Shelley Hornstein | York University (original) (raw)

Books by Shelley Hornstein

Lyla Rye; Between Here and There, 1995

• This fascinating insight into the draw of 'starchitecture' and architectural pilgrimages to lan... more • This fascinating insight into the draw of 'starchitecture' and architectural pilgrimages to landmark buildings such as the Taj Mahal, the Sydney Opera House and the Bilbao Guggenheim Since the era of pre-industrial religious pilgrimages, architecture has beckoned travellers. This book charts the relationship, and even the entanglement, between architecture and tourism. It reveals how architecture is always tied to its physical site, yet is transportable in our imagination-and into the virtual spheres of social media and armchair travel. Illustrated with a range of studies of key buildings from history and the present-day, including the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House and the Bilbao Guggenheim, the book engagingly sheds light on topics such as the culture of ruins, the evolution of how tourists capture images of places, the rise of the designer museum, and architecture on television, film and in other media. It asks why architectural monuments and buildings attract and compel us to visit, why we feel the need to understand cities through architectural sites such as museums, historic sites and monuments, and how national identity is galvanised through its architecture and tourism. Sightseeing is, whether virtual or actual, site-seeing.

Environment, Place and Space, 2015

Th is paper uncovers how demolition has served as a collective way of forgetting violent pasts. I... more Th is paper uncovers how demolition has served as a collective way of forgetting violent pasts. It explores several examples in Canada, including the 1992 demolition of the notorious Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland, a building we claim was purposefully razed to the ground in order to forget egregious crimes of sexual abuse that had taken place on the site. We contend that as with other sites associated with diffi cult memories, this was a valiant eff ort to forget by removing all traces of the setting. We note that even when buildings are not demolished following violent events, echoes of their architectural forms are often recast in the forms of memorials, both real and virtual. Th e only way truly to forgive and forget is to enact a revenge.

Many cities across the globe are rediscovering their rivers. After decades or even centuries of e... more Many cities across the globe are rediscovering their rivers. After decades or even centuries of environmental decline and cultural neglect, waterfronts have been vamped up and become focal points of urban life again; hidden and covered streams have been daylighted while restoration projects have returned urban rivers in many places to a supposedly more natural state. This volume traces the complex and winding history of how cities have appropriated, lost, and regained their rivers. But rather than telling a linear story of progress, the chapters of this book highlight the ambivalence of these developments.
The four sections in Rivers Lost, Rivers Regained discuss how cities have gained control and exerted power over rivers and waterways far upstream and downstream; how rivers and floodplains in cityscapes have been transformed by urbanization and industrialization; how urban rivers have been represented in cultural manifestations, such as novels and songs; and how more recent strategies work to redefine and recreate the place of the river within the urban setting. At the nexus between environmental, urban, and water histories, Rivers Lost, Rivers Regained points out how the urban-river relationship can serve as a prime vantage point to analyze fundamental issues of modern environmental attitudes and practices.

In Losing Site Hornstein takes us on a dizzying pilgrimage from the Guggenheim to Google Earth, f... more In Losing Site Hornstein takes us on a dizzying pilgrimage from the Guggenheim to Google Earth, from Toronto to Tel Aviv, showing along the way how architecture, place, and memory work together in dynamic interplay. Hornstein's themes are as wide-ranging as the places she explores: nationhood and nationalism, war and demolition, starchitecture and everyday life. The book offers a unique look at how our fast-paced, technology-driven lives have re-shaped travel and tourism. '

