The meanings of monuments and memorials: toward a semiotic approach

This paper aims at delineating the basic principles for a semiotic approach to monuments and memorials. Monuments are built forms erected to confer dominant meanings on space. They present an aesthetic value as well as a political function. Often, political elites erect monuments to promote selective historical narratives that focus on convenient events and individuals while obliterating what is discomforting. While representing selective historical narratives, monuments can inculcate specific conceptions of the present and encourage future possibilities. As such, monuments become essential for the articulation of the national politics of memory and identity through which political elites set political agendas and legitimate political power. However, once erected, monuments become social properties and users can reinterpret them in ways that are different or contrary to the intentions of the designers. Previous research has explored monuments as either aesthetic objects presenting historical and artistic values or as political tools in the hand of those in power. Hence, this research has wittingly or unwittingly created a gap between the material-symbolic and the political dimensions of monuments. Moreover, it has variously given more emphasis either to the intentions of the designers or to the interpretations of the users. The semiotic approach to monuments can address these issues providing a holistic approach that overcomes the rigid distinctions predominant in previous research on monuments. Although useful analytical categories, the distinction between material-symbolic and political dimensions cannot be extended to the ontological state of monuments. Semiotics can be useful in investigating the meanings of monuments as actively created by the interplay of the material, the symbolic and the political dimensions. It provides a methodological basis to consider designers and users as equally contributing to the meaning-making of monuments

Connecting cultural geography and semiotics: an analysis of the multiple interpretations of monuments and memorials in Estonia

This thesis aims to advance the understanding of the connections between cultural geography and semiotics on the basis of which to analyse the multiple interpretations of the built environment. To do so, this thesis focuses on the interpretations of a specific part of the built environment: monuments and memorials. Monuments and memorials are built forms with commemorative as well as political functions: national elites use monuments and memorials to articulate selective historical narratives, focusing attention on convenient events and individuals, while obliterating what is uncomfortable for them. Articulating historical narratives, monuments and memorials can set political agendas and reproduce social order. Human and cultural geographers have focused on the social and power relations embodied in monuments and memorials. However, they have paid little attention to the processes through which monuments and memorials can effectively convey meanings and reinforce political power. Semiotic analysis has concentrated on the signifying dimension of monuments and memorials, while underrating the role of the material and the political dimensions. This thesis argues that a holistic perspective based on the connection between cultural geography and semiotics can overcome the limitations of previous research on the interpretations of monuments and memorials. This holistic perspective conceives the interpretations of monuments and memorials as depending on three interplays: a) between the material, symbolic and political dimensions; b) between designers and users; and c) between monuments and memorials, the cultural context and the built environment. These ideas are explored through an examination of two monuments in Estonia: the Victory Column, a war memorial erected in Tallinn in 2009 and the so-called ‘Kissing Students’, a fountain with a sculpture featuring two kissing young people unveiled in Tartu in 1998

Pour une approche sémiotique des monuments et des mémoriaux

Les recherches antérieures ont étudié les monuments et les mémoriaux comme des constructions purement esthétiques, d'une part, et comme de puissants outils servant la reproduction de l'autorité et du contrôle, d'autre part. Ce faisant, ces recherches ont, volontairement ou non, créé un fossé entre les dimensions matérielle, symbolique et politique des monuments. Certains travaux ont également mis l'emphase sur les intentions des concepteurs au détriment des interprétations des usagers des monuments, et inversement. Dans cet article, nous proposons une approche holistique pour décrire comment ces différents aspects se recoupent et se complètent dans la signification des monuments. Ce texte a plus généralement pour but de fournir les principes de base d'une approche sémiotique des monuments et des mémoriaux