Journal article

Publication year: 2008

Pages: 707-725

Journal: European Review of History

Volume number: 15

Issue number: 6

ISSN: 1350-7486

eISSN: 1469-8293

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/13507480802500640

Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group

Abstract: 
By understanding the 'Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe' as an established sign of political representation the subject of interest here is its relationship to mass media, expert and political communication. In order to ask for the constitution of the symbolic meaning of the memorial via material and communicative strategies, the paper examines three facets of the project. Within these facets the memorial comes into account as a rhetorical idea that is developed into an architectural design, as a proposal within a process of modifications on the object and as a built memorial in time and space. Within these facets communication and the memorial can relate to each other in three different ways: (1) they can intensify each other, (2) they can resist each other, (3) or they can be indifferent. The built memorial as a material object and the imagined still-to-be-built memorial have an important impact on communication and therefore on signification since the very first idea for the memorial's erection.

Harvard Citation style: Muegge, M. (2008) Politics, space and material: the 'Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe' in Berlin as a sign of symbolic representation, European Review of History, 15(6), pp. 707-725. https://doi.org/10.1080/13507480802500640

APA Citation style: Muegge, M. (2008). Politics, space and material: the 'Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe' in Berlin as a sign of symbolic representation. European Review of History. 15(6), 707-725. https://doi.org/10.1080/13507480802500640