ABSTRACT
Places engender (carry, protect) memory; memory, in turn, determines identity, variously of the individual, the community and the nation. In the broadest sense, the task of urban design research is to identify and understand the carriers of memory in places. However, as memory is socially produced, urban design is routinely mobilised to manipulate memory, most notably in the (re)construction of community or national identity, especially in the interests of the politically hegemonic. In that sense, the task of urban design research is to ask the question: How is this place being manipulated to serve the production of certain memories (and, presumably, the suppression of others), and what competing interests and underlying values are involved? The task might be seen, methodologically, as located in the interstices of ethnography and architectural critique; in terms of methods, however, it will most readily be approached via a critical reading of political history.
