ancient cities

160 City of Memory
commemoration, musealization, and festivalization,
all indicate a revolution in a city’s approach to
memory.
More on “City of Memory”
“City and Memory” is one of 11 categories of cities
illustrated in Italo Calvino’s book The Invisible
Cities. In Calvino’s book, each of the five imaginary
Cities of Memory (Diomira, Isidora, Zaira,
Zora, Maurilia) has established a different relationship
with its past. Calvino focuses on the massive
influence of the past in shaping the present
city, explaining the different degrees in which the
past may influence the present city: Whereas the
city of Maurilia isn’t capable of any connection to
its memories, Zora is doomed to extinction because
it isn’t able to leave its past behind. In Zora, the
past is a trap that prevents the city from evolving
and from being alive.
“City of Memory” is the name of an online narrative
cartography created by City Lore, Inc. (a
New York City–based organization sponsored by
the National Endowment for the Arts and the
Rockefeller Foundation), devoted to the documentation
and representation of urban folk culture in
the city of New York. The website showcases an
interactive geographical map of New York City on
which New Yorkers’ personal stories and memories
come to life through open contributions.
“Città della Memoria” (City of Memory) is the
title of a cycle of discussions organized by Cesare
De Seta, Guido Martinotti, and Massimo Morisi,
which took place in Florence in June 2008. The
main topics of the debates were the relationship of
dependence of great historical cities to their past
and memories, the commodification of memory,
and the phenomenon of festivalization of the public
space in historic downtowns.
The City of Collective Memory is a book by
Christine Boyer that describes the ways cities represent
themselves and their relationship to their
past and future. Boyer analyzes models of selfrepresentation
used to construct a selective reading
of the city.
Alexandria: City of Memory is the title of a book
that revives what author Michael Haag calls “the
heydays of cosmopolitan Alexandria” between
World Wars I and II. He investigates the complex
history of the city through anecdotes and biographies
of three great writers in whose work the city figured
prominently: Constantine Cavafy, E. M. Forster, and
Lawrence Durrell. Haag describes a city filled with
memories and secrets, a multilayered, labyrinthine,
and fascinating palimpsest whose rich multiethnic
texture would later be destroyed by what the
author calls former Egyptian President Gamal
Abdel Nasser’s “puritanical socialism.”
Alessandro Busà
See also Architecture; Benjamin, Walter; Berlin,
Germany; Lynch, Kevin; Mumford, Lewis; Rome,
Italy; Urban Archaeology; Urban Politics; Urban
Semiotics
Further Readings
Benjamin, Walter. 1999. The Arcades Project. Cambridge,
MA: Belknap Press.
———. 1999. Selected Writings. Vol. 2, 1927–1934.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Boyer, Christine. 1996. The City of Collective Memory:
Its Historical Imagery and Architectural
Entertainments. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Busà, Alessandro. 2008. “Palimpseststadt—The City of
Layers.” Mudot, Magazine for Urban Documentation,
Opinion, Theory 1:26–29.
Calvino, Italo. 1978. Invisible Cities. Fort Washington,
PA: Harvest Books.
Crinson, Mark. 2005. Urban Memory: History and
Amnesia in the Modern City. New York: Routledge.
Freud, Sigmund. [1930] 1989. Civilization and Its
Discontents. Translated by P. Gay. New York: Norton.
Haag, Michael. 2005. Alexandria: City of Memory. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Huyssen, Andreas. 2003. Present Pasts: Urban
Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Palo Alto,
CA: Stanford University Press.
Ladd, Brian. 1997. The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting
German History in the Urban Landscape. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Lynch, Kevin. 1960. The Image of the City. Cambridge:
MIT Press.
———. 1976. What Time Is This Place? Cambridge:
MIT Press.
Mumford, Lewis. 1981. The Culture of Cities. Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press.
Muñoz Millanes, José. 2003. “The City as Palimpsest.”
Lehman College and Graduate Center, City University
of New York. Retrieved April 5, 2009 (http://www
.lehman.cuny.edu/ciberletras/v03/Munoz.html).