and unrepeatable, it is doubly important to give a sense of meaning and permanence to humans and their history, to canonize the gods they worship, to celebrate victories and find significance even in their tragedies. These impulses toward memorialization seem clearly related to a linear view of history as opposed to a cyclic one, such as the Indic, where time and events repeat themselves endlessly. Another way of saying this is that architecture is deeply rooted in the mythic traditions of whatever culture produces it. We, in the West, should not therefore think of our historicist tradition as somehow opNelson_AmerSanctuary 11/30/05 2:32 PM Page 203 posing myth but as simply another mythic expression. In China, for example, there was a traditional cycle of sixty years, and certain temples were not considered thriving institutions unless they were refurbished or even rebuilt at the beginning of each cycle. Even more rigidly determined, the Japanese shrine at Ise is completely rebuilt every twenty years.1 The West, in contrast, has specialized in and celebrated absolute beginnings, unique linear developments, and movement toward dramatic ends. The corollary in architecture was the drive to permanence, building for the ages. Western architecture, until recent decades, generally satisfied the need for both past and future referents by the use of some kind of classical architectural style. Washington, D.C., is full of examples. Completed in 1943, the Jefferson Memorial, for example, was the last convincing expression of this approach in the ritual core of the nation’s capital. John Russell Pope made use of the classical repertory of simple and solid geometric forms—the hemisphere, the column , the circle and square—to draw a direct connection with various ideals of antiquity, such as nobility, simplicity, rationality, and, above all, democracy. These ideals, expressed in the architecture of the memorial, were meant to reassure viewers that Jefferson and his vision of the new form of government in the United States were reflections of ancient Greek and Roman ideas. At the same time, the neoclassical stylistic features evoked a feeling of immutability and permanence. Just as these fundamental forms are permanent, so too the Jeffersonian ideals, and the political form in which they were embodied, would last forever. More recent memorials have satisfied the same two requirements but have found means other than the neoclassical style to do so. The Vietnam Memorial of Maya Lin on Washington’s Mall, one of the most successful memorials in the U.S. capital, clearly has “presence” while also making the required references to past and future. At the same time, her memorial made no direct comment on the meaning of the Vietnam War itself, thus avoiding the ongoing controversies still surrounding it. Lin connected her memorial with the foundational mythic figures and events of the past by carefully setting the position of the angled walls, one arm of which points toward the Washington Monument (commemorating the founder of the nation) and the other to the Lincoln Memorial (commemorating the savior of the nation). As the Vietnam Memorial fits into its place on the Mall, its orientation suggests that it is part of a compelling myth of national meaning. Lin uses simple and clean forms to evoke a sense of solidity and permanence. The black polished marble of the memorial , placed like an immovable footing anchored in the earth, suggests strong foundations that will not change with the passage of time. The recently completed Franklin Roosevelt Memorial achieves the same goals by different sym204 Instability Nelson_AmerSanctuary 11/30/05 2:32...

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