When History Hits Back: Urban Spaces and Memory of Things

Abstract

In this article, we aim at presenting the notion of “thing memory” which describes the capacity of a certain artefact to retain a particular pattern of structured space inside and around itself. This notion can help us to overcome the anthropocentrism of memory studies by focusing on the materiality and its propensities. The embodiment of this notion can be found in the cobblestones of big old European cities. We emphasize the ambivalent nature of these cobblestones: on the one side, they are important for maintaining identities of cities; on the other, they are criticized as bringing inconvenience to the mobilities of various groups of urban citizens.