Cities of memory and ruins of the present: reflections in wartime

The begins by evoking images of destroyed cities, disfigured by war, as revealing the symbolic power of ruins in a philosophy of history inspired by Benjamin: history as an endless Trauerspiel. Ruins carry this ambiguous tension with the past, taking us back to images of glorious cities in times of peace while at the same time revealing their wreckage. Invoking the aesthetic thought Rosario Assunto, the article also refers to the distinction between two types of ideal cities, one under the sign of the mythological figures of Amphion and Orpheus, based on a sense of measure with a centred experience expressing cyclical time, the other under the sign of Prometheus, linked to the logic of excess and endless accumulation, where intentional time, guided by the idea of progress, destroys the relationship between places and memory. This last type represents present-day cities, which are governed by a functionalist logic and the anarchic accumulation of capital and commodities. The third part of the chapter focuses on the theme of cities of memory as constitutive parts of the construction of identity. This image of the city under the filter of memory reflects the relationship between historical depth and experience, which contains within itself a prophecy of the future. The article concludes by posing a fundamental question: how can the cities of memory, in their fragmented character, including the sense of ruin, contain a critical force towards the present?