How to mark and bring forgotten migration histories together in public spaces for remembering and commemorating, was the task that Grisha Kirby set himself. It let to The House of Lost Steps. A syncretic space for Judeo-Moluccan Memory in Appingedam.
Project text
This is a story about an archive that could sit in the heart of Appingedam, Groningen commemorating two completely different diasporic cultures which found refuge in an unassuming but spiritually mighty mediaeval city.
In the 17th century, Appingedam became home to one of the first Ashkenazi Jewish communities in the Netherlands, a community all but eradicated in the 1940s – my grandmother is its last survivor. Decades later, the displaced Moluccan community was permanently resettled from Indonesia to the Netherlands, with Appingedam as their first home. This small city, walkable in 25 minutes, has witnessed the emergence of two significant communities in Dutch history, centuries apart.
I am proposing a memory space in the centre of the mediaeval city to commemorate this history both poetically and didactically. I carefully traced the beautiful, intimate stories from both communities to bring together these two difficult narratives into one highly sensitive site in the city’s medieval town centre. Through the careful orchestration of light, space, weight and movement, this archive of their lives acts as a testament to the power of syncretism; the bringing together of two separate communities to combat a third greater enemy – in this case, the threat of forgetting.
Can you explain your choice of subject?
My choice of subject stemmed from the initial opportunity to understand my own history and autoethnography but expanded into a larger discussion exploring the shared histories and narratives from two unexpected sources.
What or who have been your sources of inspiration for your project and can you explain this?
My tutors – Jorge Mejía Hernandez, Klaske Havik, Rufus van den Ban and Sabina Tanović – were hugely inspirational. My grandmother too, of course. The use of light and form in the work of Louis Kahn, Marina Tabassum, Dominikus Böhm and Michelangelo was also a wonderful lesson.
State and describe the key moment in your graduation project
To move away from the research and towards a design is a big, intimidating step. There is comfort in research; there is an ease in knowing that there is no right or wrong when I am simply ingesting information. But there is plenty of room for error in the design process; the design process is where the difficulties emerge. To conceptualise a three-dimensional space that will successfully encapsulate the potency of these stories and memories? I was set a very useful task to help me through this; temporarily abandon the research in its entirety.
Forget every piece of information I collected and start designing a totally anti-utilitarian building on the site you have chosen with the brief; what is the most beautiful space that could exist here? For such a task, watching Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron provided a healthy place to start.
Can you explain what design(ing) means to you?
I believe designing is the intentional act of taking a corner of the world and turning it into something beautiful.
What hope / do you want to achieve as a designer in the near and / or the distant future?
Now that I am in practice I hope to learn more about the process of taking a building from paper to reality.
What could your project mean for practice?
I think syncretism could be an important way forward, in both design process and project outcomes. The question of who a memorial serves and what a memorial is for has to be explored further – a syncretic lens may be able to crystallise a more potent and long lasting form of collective memory.
Name:
Grisha Kirby
email
Start graduation:
September 2022
End graduation:
Juli 2024
Education:
Technische Universiteit Delft
