FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"As Bevan's fascinating, melancholy book shows, symbolic buildings have long been targeted in and out of war as a particular kind of mnemonic violence against those to whom they are special."
The Guardian

"The idea of a global inheritance seems to have fallen by the wayside and lessons that should have long ago been learned are still being recklessly disregarded. This is what makes Bevan's book relevant, even urgent: much of the destruction of which it speaks is still under way."
FT Magazine

THE DESTRUCTION OF
MEMORY

Architecture at War

Robert Bevan

Published by Reaktion Books
Distributed by the University of Chicago Press

A decimated Shiite shrine in Iraq. The smoking World Trade Center site. The scorched cityscape of 1945 Dresden: One of the most indelible scars left by war is the destroyed landscape, and such architectural devastation has obliterated entire societies and changed the course of history. Robert Bevan argues here in The Destruction of Memory that shattered buildings and blackened grounds are not merely "collateral damage," but rather are calculated acts of cultural annihilation.

Bevan deftly sifts through major wars, military campaigns, and the tactics employed by world leaders throughout history to analyze the cultural impact of architectural destruction and the catastrophic consequences it has on national psyches. Drawing on a wealth of historical and contemporary examples such as Hitler's "Kristallnacht," Stalin's purge of religious architecture in Moscow, and the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in the Iraq War, he charts how architectural destruction has actually evolved into a deliberate component of war strategy.

Ultimately, Bevan forcefully argues for the prosecution of nations that deliberately destroy iconic architecture in the face of established international treaties, and he asserts that such actions are nothing less than cultural genocide. A passionate and thought-provoking cri de coeur, The Destruction of Memory raises thought-provoking questions about the deeper costs of war beyond blood and money.

Robert Bevan is the former editor of Building Design and writes regularly on architectural, design, and housing issues for national newspapers. He lives in Sydney, Australia.