ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the use of abandoned building sites and related urban forms both as locations and visual material in the discourse on the economic events that took place in late 2000s Reykjavk. Methodological concerns regarding whether a scattering of half-finished concrete towers and half-torn houses and building lots bought up for redevelopment should be considered as cultural heritage. The graffiti encountered in several abandoned buildings, particularly in Mrargata 26 in western Reykjavk tend to be motivated by aesthetic aims or on modes of communication specific to the graffiti subculture. Reykjavk's planning policy, its urban consequences and the materiality of abandoned sites were all explored by Icelandic artists both before and after the events that made clear the severity of the global economic crisis and its effects on Iceland's economy. Huyssen's remark that heritage can be conceptualized as a process of opening up spaces for reflection. Urban analysis of the sort attempted is a significant part of counter-mapping cultural heritage.
