An examination into aspects of architectural commemoration, preservation, intentional ruination as a means of remembrance

The thesis project uses concepts and themes related to the collective memory of place, mythology, the contrasts and parallels between the intentionally forgotten and celebrated narratives of Vienna’s historic past, in order to revive an existing key monument within the city, the Austrian Burgtor whilst revealing alternative historic narratives of Vienna’s repressed memories, using concepts such as monumentality and combined-work, subtraction, addition and intersection expressed through architectural moments and gestures to define and inform the proposal.

The conceptual idea is aspiring to create an intervention similar to a ‘complete work of death’ composed of three elements encapsulating each type of death according to the mythology aspects mentioned through concepts of ephemerality, intentional ruination through controlled gestures and addition of new elements in order to revive, shift the narrative and previous histories associated with the memory of the Austrian Burgtor in order to reinstate its propelling qualities as a monument that will encapsulate the identity of the entire city and not just its own.

The programme of this project proposes a series of exhibition spaces where artefacts located in the Gate would be re-displayed as well as a series of collections that will showcase a contemporary perspective on our methods of commemoration nowadays, located at the upper floors whilst the existing crypts will be preserved in each wing at the ground floor. The project introduces an outdoor amphitheatre that houses commemorative ceremonies on national days, informal performances or local festivals throughout the year which aims to revive and encourage social and cultural activity on site. A key aim for the project has been reopening the gate to the public, restore and promote it as a new monument that encapsulates the contemporary cultural life of Vienna.

Embedded within the context, this piece of architecture choses to be remembered as an ephemeral monument in order to facilitate the preservation and perpetuation of Austrian’s identity through the presence of the Austrian Burgtor as a monument whose pathological and rejected nature has been restored and re-activated becoming a propelling monument with a purpose that hasn’t changed but with a purposefulness that celebrates the Viennese and their cultural rituals, using concepts of death to create and revive a monument that has been erased and forgotten from the collective memory.