Falling monuments, reluctant ruins

This colloquium will focus on the persistence of the past in the architecture and infrastructure of colonialism and apartheid.

In traversing the stubborn landscapes of colonialism and apartheid, we are confronted with the ambivalent ruins and seemingly innocuous buildings of this forgotten urban infrastructure. What we observe is the lingering presence of colonial history and architecture’s largely hidden yet pervasive everyday structures. Such conflicting spatial claims continue to raise a number of haunting questions. This colloquium to understand in what ways history and architecture could ameliorate, contest or subvert these protracted conditions in terms of social justice, land reclamation and urban rehabilitation. The postcolonial decades following the dismantling of oppressive regimes across the globe are to be examined in the light of contemporary communal and memorial projects, in which building ruins are being fought over and renegotiated as sites of remembrance. 

This colloquium is hosted by the History Worskhop and the School of Architecture and Planning. 

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