The City of Collective Memory
The name of a city’s streets and squares,
the gaps in its very plan and physical
form, its local monuments and celebrations,
remain as traces and ruins of their
former selves. They are tokens or hieroglyphs
from the past to be literally reread,
reanalyzed, and reworked over time.
Images that arise from particular historic
circumstances come to define our sense
of tradition; they literally manage our
knowledge of the historic.
—M. Christine Boyer,
The City of Collective Memory
