Filozofija i drustvo 2022 Volume 33, Issue 3, Pages: 535-550
https://doi.org/10.2298/FID2203535R
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Testimony in stone: architecture of war from kluge to Herscher and Weizman
Ratković Marija (University of Arts in Belgrade), hello.marijaratkovic@gmail.com
The article contributes to creating an outline of the significant postwar
theoretical approaches that examine the role, purpose, and significance of
architecture in war and war crimes. Starting from the Clausewitz thesis that
“war is not autonomous”, this paper attempts to reveal “the blood that has
dried in the codes” (Foucault), politics hidden behind the four walls of
architecture. From the concepts of Brutality in Stone (Kluge), Warchitecture
(Herscher) or Forensic Architecture (Weizman), through the lenses of
architecture, the article exposes war, politics, and ideologies that shape
and drive architecture by reimagining and repurposing it both in its
primary, functional and cultural, representative sense. A shift from “the
era of the witness” (Felman) to the decade of evidence (Weizman) promotes
architecture and its remains to the level of science, global governing, and
law. The connection of timely-distanced emancipatory practices influenced by
Holocaust studies establishes a discursive field for architecture as a
performative rather than representative practice. The theoretical frame of
the postwar landscape as second nature (Adorno) is crucial for discussing
the role of architecture in the Holocaust. Furthermore, it stresses the work
of Herscher and Weizman as a contribution to the critique of the
depoliticized processes of resolution of the contemporary war crimes and
post-conflict reconciliation. Architecture as a societal practice could
potentially have a central position in memory and knowledge production, as
well as the production of a counter-public sphere.
Keywords: architecture, war, film, Holocaust studies, warchitecture, forensic architecture, performative, cultural memory, Alexander Kluge
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