Hotel Viru as a monument: social space and memory

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.