Local Cultures – Global Spaces
Abstract
In the aftermath of the 1980 Sumpul Massacre in Chalatenango, El Salvador, survivors established the Asociación Sumpul to honor and perpetuate the memory of their history. They initiated a memorial park project in the remote site of Las Aradas in 2017 where yearly commemorations are held since 1990. An international research initiative emerged to facilitate the project’s participatory design and collaborative realization, which now nears completion. This offers a unique perspective on the interplay between local and global dynamics in community-based architecture. This presentation also highlights a recent project by the association—the Historic Memory Museum in Las Vueltas village, part of a comprehensive community facility. These two projects have a dual nature, deeply rooted in local, ancestral, and popular dynamics, linked with a dense network of local stakeholders and universal aspects of space and appropriation. These initiatives grapple with the fragility of their context. In a region where war scars linger and official recognition is elusive, the projects operate independently of governmental and religious institutions. This autonomy fosters creative freedom, enabling participatory design in collaboration with the communities. However, it also presents substantial challenges as these communities face economic, cultural, and political marginalization nationally. Through these case studies, we explore architecture’s potential as a tool for resilience and community building in a postwar landscape. Conversely, we examine how this unique context shapes an architectural language that is locally rooted and universally shareable.
Harold Fallon is a Belgian civil engineer architect (UCLouvain 2001) and Associate Professor of Architecture at KU Leuven. He co-founded AgwA architecture office in Brussels in 2003, focusing mainly on public projects for collectivities and adaptive reuse. In 2013 he obtained a PhD in architecture design practice at the RMIT (au). Since 2018, he promotes research in the field of architecture practice. He leads the KU Leuven team developing the architectural project of the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador international research initiative.
Amanda is a Canadian Associate Professor of Information and Media Studies at Western University. Her research and teaching interests focus on genocide studies, state violence, memorialization, social movements, homelessness, and media and social justice. She serves as the Project Director for Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador. She is committed to participatory and decolonial methodologies that produce accessible knowledge mobilization outcomes, including exhibitions, workshops, testimonies, and multi-media civil war memory projects. She holds a PhD from Duke University.
Evelia Macal is a Salvadoran architect trained at UCA. Her thesis explored the use of adobe for rural eco-touristic development. She worked as a researcher on the ground water rarefaction for OPAMSS in San Salvador. In 2001, she graduated as an urbanist at UCLouvain. She currently is project manager for public cultural buildings.
Thomas Montulet is a Dutch civil engineer architect. In 2013, he graduated with a Masters in Engineering and Architecture from Ghent University. Since then, he has been active as an architect in the city of Brussels. He is currently undertaking a PhD at UCLouvain on the topic of transgression and funerary architecture using critical writing and model making as his academic tools.
Nomundari Munkhbaatar is a Mongolian architecture student in her final year at TU Wien, having previously studied at TU München. In 2023, she completed extended internships at XDGA and AgwA, where she played an active role in the development of architectural designs for the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador project.
Lourdes Calero is a Salvadoran ceramist and professor at UES. She currently serves as the Coordinator and professor of the Bachelor of Plastic Arts, Ceramic Option at the School of Arts. Lourdes devotes her time to research, teaching, ceramic practice, and consulting projects in ceramic artisan communities in El Salvador.