Double Feature: A Design-driven Inquiry into the Counter-practices of World City Monumentality

Design-driven research not only aims at reconfiguring the relations between research and design, theory, and practice, but it also has the potential of promoting an immediate practical relevance within multiple communities and rapidly changing contexts. Our research uses a design-driven process to explore and unfold aspects of the interaction between a critical action and the arts, in the context of spatial theory and under the current view of world cities. This inquiry draws from a fictive design action in the public space to discuss the cultural and political aspects of monumentality and memory in the city. In other word, the design-driven research acts as a recommendation for a shift in the idea of practising memory in public space. The design action understood monumentality as a pedagogical action, projecting a renovated sense of memory agency across disciplines – spatial and artistic.