The Architect of Remembrance

The dweller of a city may one day wonder: “Why does my city work so poorly? What can I do about it?” My function as an Architect of Remembrance is to agree that the city has, indeed, been degraded; to help the city dweller coming out of hypnosis to remember their function in the original city, if they choose; and to help restitch the forgotten strands of the original blueprint with the lessons of having survived the current city-in-shambles. The resulting fabric is the living architecture of the new city.

Everyone has an originary function, or tone, but this tone is obscured by the noise of what it means to be a modern human. Most are not here to remember, and there is nothing wrong with that. I write for those who already remember, hope to remember, or are on the cusp of doing so.

This new city is not utopic. It is neither separatist nor escapist. New-city dwellers still have emotions and desires. However, the new city does not hinge on the wide-scale hypnosis that generates so much agony in the current city-in-shambles. For the new-city dweller, to have remembered original function is to have found joy; even when difficult, the new-city dweller’s true function is not yet another job, “brand,” or personality.