Papers by Shelley Hornstein

Memory & Oblivion, 1999

How does one publicly memorialize the Holocaust for future generations? While historians and phil... more How does one publicly memorialize the Holocaust for future generations? While historians and philosophers have raised some of these issues regarding the difficulties of representation, there is little available
from an aesthetics and cultural perspective. There has been enormous hesitation to approach these histories because of sensitivities regarding "authentic" representation of the facts and the emotional trauma surrounding
the Holocaust. Can art adequately re-create or evoke the "reality" of the event, and, if so, what language renders this utterance possible? How do these works investigate strategies of storytelling to retell events that challenge representational forms? How does the art contribute to the way in which the Holocaust and Jewish identity is being shaped and remembered? What are the aesthetic choices made that affect one's perception and comprehension of history? I argue that a number of artists explore intensely personal and social histories through various aesthetic forms that challenge the means of representing the inexpressible by making art on the notion of absence.
These works mourn and recall memories usually kept within the realm of the private. Beyond this, they demand an engagement to the sacred activity of commemoration by inviting the viewer to participate in recuperating memory and history.

... My gratitude extends to the contributions of those graduate students as well: Juan De Villa, ... more ... My gratitude extends to the contributions of those graduate students as well: Juan De Villa, Alexandra Duncan, Michelle Hannah, Sarah Hewitt, Genevieve Kang, Jeremy Mathers, Brendan Mcgeagh, Jonathan Montes, Kayla Ramlochand, Brigid Tierney, Barry Wallace and ...

Arcade, 2023

What happens when we stand in front of a memorial or any sort of commemorative endeavour far from... more What happens when we stand in front of a memorial or any sort of commemorative endeavour far from the site where the trauma occurred?

Figuration/Abstraction, 2017

Journal of Heritage Tourism

• This fascinating insight into the draw of 'starchitecture' and architectural pi... more • This fascinating insight into the draw of 'starchitecture' and architectural pilgrimages to landmark buildings such as the Taj Mahal, the Sydney Opera House and the Bilbao Guggenheim Since the era of pre-industrial religious pilgrimages, architecture has beckoned travellers. This book charts the relationship, and even the entanglement, between architecture and tourism. It reveals how architecture is always tied to its physical site, yet is transportable in our imagination-and into the virtual spheres of social media and armchair travel. Illustrated with a range of studies of key buildings from history and the present-day, including the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House and the Bilbao Guggenheim, the book engagingly sheds light on topics such as the culture of ruins, the evolution of how tourists capture images of places, the rise of the designer museum, and architecture on television, film and in other media. It asks why architectural monuments and buildings attract and compel us to visit, why we feel the need to understand cities through architectural sites such as museums, historic sites and monuments, and how national identity is galvanised through its architecture and tourism. Sightseeing is, whether virtual or actual, site-seeing.

The destruction of architecture or its re-location elsewhere to avoid demolition is a part of a h... more The destruction of architecture or its re-location elsewhere to avoid demolition is a part of a history of the planet's wastelands. Land/Slide, a vast art installation exhibition challenges how we consider historic buildings that have been transplanted, as it were, to new tangible and intangible, digital, places. The buildings that form the physical springboard for the exhibition were salvaged as a result of their being relocated to the Markham Museum, near Toronto. Land/Slide opens a debate around architectural history and contemporary practices in art, architectural heritage, and urban cultural life. Artists and architects were invited to adaptively reuse and infuse a selected salvaged building with new life while weaving it back into its previous existence. This chapter explores the game-changing strategies presented in this exhibition that challenge how we consider heritage buildings, sustainable architecture, systems of living and the stratifications of architectural histor...

International Journal of Environmental Studies, 2017

Cities and rivers are 'intimately linked to each other' (p. 3). But there are ways of discussing ... more Cities and rivers are 'intimately linked to each other' (p. 3). But there are ways of discussing intimate relations and there are ways not to discuss them; such as some of the language in this book. For example, Chapter 16 (Hornstein), 'Rumi's poetic suggestion that union is a raging river aptly captures the essence of what it means for Aziza Chaouni to consider the quintessential role of the river in the life of Fez, a river that was once considered heterotopic-or negative-space.

