The Matter of Memory: A Monument to Memory-Making

Richard Yoo and Eric Moed

In discussion with Vicki Weiner and Mariel Collard

Our experience of the built environment is reframed with each encounter, much like a memory is reframed each time it is remembered. Memorials hold a unique place in the field of architecture insofar as their form is subservient to a story. Richard Joon Yoo and Eric Moed’s built monuments and memorials weave together each memory’s components; the people, the place, the time, the event – closely examining and processing context, and in doing so boldly and strategically reframe each story. This constructed narrative directs the design process with respect to materiality, technology and the performance of making. ‘The Matter of Memory’ encompasses an explosion of the process by which Yoo and Moed design through their built work. Through the act of reframing the story, the frame being what we typically describe as architecture, memorials have the potential to heighten the sensation of the present to provoke change through the creation of a more equitable and just future. Architecture is the device we design to frame space, experience, and memory all at once. The lecture and parallel exhibition will prompt you to critically ask — what is the architecture of reframing? If a memory is reframed each time it is remembered, if our experience with the built environment is reframed with each encounter, how do the ephemeral and ever changing contents of memory relate to their material container of architecture? And importantly, how can we design to provoke impactful, meaningful and lasting change in the present to inform the future?

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