the glass also acts as a spatial divider that constrains visitors ’ movement ( Kranzfelder , 2006 , p . 147 ). The visitors stand both outside and inside . They are invited to look differently , to level their gaze at the historical meaning of this architecture , contributing to its symbolic deconstruction .
The footbridge also involves a crossing . In the shape of an arrow , it pierces the entire left wing of the Congress Hall . Ludwig and Franz Ruff ’ s building therefore appears fallible and destructible . The crossing is to be understood as a passage that invites you to assume a development . This form of mediation also contributes to the implementation of a symbolic deconstruction of the architecture of National Socialism . In this sense , the very characteristic of the footbridge is to induce a moult , a metamorphosis . Yet passages are , as Louis Marin points out , “ dangerous places , perhaps because they are not places but spaces of crossing . They can only be identified from what they cannot be , the starting point and the end point ” ( Louis Marin , quoted by Martin de la Soudière , 2000 , p . 11 ). What the crossing can be is therefore subject to the possibility , as well as the impossibility , of a metamorphosis in the visitor .
Bibliography
Miguel Abensour , De la Compacité . Architectures et régimes totalitaires , le cas Albert Speer , Sens et Tonka , 2006 .
Aïm Olivier , “ La transparence rendue visible . Médiations informatiques de l ’ écriture ” in Communication et langages , no . 147 , 2006 . Rudolf Arnheim ( 1977 ), Dynamique de la forme architecturale , Mardaga ,
1995 . Stephen Brockmann , Nuremberg : the imaginary capital , Camden House ,
2006 . Yohann Chapoutot , Le National-socialisme et l ’ Antiquité , PUF , 2008 . Georges Didi-Huberman , Images malgré-tout , Les Éditions de minuit , 2003 . Friederike Hansell , “ Commemorating the Past : The integration of Nazi perpetrator sites into the German memorial landscapes ” in A reader in uncomfortable heritage and dark tourism , Sam Merill and Leo Schmidt ed ., Research report by the Architectural Conservation Department of the Brandenburgische Technische Univesität Cottbus , October 2008 / mars 2009 .
Raphaël Freddy , Geneviève Herberich-Marx , “ Une ville et les stigmates du passé ” in Revue-des-sciences-sociales , no . 16 , 1988-1989 . Ivo Kranzfelder , Eward Hopper : 1882-1987 . Vision de la réalité , Taschen ,
2006 . Louis Marin quoted by Martin de la Soudière , “ Le paradigme du passage ” in
Communications , no . 70 , 2000 . Helmut Weihsmann , Bauen unterm Hakenkreuz . Architektur des Untergangs ,
Promedia , 1998 .
Transparency and crossing are combined in the architectural device of the footbridge . These two methods of mediation carry with them constantly confronting dichotomies : included and excluded , near and far , inside and outside , past and present . The device therefore invites us to look at and practice two diametrically opposed architectures , possibly inducing reflexivity . Ultimately , transparency and crossing produce a “ relationship to ”: a relationship to the historical legacy of the National Socialist regime and , consequently , to its memorial construction . In this way , the incorporation of the footbridge into the Congress Hall aims to abolish the will to omnipotence and the intention of eternity carried by the architecture of the National Socialist regime .
70
Observing Memories Issue 7