Environment, Space, Place, 2015

Th is paper uncovers how demolition has served as a collective way of forgetting violent pasts. I... more Th is paper uncovers how demolition has served as a collective way of forgetting violent pasts. It explores several examples in Canada, including the 1992 demolition of the notorious Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland, a building we claim was purposefully razed to the ground in order to forget egregious crimes of sexual abuse that had taken place on the site. We contend that as with other sites associated with diffi cult memories, this was a valiant eff ort to forget by removing all traces of the setting. We note that even when buildings are not demolished following violent events, echoes of their architectural forms are often recast in the forms of memorials, both real and virtual. Th e only way truly to forgive and forget is to enact a revenge.

Journal of Canadian Art History, 1991

If Alois Riegl’s claim that an architectural monument –in the original and ancient sense of the t... more If Alois Riegl’s claim that an architectural monument –in the original and ancient sense of the term– meant creating a work with the objective of safeguarding the memory of an event, then this paper asks if photographs and specifically digital images of monuments and memorials can sustain memory by creating a memorial itinerary, one that links projects virtually and physically to each other beyond geographic sites. While some memorials are successful at stimulating memory recall, others become empty, monolithic objects, even when presented in the form of a museum. In a culture of excess and visual inundation, photography and particularly social media of the newest memorials bid for our emotional commitment, particularly when our own histories and memories are often removed from the one aiming to be recovered, and perpetuate our overfed and undernourished souls. Can the cultural imaginary recuperate the memory that a memorial aims to represent? In looking at a series of recent memori...

Lyla Rye; Between Here and There, 1995

• This fascinating insight into the draw of 'starchitecture' and architectural pilgrimages to lan... more • This fascinating insight into the draw of 'starchitecture' and architectural pilgrimages to landmark buildings such as the Taj Mahal, the Sydney Opera House and the Bilbao Guggenheim Since the era of pre-industrial religious pilgrimages, architecture has beckoned travellers. This book charts the relationship, and even the entanglement, between architecture and tourism. It reveals how architecture is always tied to its physical site, yet is transportable in our imagination-and into the virtual spheres of social media and armchair travel. Illustrated with a range of studies of key buildings from history and the present-day, including the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House and the Bilbao Guggenheim, the book engagingly sheds light on topics such as the culture of ruins, the evolution of how tourists capture images of places, the rise of the designer museum, and architecture on television, film and in other media. It asks why architectural monuments and buildings attract and compel us to visit, why we feel the need to understand cities through architectural sites such as museums, historic sites and monuments, and how national identity is galvanised through its architecture and tourism. Sightseeing is, whether virtual or actual, site-seeing.

Environment, Place and Space, 2015

Th is paper uncovers how demolition has served as a collective way of forgetting violent pasts. I... more Th is paper uncovers how demolition has served as a collective way of forgetting violent pasts. It explores several examples in Canada, including the 1992 demolition of the notorious Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland, a building we claim was purposefully razed to the ground in order to forget egregious crimes of sexual abuse that had taken place on the site. We contend that as with other sites associated with diffi cult memories, this was a valiant eff ort to forget by removing all traces of the setting. We note that even when buildings are not demolished following violent events, echoes of their architectural forms are often recast in the forms of memorials, both real and virtual. Th e only way truly to forgive and forget is to enact a revenge.

Many cities across the globe are rediscovering their rivers. After decades or even centuries of e... more Many cities across the globe are rediscovering their rivers. After decades or even centuries of environmental decline and cultural neglect, waterfronts have been vamped up and become focal points of urban life again; hidden and covered streams have been daylighted while restoration projects have returned urban rivers in many places to a supposedly more natural state. This volume traces the complex and winding history of how cities have appropriated, lost, and regained their rivers. But rather than telling a linear story of progress, the chapters of this book highlight the ambivalence of these developments.
The four sections in Rivers Lost, Rivers Regained discuss how cities have gained control and exerted power over rivers and waterways far upstream and downstream; how rivers and floodplains in cityscapes have been transformed by urbanization and industrialization; how urban rivers have been represented in cultural manifestations, such as novels and songs; and how more recent strategies work to redefine and recreate the place of the river within the urban setting. At the nexus between environmental, urban, and water histories, Rivers Lost, Rivers Regained points out how the urban-river relationship can serve as a prime vantage point to analyze fundamental issues of modern environmental attitudes and practices.

