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The Role of Domestic Architecture in the Structuring of Memory

University of Alberta

In this article, through personal narratives of three houses she knows, the authors asks, Can houses remember? She suggests that through processes of inhabitation, houses become "second bodies" that remember in two ways. Houses remember and haunt as they animate the memories of previous inhabitants, memories that become embodied by the houses and the current dwellers. Houses also embody histories of design, reflective of broader social attitudes toward intimate places. Second, houses remember as they are imbued with the responsibilities of representing in material form the virtualities of childhood, acting as Bachelard's "land of Motionless Childhood." More broadly, houses become dwelling places through processes of inhabitation and appropriation. These processes involve the synthesis of memories of others animated by a house and one's own experiences of inhabitation.

Key Words: architecture • memory • haunting • houses

This version was published on August 1, 2009

Space and Culture, Vol. 12, No. 3, 332-342 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1206331209337078


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