Memorial structures & monuments (Working draft): General resources

Three concepts—memorial, monument and monumentality—often overlap, but not necessarily. While anything can be designated a monument of some kind—architectural, historical, technological, cultural, personal—this guide focuses on memorials—structures purposely built to commemorate specific persons, events or ideas. Related topics include historic preservation, historiography, propaganda, and public art.

 

 

RESOURCES

Anderson et al, Memory, Mourning, Landscape, 2010 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Bucer, Staging the Past: the politics of commemoration in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848 to the present, 2001 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Crosby, The Necessary monument: its future in the civilized city, CC135 .C74 1970

Kostoff, "Markers & Monuments," in The City Shaped, HT111.K63 1991

"Monument/Memory," Oppositions, #25, Fall 1982 (Special issue. See Reigl, "The Modern Cult of Monuments")

"Monumentality and the City," Harvard Architecture Review, no. 4, 1984 (Theme issue)

Nelson et al, Monuments and memory, made and unmade, CC135 .M647 2003

Osborne, "Enter Politics," and "Cult, Politics & Imperialism," in Archaic & Classical Greek Art, N5630.O73 1998

Sites of Memory (Links, directory and memorial culture info)

 

ISSUES

Belting, Likeness and Presence: a History of the Image Before the Era of Art, N7850.B4513 1994

Crimp, “Mourning and Militancy,” October, #51, Winter 1989 (PDF via Jstor)

“Death,” “Memory,” & “Epistemology of memory,” “Philosophy of history,”  Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Dickinson et al, Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials, 2010 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Laungani, Death and Bereavement Across Cultures, 1996 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

"Memory," Chapter 6 of Gazzaniga, The Cognitive Neurosciences, QP360.5.C643 1994

Muller, Memory and Power in Post-War Europe, 2002 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Parr, Deleuze and Memorial Culture: desire, singular memory, and the politics of trauma, 2008 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

“Philosophy of history,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

"Propaganda," Barnouw, International Encyclopedia of Communications, P87.5.I5 1989

 

MONUMENT REMOVAL

List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests (Wikipedia)

“Monuments for a new era,” New York Times, August 10, 2018

Morris, Phillip, “As monuments fall, how does the world reckon with a racist past?” National Geographic, June 29, 2020

Perry, Andre M., “Removing racist monuments is about making history, not erasing it,” Brookings Institute, November 9, 2017

"SAH statement on the removal of monuments to the Confederacy from public spaces," Society of Architectural Historians, June 19, 2020

Stiem, Tyler, “Statue wars: what should we do with troublesome monuments?” The Guardian, September 26, 2018

Upton, Dell. “Confederate Monuments and Civic Values in the Wake of Charlottesville,” Society of Architectural Historians blog, September 13, 2017

Upton, Dell. What Can and Can't Be Said : Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South, Yale University Press, 2015 (ebook available via ProQuest Ebook Central)

See also ... Coronation Park, Delhi; Muzeon Park / Fallen Monument Park, Moscow; Grūtas Park / Stalin World, outside Vilnius

 

 

CEMETERIES

"Cemetery," Oxford Art Online.

Curl, “The Architecture and Planning of the Nineteenth-Century Cemetery,” Garden History, Summer 1975 (PDF via Jstor)

Curl, “The Historic Cemeteries of Berlin,” Garden History, Summer 2007 (PDF via Jstor)

Curl, “John Claudius Loudon and the Garden Cemetery Movement,” Garden History, Autumn 1983 (PDF via Jstor)

Etlin, The Architecture of Death, NA6165.E84 1984

Forest Lawn Memorial-Park Association, The spirit of Forest Lawn, F869. G5 F7

International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association

Jackson & Vergara, Silent Cities; American Cemetery, GT3203.J33 1989

Mangaliman, "Designing Space to Bury People," Architectural Record, August 1997

“Shrines & funerary,” in Oliver, Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World, Reference-NA208.E53 1997 (Section 1.IX.5-B)

Sloane, David Charles, Is the cemetery dead?, The University of Chicago Press, GT3203 .S56 2018

Torelli, Italia Meravigliosa; necropoli dell'Italia antica, DG103.T67 1982

 

CIVILIAN MEMORIALS

Berger, “Remembering Columbine: is a designed memorial the proper way to commemorate the Columbine High School tragedy?” Landscape architecture, August 2000

Jacobs, “The power of inadvertent design,” Metropolis, February 2004 (On the Oklahoma City bombing memorial competition)

Marcus, “Act of healing: at the National AIDS Memorial Grove,” Landscape architecture, November 2000

“A Memorial desecrated, a massacre remembered,” (On the 1914 Ludlow massacre memorial, restored in 2005)

Nobel, Sixteen acres: architecture and the outrageous struggle for the future of Ground Zero, NA6233.N5 W67488 2005

“On 9/11,” Grey Room, #7, Spring 2002 (Theme issue, PDF via Jstor)

