COLLECTIVE MEMORY AS A MANIFESTO FOR CULTURAL AND SOCIAL SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE

The aim of this paper is to discuss a few of very important contemporary issues regarding ideas establishing essential relationship between cultural and social sustainability and sustainable architecture and urban environment. It generates from the premises that sustainable architecture in a broader sense can be discussed not only as technologically efficient product for sustainable natural and build environment. It can be also observed as an aspect of cultural and social identity, without which a contemporary society cannot indicate and discuss problems regarding principles of sustainable environment. In this context a particular issue will be explored. It is linked to the phenomenon of collective memory as a bearer of potentials for building up cultural and social identity through architecture and urban environment. Two examples will be used in the discussion. The first one is based on existing collective memory regarding architectural objects which become social monuments, particularly after their destruction. Architecture becomes an object of identification with important contemporary cultural integration processes, reflecting on its function before destruction. The second example will show how politics is using already destructed and devastated objects for establishing and extending collective memory as an aspect which should revitalize damaged national integrity and coherence in a society. Both examples are rooted in the ethical aspect of sustainable building environment, influencing further activities in this area and its development.