For 91��ɫ architectural historian, Professor Shelley Hornstein (right), the relationship between memory and place has been a source of fascination for much of her academic career. Hornstein, who teaches architectural history and visual culture in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts, has authored a new book on the subject.  Losing Site: Architecture, Memory and Place (Ashgate 2011) examines the relationship between memory and place and asks how architecture acts as a springboard to our memories.

Hornstein will launch Losing Site: Architecture, Memory and Place at a special event at the Gladstone Gallery located on the upper floor of Toronto's Gladstone Hotel on Sunday, Dec. 18. The launch will take place from 6 to 8pm and all are welcome.

In Losing Site, Hornstein explores how architecture exists as a material object and how it registers as a place that we come to remember beyond the physical site itself. She questions what architecture is in the broadest sense, assuming that it is not just buildings. The book connects architecture with geography, visual culture and urban studies. It explores the infinite variations of how architecture maps our physical, mental or emotional space.

The book's title reflects Hornstein's understanding of culture, place and memory. "We've lost sight of what it means to be in a place, to experience, to know the physicality of a place," she says. "Losing Site plays with the ideas that bring together site and sight. How does architecture trigger memory?"

Each chapter explores this concept by providing a different example of the many ways that the physical place of architecture is curated by the architecture in our mental space, or what Hornstein calls our "imaginary toolbox" that we use when we remember or think of a place, look at a photograph, visit a site and describe it later to someone else or write about it on a postcard.

Right: From Losing Site, Dani Karavan, Passages - Homage to Walter Benjamin, 1994, Portbou, Spain. Photograph by Shelley Hornstein

"Architecture is much broader than we imagine. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that architecture is not only about buildings, but also about the construction of our physical landscape and how we relate to it…what our bodies do and mean in those spaces, as well as the mental maps and architectural constructions we build everyday in our minds and the worlds we build visually as we read fiction, for example," says Hornstein.

She notes that even a hedge dividing a garden from a road traces a line that not only divides a space into two places, but creates two new places that did not exist before. "We builds, demolish and shape space into architectural places that are meaningful to us," says Hornstein. "When those places disappear, do we remember them?"

Hornstein describes the project as the result of 10 years of writing and teaching that she never realized was a book all along. Writing the text was made possible after she was awarded the Walter L. Gordon Fellowship.

There were two challenges she encountered when writing the book. The first was how to knit together a series of seemingly unrelated case studies into a cohesive manuscript. The second was trying to convince herself that introducing what she thought was a wild and crazy idea about architecture to both the specialized architecture communities as well as the general public was indeed possible.

"What fascinated me while researching this book was that no matter who I would describe it to, each person responded with a personal story about the way they remembered a certain place," she says. "A wonderful book would be to record each of those responses!"

Following the launch, Hornstein will turn her attention to an international workshop she is organizing to orchestrate a course to be taught by 10 different colleagues in 10 different cities and countries on the theme "Starlets and Starchitecture: Women, Celebrity and Architecture Across Borders". She is also starting a book on the topic of demolition, which she describes as "an assemblage of case studies that riff on what it means to intentionally demolish architecture."

Losing Site: Architecture, Memory and Place is part of the Ashgate Studies in Architecture. The 182-page book includes 17 black-and-white illustrations.

By Jenny Pitt-Clark, YFile editor

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Titled "Living in 91��ɫ Region: Our Community Check-up", the report presents context indicators for 12 issue areas and summarizes the opinions of more than 1,000 91��ɫ Region residents who attended focus groups and completed an online survey between March and June 2011. The project is part of a national initiative covering 22 Canadian communities.

The report provides baseline indicators and resident perceptions of how well the region's communities are faring in key quality of life areas such as learning, health, housing and the environment. It emphasizes the importance of connections in an area encompassing some 1,756 square kilometres of rural, forested and urban landscape and concludes that 91��ɫ Region is a healthy community.

“91��ɫ has been pleased to be part of this important project in 91��ɫ Region,” said Robert Haché, vice-president research & innovation at 91��ɫ. “This report will provide a baseline against which our knowledge mobilization and social innovation initiatives can be measured. We will now have the ability to describe the difference that research is making in the lives of our local communities.”

Staff from 91��ɫ's KMb Unit served on the project steering committee to support the strategic and operational objectives of the report. David Dewitt, former assistant vice-president research, served as the University's representative on the project's leadership council, which provided strategic oversight around the development, rollout and sustainability of the project. 91��ɫ alumna Marie Murnaghan (PhD '10) contributed to the project by seeking and analyzing data in the 12 indicator areas.

“This report, based on research and data as well as the experiences and voices of 91��ɫ Region residents, holds great potential in mobilizing action around the human services provision,” said Michael Johnny, 91��ɫ's knowledge mobilization manager. “The KMb Unit at 91��ɫ will continue to work with leaders and decision makers, using this report, to help support informed decision making on important issues to all residents of 91��ɫ Region.”

The report found that 91��ɫ Region residents have great pride in their communities, whether they are long-time residents or newcomers, but years of sustained growth – and the prospect of much more to come in the future – have created pressures in two key areas that require urgent attention.

The first area, subtitled Getting Around, highlights that infrastructure and services – and most importantly public transit – must keep pace with growth so people are able to move conveniently and efficiently within 91��ɫ Region and connect to neighbouring communities.

The second priority, subtitled Housing, asserts that there be more affordable choices and supports for people in emergency situations.

To these two priority issues the report adds a third that speaks of the need to build awareness and to better communicate 91��ɫ Region’s existing strengths. The issue, subtitled Navigating Existing Resources, highlights the importance of ensuring that people know what services and programs already exist in the region and how to access them.

The Living in 91��ɫ Region Vital Signs report is part of the Vital Signs national initiative comprised of annual community check-ups that are conducted by 22 community foundations across Canada to measure the vitality of communities. The project received funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

The full report can be downloaded from the �ɱ�������ٱ�.��

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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