ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the spatial-cognitive metaphors of scale. Although monumental metaphors of scale cannot be fully disentangled from the other spatial-cognitive metaphors of time and movement, they are some of the most foundational and essential parts of making sense of any monumental encounter. Thus experiencing metaphors of scale contributes to a reconfiguring of our sense of time by immersing us in the present moment. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) monument offers interesting testimony about how monuments are conceived and built, especially one that is a peculiarity of modern times, a structure filled with metaphors of devalued warning, a tombstone of environmental hazard. The most unequivocal provision in their report was that we as a society have a moral imperative to construct a monument atop the WIPP facility that includes multiple levels of messages that should not mislead or frighten off-site archives, and durable materials.
