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spaces declare no control over behavior of people by being compliant to programmatic codes of
use. This is how architecture gets its richness and depth. The hidden order of things is revealed
by the poise and the consciousness of the sight. The city becomes filled with memories: happy
and painful, solidly resisting oblivion.
We have to face a salient question: is the imagination, supported by a tangible form, of the
same value as the virtual imagination?
For many scholars, and anyone else who would like to remember, Warsaw rebuilt is a living
memorial. On streets and squares that are sixty years old, but look four hundred years old, life
vibrates. One might still argue that any environment that is sixty years old and appears four
hundred is not a genuine environment. It can be viewed as a mimesis, as an imitation. And yet,
this environment can be real, it can be genuine. How? There are some examples to be found:
one of the most intriguing is the concept of forever young-forever old expressed so vividly in the
main shrine of goddess Ise. Every twenty years, the span of one generation, there is, in Japan, a
celebratory process of recreating and rebuilding the shrine of goddess Ise. The shrine is
disassembled part by part, element by element, beam by beam, and then reassembled from new
elements that are precisely and carefully crafted based on the forms and measurements of the
pre-existing ones. Is the new shrine old, or is it new? The process is a part of the repeated
cycle; it is the ritual that becomes the reality. Dream and myth have not disappeared; they are
united in the event, stimulating the sensuality of memory. Ise remains forever young-forever old.
The structure of memory does not rely on a simplistic accumulation of facts; it rather relies on
the powerful strata of events and nonconformity of perception that is like the harmonious and
polyphonic sound responsible for necessary streams of communication. Very often a vertiginous
approximation of past tragedies requires a series of active involvements leading to concrete
spatial and architectural commitments: streets, buildings, squares.
The composition of memory is reinforced by the function of time. This function is not exactly
synonymous with the useful, the practical or the efficient. It is the force that unifies fragmented
realities of overlapping virtual and real visions. Time becomes one of the most crucial elements
involved in the re-creation of spaces essential for the existence of memory. Time is an intricate
part of any physical environment, as the backbone of the past and as the bridge to many aspects
of our culture that we cherish. In this context, time becomes flexible and it can be used in a
positive manner. As Arata Izosaki proposes, “Space was perceived as identical with the events
occurring in it; that is, space was recognized in relation to time flow.” Time also allows a
transformation of the aesthetic experience into mnemonic events; it allows fragments of these
events to be unified as an amalgamation of energies. It provides a sense of sight that penetrates
beyond the visible.
It is a positive instinct to reconstruct and rebuild what has been violently destroyed by war and
by hatred: it is like the myth of Phoenix who rises from his own ashes and whose myth has
often been associated with the rise of the destroyed Warsaw. To build upon shattered forms
becomes a necessity; but the re-creation of destroyed spaces can be devoid of meaning if it is
not fluid and adaptable to the forms of life and memories. The need to build without nostalgia,
but with the recognition that rises from the tragedy of profound personal and public losses,
persists. I am not suggesting here banning nostalgia or sentimentality from human action, I am
referring to an illuminating idea of the justification of urban architectural forms rooted deeply
in structures of our psyche. It is important to rebuild with courage and imagination. As Kathryn
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