Hotel Viru as a monument: social space and memory
Date
2014
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Hotel Viru has been a significant site of the Tallinn urban landscape since its
construction: it represented the essence of Estonia for the Finnish and other tourists
arriving to the country, and it served as an enclave of Western lifestyle in the middle of
Soviet-time Tallinn, subsisting in the Cold War political isolation since the end of the
Second World War. The post-Soviet transition brought profound changes in the
functioning of the hotel, but did not lower its significance: Hotel Viru occupies an
important position in the collective memory of more than one community, and the
establishment of KGB museum in the building reinforced this status on a new level.
The present research investigates interconnections of memory and history in the space
of Hotel Viru by applying the theory of Henri Lefebvre on social space. The term social
space refers to the sum of social relations projected into physical space, providing a tool
for the analysis of social phenomena by investigating particular spatial settings. As the
concept of social space implies a heterogeneous and multilayered character of space, the
research explores Hotel Viru on the three levels as spatial practices, representations of
space and representational spaces. Investigation of spatial practices reveals how the
physical space of Hotel Viru is transformed by human activity, and how social relations
and spatial practices are being mutually shaped by each other. Representations of space
help to understand how abstract conceptualizations of Hotel Viru reflect ideological
positions within the society, and how do they influence the formulation of physical
space. The study of representational spaces identifies the symbolic contents attached to
the space of Hotel Viru, discovering the process in which they constitute the building as
an object of memory.
The findings conclude that Hotel Viru is a monument that transforms subjective
memories of the individual into collective memory, and mediates between abstract
historical processes and particular memories arising from individual experience.