In Losing Site Hornstein takes us on a dizzying pilgrimage from the Guggenheim to Google Earth, f... more In Losing Site Hornstein takes us on a dizzying pilgrimage from the Guggenheim to Google Earth, from Toronto to Tel Aviv, showing along the way how architecture, place, and memory work together in dynamic interplay. Hornstein's themes are as wide-ranging as the places she explores: nationhood and nationalism, war and demolition, starchitecture and everyday life. The book offers a unique look at how our fast-paced, technology-driven lives have re-shaped travel and tourism. '

Memory & Oblivion, 1999

How does one publicly memorialize the Holocaust for future generations? While historians and phil... more How does one publicly memorialize the Holocaust for future generations? While historians and philosophers have raised some of these issues regarding the difficulties of representation, there is little available
from an aesthetics and cultural perspective. There has been enormous hesitation to approach these histories because of sensitivities regarding "authentic" representation of the facts and the emotional trauma surrounding
the Holocaust. Can art adequately re-create or evoke the "reality" of the event, and, if so, what language renders this utterance possible? How do these works investigate strategies of storytelling to retell events that challenge representational forms? How does the art contribute to the way in which the Holocaust and Jewish identity is being shaped and remembered? What are the aesthetic choices made that affect one's perception and comprehension of history? I argue that a number of artists explore intensely personal and social histories through various aesthetic forms that challenge the means of representing the inexpressible by making art on the notion of absence.
These works mourn and recall memories usually kept within the realm of the private. Beyond this, they demand an engagement to the sacred activity of commemoration by inviting the viewer to participate in recuperating memory and history.

... My gratitude extends to the contributions of those graduate students as well: Juan De Villa, ... more ... My gratitude extends to the contributions of those graduate students as well: Juan De Villa, Alexandra Duncan, Michelle Hannah, Sarah Hewitt, Genevieve Kang, Jeremy Mathers, Brendan Mcgeagh, Jonathan Montes, Kayla Ramlochand, Brigid Tierney, Barry Wallace and ...

Arcade, 2023

What happens when we stand in front of a memorial or any sort of commemorative endeavour far from... more What happens when we stand in front of a memorial or any sort of commemorative endeavour far from the site where the trauma occurred?

Figuration/Abstraction, 2017

Journal of Heritage Tourism

• This fascinating insight into the draw of 'starchitecture' and architectural pi... more • This fascinating insight into the draw of 'starchitecture' and architectural pilgrimages to landmark buildings such as the Taj Mahal, the Sydney Opera House and the Bilbao Guggenheim Since the era of pre-industrial religious pilgrimages, architecture has beckoned travellers. This book charts the relationship, and even the entanglement, between architecture and tourism. It reveals how architecture is always tied to its physical site, yet is transportable in our imagination-and into the virtual spheres of social media and armchair travel. Illustrated with a range of studies of key buildings from history and the present-day, including the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House and the Bilbao Guggenheim, the book engagingly sheds light on topics such as the culture of ruins, the evolution of how tourists capture images of places, the rise of the designer museum, and architecture on television, film and in other media. It asks why architectural monuments and buildings attract and compel us to visit, why we feel the need to understand cities through architectural sites such as museums, historic sites and monuments, and how national identity is galvanised through its architecture and tourism. Sightseeing is, whether virtual or actual, site-seeing.