Sather-Wagstaff.  Heritage that hurts: tourists in the memoryscapes of September 11, 2011 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Stephens, Imagining Ground Zero: official and unofficial proposals for the World Trade Center site, NA6233.N5 S74 2004

 

HISTORIC & CULTURAL MEMORIALS

Bruggemann, Here, George Washington Was Born: memory, material culture, and the public history of a national monument, 2008 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Hayden, The power of place: urban landscapes as public history, F869.L857 H39 1997

Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources, Designated Historic-Cultural Monuments

Makiya, The Monument: art, vulgarity & responsibility in Iraq, NA9380.B34 M2 2004

National Park Service database of National Historic Landmarks

Rothman, Preserving different pasts: the American national monuments, KF4390 .R68 1989

 

HOLOCAUST MEMORIALS

Freed, “The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,” Assemblage, #9, June 1989 (PDF via Jstor)

Freiman, "The Sorrow and the Pity," Progressive Architecture, February 1993

Goldman, “Israeli Holocaust Memorial Strategies at Yad Vashem: From Silence to Recognition,” Art Journal, Summer 2006 (PDF via Jstor)

Ochsner, “Understanding the Holocaust through the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum,” JAE, May 1995 (PDF via Jstor)

Young, The art of memory: Holocaust memorials in history, D804.3.A82 1994

 

MARKERS & EPITAPHS

Association of Gravestone Studies

“Blue Plaques,” London’s plan for historical markers, since 1866

Brown, Cemetery Art from America's Heartland, GT3205.B76 1994

“Epigraphy and inscriptions in medieval art,” Oxford Art Online.

Gray, Lettering on Buildings, NK3620.G7

"Islamic art, Architectural decoration: Epigraphy," Oxford Art Online (See Section 9.vii)

Meyers & Deetz, Cemeteries and Gravemarkers: Voices of American Culture, 1992 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

“Sepulchral epigrams,” Book VII of The Greek Anthology, edited circa 900 BCE

Tsiang, "The Monumentalization of Buddhist Texts …," Artibus Asiae, #3/4, 1996 (PDF via Jstor)

… See also the tradition of writers boasting that their words provide a more lasting monument than any structure, inaugurated in European literatures by Pindar, given its most popular form by Horace—Odes, Book 3, #30, “Exegi monumentum aere perennius/I have built a monument more lasting than bronze”  (circa 23 BCE), and echoed everywhere, most prominently by Ronsard, Shakespeare (the Sonnets), Shelly ("Ozymandias”), and Pushkin.

 

MEMORIAL SCULPTURE

Bogart, Public Sculpture and the Civic Ideal in New York City 1890-1930, NB235.N5B64 1989

Choi, Horses for eternity: terracotta equestrian tomb sculpture of dynastic China, NB1942.H67C46 2007

De Tolnay, Michelangelo IV: the Tomb of Julius II, N6923.B9 D395 v. 4

Elsner, "Art & Death," Chapter 6 of Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph, N5760.E484 1998

Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture from Ancient Egypt to Bernini, ND1800.P3 1992

Robinson, Beautiful Death: art of the cemetery, NB1800.R63 1996

Yasin, “Funerary Monuments and Collective Identity: From Roman Family to Christian Community,” Art Bulletin, September 2005 (PDF via Jstor)

 

MORTUARIES

Michaelson, Step Into Our Lives at the Funeral Home, 2010 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Smith, To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death, 2010 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Topp, “The Challenge of the Asylum Mortuary in Central Europe, 1898–1908,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, March 2012 (PDF via Jstor)

 

TEMPORARY & MOBILE MEMORIALS

Doss, Emotional Life of Contemporary Public Memorials: towards a theory of temporary memorials, 2008 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Everett, Roadside Crosses in Contemporary Memorial Culture, 2002 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

“List of awareness ribbons” (Wikipedia)

The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt

Peacock, “Inigo Jones's Catafalque for James I,” Architectural history, v. 25, 1982 (PDF via Jstor)

Senie, “Mourning in protest: spontaneous memorials and the sacralization of public space,” Harvard Design Magazine, Fall 1999

Sully, "Memorials incognito: the candle, the drain and the cabbage patch for Diana, Princess of Wales," Arq: architectural research quarterly, v. 14, #2, 2010

Worsdale, “Bernini Studio Drawings for a Catafalque and Fireworks, 1668,” Burlington magazine, July 1978 (PDF via Jstor)

Zimmern, “A Peruvian Catafalque,” Art Bulletin, March 1945 (PDF via Jstor)

 

TOMBS

Beddard, “Wren's Mausoleum for Charles I and the Cult of the Royal Martyr,” Architectural history, v. 27, 1984 (PDF via Jstor)

Boyang, Ancient Chinese Architecture: Imperial Mausoleums and Tombs, NA1543.5.J813 1998 (Oversize shelf)

"China: Architecture; Funerary structures," Oxford Art Online.

