21st Century Monument Architecture: The Dialogue Between Local Place/Migrant Identity

Abstract

21st Century Monument Architecture: The Dialogue Between Local Place and Migrant Identity confronts the loss of cultural identity in a global culture of increased mobility and migration.

Growing nomadism and trans-border migration is changing how we identify to culture. More than ever, we are forced to relocate due to violence or to seek a better life. This means having to adapt to a different culture. The act of leaving home and integrating into a new culture is destabilizing. Increased immigration is creating the need for people to gain a sense of belonging, in order to breed strength in future communities and places. New forms of monument architecture constructed in the public realm help us adapt to this shifting global culture of immigration and exist as tolerant nations.

This thesis proposes an emerging type of commemorative monument that acknowledges the struggle of present day migrants’ identity and how it connects to place. Through an orchestrated set of spatial experiences, this 21st century monument counters the monument’s intended function to memorialization of the past. Instead the design proposal creates emotionally evocative experiences to recognize and think about issues of the immigration process, acknowledging the ongoing hardship of resettlement and cultural identity.