VIRTUAL: Prague Heritages

Abstract

Recognition of cultural flows across borders helps to counteract colonial erasure in European architecture heritage. In the case of the early 20th century Bauhaus and Amsterdam School, their geographic narratives have been expanded by recent exhibitions that show how the original architects appropriated artistic forms from Africa, Asia, and the Americas. In response, the research project examines the role of geographic scale and interconnection in shaping personal perceptions of meaning in these two heritage stories. These perceptions are solicited through an innovative sketch mapping interview, in which participants are provided four local-to-global map scales and invited to hand-draw their personal geography layered with an architecture movement’s past to present, power hierarchies, and potential futures. The methodological contribution combines participatory mapping with a theoretical base in relational geography. The fieldwork engages thirty-four participants involved in heritage stewardship and culture exchange to share their interpretation of either the Bauhaus or Amsterdam School movements at the respective origin cities in Weimar, Germany, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In particular, the first phase of interview analysis focuses on the participant’s understanding of the future as an imaginative space to make sense these shifting geographic narratives. In this way, architecture heritage can foreground current global debates that bridge across national borders and generational divides.