Memory/Anticipation for a New Millennium

University of California/Davis

Cities are places where people live together, build over time and generations with layers of intentions and histories of hopes and failures.  The buildings have cycles as do life and activity, some intended for one use may be converted to another, others torn down and replaced, or simply buried, returning to the earth to disappear forever or to be discovered by future generations.  Too often cities are not built with consideration towards nature. In primitive cultures city/villages were built according to orientation to natural phenomenon…sun, season, shadow, and contour.  Cities accommodated people as well as their natural environments.  A consideration we must look back on to learn to include in our future city building.

By looking at what people throughout history have built we can learn about universal concepts of quality of life.  Built forms can tell us much of the spirits who built and inhabited them…they are animistic ancestors.

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