ABSTRACT
This chapter attends to the productive tension between visibility and invisibility in considering the critical and challenging roles urban monuments play in our increasingly diverse cities. While visible monuments might inevitably be perceived as durable expressions of fleeting power – or even as durable expressions of enduring or endured powers – invisible monuments tend to embody more complex and diverse pasts, successfully if subtly negotiating a space for yet unwritten histories. Addressing new monuments alongside historical ones, as well as the decisions to maintain contested historical monuments in some form or completely eradicate them, the study argues for a consideration of a broader conception of ‘intentional’, ‘unintentional’ and ‘incidental’ urban monuments, one that brings the design and perceptions of our monuments together with those of our cities.