The destruction of architecture or its re-location elsewhere to avoid demolition is a part of a h... more The destruction of architecture or its re-location elsewhere to avoid demolition is a part of a history of the planet's wastelands. Land/Slide, a vast art installation exhibition challenges how we consider historic buildings that have been transplanted, as it were, to new tangible and intangible, digital, places. The buildings that form the physical springboard for the exhibition were salvaged as a result of their being relocated to the Markham Museum, near Toronto. Land/Slide opens a debate around architectural history and contemporary practices in art, architectural heritage, and urban cultural life. Artists and architects were invited to adaptively reuse and infuse a selected salvaged building with new life while weaving it back into its previous existence. This chapter explores the game-changing strategies presented in this exhibition that challenge how we consider heritage buildings, sustainable architecture, systems of living and the stratifications of architectural histor...

International Journal of Environmental Studies, 2017

Cities and rivers are 'intimately linked to each other' (p. 3). But there are ways of discussing ... more Cities and rivers are 'intimately linked to each other' (p. 3). But there are ways of discussing intimate relations and there are ways not to discuss them; such as some of the language in this book. For example, Chapter 16 (Hornstein), 'Rumi's poetic suggestion that union is a raging river aptly captures the essence of what it means for Aziza Chaouni to consider the quintessential role of the river in the life of Fez, a river that was once considered heterotopic-or negative-space.

Environment, Space, Place, 2015

Th is paper uncovers how demolition has served as a collective way of forgetting violent pasts. I... more Th is paper uncovers how demolition has served as a collective way of forgetting violent pasts. It explores several examples in Canada, including the 1992 demolition of the notorious Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland, a building we claim was purposefully razed to the ground in order to forget egregious crimes of sexual abuse that had taken place on the site. We contend that as with other sites associated with diffi cult memories, this was a valiant eff ort to forget by removing all traces of the setting. We note that even when buildings are not demolished following violent events, echoes of their architectural forms are often recast in the forms of memorials, both real and virtual. Th e only way truly to forgive and forget is to enact a revenge.

Journal of Canadian Art History, 1991

If Alois Riegl’s claim that an architectural monument –in the original and ancient sense of the t... more If Alois Riegl’s claim that an architectural monument –in the original and ancient sense of the term– meant creating a work with the objective of safeguarding the memory of an event, then this paper asks if photographs and specifically digital images of monuments and memorials can sustain memory by creating a memorial itinerary, one that links projects virtually and physically to each other beyond geographic sites. While some memorials are successful at stimulating memory recall, others become empty, monolithic objects, even when presented in the form of a museum. In a culture of excess and visual inundation, photography and particularly social media of the newest memorials bid for our emotional commitment, particularly when our own histories and memories are often removed from the one aiming to be recovered, and perpetuate our overfed and undernourished souls. Can the cultural imaginary recuperate the memory that a memorial aims to represent? In looking at a series of recent memori...

Emotion, Space and Society, 2013

Memory Studies, 2022

What does it mean to create an exhibition about how architecture was used as forensic evidence in... more What does it mean to create an exhibition about how architecture was used as forensic evidence in a trial that attempted to not only deny atrocities of the Holocaust but to deny historical evidence? Architectural Historian, Robert Jan van Pelt organized such an exhibition titled The Evidence Room at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. Elements displayed were reconstructed from the architectural plans for Auschwitz. This essay asks what it means to locate the exhibition ex situ and the "evidence" displayed therein that is not the evidence itself but facsimiles of the designed objects and sites.