Colvin, Architecture and the After-Life, NA6120.C65 1991

Giza Archives Project (Boston Museum of Fine Arts)

Hillenbrand, "The Mausoleum," Islamic Architecture, NA380.H52 1994

Hornung, The tomb of Pharaoh Seti I, DT--73.B44 H674 1991

Hung, Art of the Yellow Springs: Understanding Chinese Tombs, 2011 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Lambton, Beastly Buildings, NA8302.L35 1985 (Sepulchral monuments for animals)

Lepre, Egyptian Pyramids, DT63.L47 1990

Morgan, Prehistoric Architecture in the Eastern United States, E98.A63M67

Petersen, “The Baker, His Tomb, His Wife, and Her Breadbasket: The Monument of Eurysaces in Rome,” Art Bulletin, June 2003 (PDF via Jstor)

Raj, Taj Mahal, NA6183.R35 1987

Qin Shi Huang mausoleum

Reeves & Wilkinson, The Complete Valley of the Kings, DT73.B44R43 1996

Theban Mapping Project (Maps & drawings of the Valley of the Kings)

 

WAR MEMORIALS

Greenberg, "Lutyen's Cenotaph," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, March 1989 (PDF via Jstor)

Grossman, "Architecture for a Public Client: The Monuments and Chapels of the American Battle Monuments Commission," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, May 1984 (PDF via Jstor)

King, Memorials of the Great War in Britain, 1998 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Lopes, The Wall: images and offerings from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, F203.4.V54 W35 1987

Marling & Silberman, “The Statue near the Wall: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Art of Remembering,” Smithsonian Studies in American Art, Spring 1987 (PDF via Jstor)

Meyer, “From Urban Prospect to Retrospect: Lessons from the World War II Memorial Debates,” JAE, February 2008 (PDF via Jstor)

Ochsner, “Space of Loss: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial,” JAE, February 1997

Shanken, “Planning Memory: Living Memorials in the United States during World War II,” Art Bulletin, March 2002 (PDF via Jstor)

 

 

FESTIVALS

“All Souls’ Day,” The Catholic Encyclopedia

Ashikaga, “The Festival for the Spirits of the Dead in Japan,” Western folklore, v. 9, #3, 1950 (PDF via Jstor)

Berdecio, Posada's popular Mexican prints, NE546 .P6 B47 1972

 “Jose Guadalupe Posada,” Oxford Art Online.

“Khamis al-Amwat /Thursday of the dead” (Wikipedia)

Lucier, “Offrenda on All-Souls' Day in Mexico,” Journal of American Folklore, April/June 1897 (PDF via Jstor)

RequiemSurvey.org (Database of over 5000 musical settings of the Requiem Mass)

Roger, Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, 2002 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Stavans, “José Guadalupe Posada, Lampooner,” Journal of Decorative & Propaganda Arts, #16, Summer 1990 (PDF via Jstor)

Teiser, “Ghosts and Ancestors in Medieval Chinese Religion: The Yü-lan-p'en Festival as Mortuary Ritual,” History of religions, August 1986 (PDF via Jstor)

 

FUNERARY PRACTICES

Brink, Commemorating the Dead: Texts and Artifacts in Context. Studies of Roman, Jewish and Christian Burials, 2008 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Cook, Death in Ancient China: The Tale of One Man's Journey, 2006 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Daniel, Death and Burial in Medieval England, 1998 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Davis et al, Encyclopedia of Cremation, 2005 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Favro & Johanson, “Death in Motion: Funeral Processions in the Roman Forum,” JSAH, March 2010 (PDF via Jstor)

"Funerals," in Hillerbrand, Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, BR302.8.O93 1996

Grinsell, Barrow, Pyramid & Tomb, GT3170.G74 1975b (Focusing on the ancient Mediterranean & UK)

Harris, "Ritual lament," in Handbook of pre-modern Nordic memory studies: interdisciplinary approaches, Glauser et al. (editors), De Gruyter, 2018, p.687-694 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Kear & Steinberg, Mourning Diana: Nation, Culture and Performing of Grief, 1999 (via ProQuest Ebook Central)

 

 

Agiba statues, Arches, Burial mounds, Catacombs, Catafalques, Cenotaphs, Choragic monuments, City gates, Colossi, Columbaria, Commemorative sculptures, Crematoriums, Crypts, Effigy mounds, Equestrian statues, Fountains, Funerary structures, Graves, Historic monuments, Lich stones, Markers, Mausoleums, Megalithic monuments, Memorial arches, Memorial columns, Memorials, Monumental entrances, Monuments, National monuments, Obelisks, Propylaea, Public art, Pylons, Pyres, Sarcophagi, Sepulchral monuments, Soldiers’ monuments, Stelae, Tetrapylons, Tombs, Torii, Trophies (war monuments), Water gates,