The sublime can be ridiculous: ugly beautiful memorial space: implications for the process of critique

Abstract

Discussions of architecture inevitably involve assessments of visual pleasure / displeasure. In relation to contemporary memorial space, such discussions rarely venture into the territory of the negative critique in the phase after construction. Little dialogue occurs in the public domain about anything other than the merits of any new project. The reasons frequently relate to political exigencies. However, there are additional reasons that people seldom elaborate and that may have far-reaching consequences for those who use those spaces to mourn. Even in a memorial space that challenges the educated eye of artists and architects, mourners may experience states that verge on the sublime. Beauty and the sublime in such a context have diverse meanings. That which is visually ugly may have a place that renders them beautiful. With reference to the work of psychoanalytic theorist Donald Winnicott, this paper shows why this situation arises and operates as an exemplar for the apprehension of other designed spaces that some perceive as beautiful, some as downright ugly and others who perceive them to reside in the domain of the sublime.