URBAN MEMORY

Memory is defined as the mental faculty of retaining and recalling the past experience. It is the act or instance of remembering, recollection. In psychology, memory is defined as the ability to store experiences and learned information with their relations to the past in mind as a result of a conscious process. Perceptual knowledge which changes with different cultures effects or social environments are stored in memory. Memory is an individuals’ characteristic; societies can not “own” memories but can determine the memory of the individuals.(Assmann,2001).

Although a society does not have a memory, we can talk about existence of a “social memory. In other words, values belonging to the past-experiences of a society can be defined as an important characteristic of social memory. When compared with social memory, collective memory has a wider meaning. A collective memory can appear concerning a family, a group or universe. Boyer, in his book The City of Collective Memory (1994), declares that the city can be defined as a fact of collective memory. (Yücesoy,Gökbulut,1999).

From the point of these determinations, we can consider the urban memory as a kind of collective memory that is constituted by individuals’ experiences within the place itself and through its history and social environmen.

The loss of urban memory occurs when there is major change in physical or social environment.

A change in physical environment (disasters, great fires, etc.) is one of the facts that cause discontinuities and urban memory loss. However the societies can also break this continuity creating a renewal of urban memory through social, economical and political changes. Formation of urban identity requires achieving sustainability without interruptions in urban memory.