American Jewish History, 2003

Introduction: Framing the Holocaust: Contemporary Visions I. GEOGRAPHIES OF THE HEART: PLACES/SPA... more Introduction: Framing the Holocaust: Contemporary Visions I. GEOGRAPHIES OF THE HEART: PLACES/SPACESOF REMEMBRANCE1. Archiving an Architecture of the Heart 2. Haunted by Memory: American Jewish Transformations 3. A House for an Uninhabitable Memory (The Center for Holocaust Studies at Clark University) II. ISRAEL AND THE POLITICS OF MEMORY4. The Return of the Repressed 5. Racism and Ethics: Constructing Alternative History 6. "Don't Touch My Holocaust"-Analyzing the Barometer of Responses: Israeli Artists Challenge the Holocaust Taboo III. TRANSGRESSING TABOOS7. Holocaust Toys: Pedagogy of Remembrance through Play8. The Nazi Occupation of the "White Cube": Piotr Uklan'ski's The Nazis and Rudolf Herz's Zugzwang 9. On Sanctifying the Holocaust: An Anti-Theological Treatise IV. CURATING MEMORY10. Holocaust Icons: The Media of Memory11. Sense and/or Sensation: The Role of the Body in Holocaust Pedagogy Artists' Works A selection of works by artists Alice Lok Cahana, Judy Chicago,Debbie Teicholz, and Mindy Weisel, who participated in theBerman Center's conference, "Representing the Holocaust:Practices, Products, Projections."About the Artists About the Editors About the Contributors Index

• This fascinating insight into the draw of 'starchitecture' and architectural pi... more • This fascinating insight into the draw of 'starchitecture' and architectural pilgrimages to landmark buildings such as the Taj Mahal, the Sydney Opera House and the Bilbao Guggenheim Since the era of pre-industrial religious pilgrimages, architecture has beckoned travellers. This book charts the relationship, and even the entanglement, between architecture and tourism. It reveals how architecture is always tied to its physical site, yet is transportable in our imagination-and into the virtual spheres of social media and armchair travel. Illustrated with a range of studies of key buildings from history and the present-day, including the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House and the Bilbao Guggenheim, the book engagingly sheds light on topics such as the culture of ruins, the evolution of how tourists capture images of places, the rise of the designer museum, and architecture on television, film and in other media. It asks why architectural monuments and buildings attract and compel us to visit, why we feel the need to understand cities through architectural sites such as museums, historic sites and monuments, and how national identity is galvanised through its architecture and tourism. Sightseeing is, whether virtual or actual, site-seeing.

Introduction Shelley Hornstein and Florence Jacobowitz PART ONE: COMMEMORATION AND SITES OF MOURN... more Introduction Shelley Hornstein and Florence Jacobowitz PART ONE: COMMEMORATION AND SITES OF MOURNING 1. Shoah as Cinema Florence Jacobowitz 2. Second-Sight: Shimon Attie's Recollection Berel Lang 3. Rituals of Mourning and Mimesis: Arie A. Galles's Fourteen Stations Andrea Liss 4. Trauma Daniel Libeskind 5. Memory, Counter-memory, and the End of the Monument James Young PART TWO: PERSONAL RESPONSES AND FAMILIAL LEGACIES 6. Material Memory: Holocaust Testimony in Post-Holocaust Art Marianne Hirsch and Susan Rubin Suleiman 7. Caught by Images: Visual Imprints in Holocaust Testimonies Ernst Van Alphen 8. Gays and the Holocaust: Two Documentaries Robin Wood 9. War Stories: Witnessing in Retrospect Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer PART THREE: MEMENTO MORI: ATROCITY AND AESTHETICS 10. The Iconic and the Allusive: The Case for Beauty in Post-Holocaust Art Janet Wolff 11. Burnt Books and Absent Meaning: Morris Louis' Charred Journal: Firewritten Series and the Holocaust Mark Godf...

Contributors: Bruce Barber (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design), Jody Berland (York), Mark A. ... more Contributors: Bruce Barber (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design), Jody Berland (York), Mark A. Cheetham (Western), Thierry de Duve (Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Washington, DC), Michael Dorland (Carleton), Nicole Dubreuil (Montreal), John Fekete (Trent), Shelley Hornstein (York), Johanne Lamoureux (Montreal), Brenda Longfellow (York), Janine Marchessault (McGill), Paul Mattick, Jr (Adelphi),and Anne Whitelaw (Alberta). Artists: Karl Beveridge, Michael Buckland, Carole Conde, Vera Frenkel, Janice Gurney, John Marriott, Luke Murphy, Yvonne Singer, Cheryl Sourkes, John Veenema, and Ron Wakkary.