Let Heritage Die!
The Ruins of Trams at Depot No. 5 in Wroc?aw, Poland
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v1i2.18438Keywords:
heritage, memory, materiality, archaeology of the contemporary past, modern ruinsAbstract
This paper is a case study of the trams now kept at Depot No. 5 at Legnicka 65 in Wroc?aw, Poland. The site provides a context for exploring two core issues around archaeological approaches to the contemporary past. The first is how materiality and immateriality are deeply interwoven in the context of modern heritage sites, with the overlap providing the grounds for discussion on the material theology of modern ruins. The second is the consequences of seeing modern ruins as heritage sites worth preserving for future generations. The conclusion of this paper is that if heritage is to be saved, it should be saved first of all from its saviours.
References
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____. and G. Lucas., eds. 2001. Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past. London: Routledge.
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____. 2009. “Garbage or Heritage: The Existential Dimension of a Car Cemetery.” In Contemporary Archaeologies—Excavating Now, edited by C. Holtorf and A. Piccini, 133–135. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Cahir. 2008. “Opis Zajezdni Tramwajowej Numer 5 we Wroc?awiu.” Available online: http://dolny-slask.org.pl/503321,Opis_zajezdni_tramwajowej_numer_5_we_Wroclawiu.html
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DeSilvey, C. 2012. “Reckoning with Ruins.” Progress in Human Geography 37: 465–485. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309132512462271
____. 2014. “Palliative Curation: Art and Entropy on Orford Ness.” In Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past, edited by Bjørnar Olsen and Þóra Pétursdóttir, 79–91. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Edensor, T. 2005. Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality. Oxford: Berg.
Fowles, S. 2010. “People without Things.” In The Anthropology of Absence: Materialisations of Transcendence and Loss, edited by M. Bille and F. Hastrup, 23–41. New York: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5529-6_2
González-Ruibal, A. 2007. “Making Things Public: Archaeologies of the Spanish Civil War.” Public Archaeology 6(4): 203–226. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/175355307X264165
____. 2008. “Time to Destroy: An Archaeology of Supermodernity.” Current Anthropology 49(2): 247–279. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/526099
____. 2012. “From the Battlefield to the Labour Camp: Archaeology of Civil War and Dictatorship in Spain.” Antiquity 86(332): 456–473.
____. ed. 2013. Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Harrison, R. 2011. “Surface Assemblages. Towards an Archaeology in and of the Present.” Archaeological Dialogues 18(2): 141–161. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1380203811000195
____. 2013. Heritage: Critical Approaches. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
____. and J. Schofield, eds. 2009. “Archaeo-Ethography, Auto-Archaeology: Introducing Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past.” Archaeologies 5(2): 185–360. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11759-009-9100-5
____. and J. Schofield. 2010. After Modernity: Archaeological Approaches to the Contemporary Past. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Holtorf, C. 2001. “Is the Past a Non-Renewable Resource?” In Destruction and Conservation of Cultural Property, edited by R. Layton, P. G. Stone and J. Thomas, 286–294. London: Routledge.
____. 2007. Archaeology is a Brand! The Meaning of Archaeology in Contemporary Popular Culture. Oxford: Archaeopress.
____. and A. Piccini, eds. 2009. Contemporary Archaeologies—Excavating Now. Peter Lang: Frankfurt am Main.
Jerczyn?ski, M. 2001. “Z wizyt? w Muzeum Komunikacji Miejskiej we Wroc?awiu.” S?wiat Kolei 3: 38–39. Available online http://www.kolej.one.pl/_fervojoj/BIBLIO/OGOLNE/TRAMWAJE/MUZEUM.HTM
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____., K. Kajda and M. Fr?ckowiak. 2014. “Night of the Living Dead: Modern Ruins and Archaeology.” Archaeolog. Available online: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/archaeology/cgi-bin/archaeolog/?p=497
Korzeniowski, J. 1995. Kalendarz Wroc?awski 1996. Available online: http://komunikacja.we.wroclawiu.net/muzeum.html
Lewandowski, K. and B. Molecki, eds. 2006. Tramwaje we Wroc?awiu 1877–2006. Wroc?aw: Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Wroc?awskiej.
Lowenthal, D. 1996. The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. London: Viking.
Maciejewski, J. 2004. O Wroc?awskich Tramwajach. Wroc?aw: Oficyna Wydawnicza SUDETY.
Meskell, L. 2002. “Negative Heritage and Past Mastering in Archaeology.” Anthropological Quarterly 75(3): 57–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/anq.2002.0050
Mire, S. 2007. “Preserving Knowledge, Not Objects: A Somali Perspective for Heritage Management and Archaeological Research.” African Archaeological Review 24(3–4): 49–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10437-007-9016-7
Olivier, L. 2001. “The Archaeology of the Contemporary Past.” In Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past, edited by V. Buchli and G. Lucas, 175–188. London: Routledge.
____. 2003. “The Past of the Present. Archaeological Memory and Time.” Archaeological Dialogues 10: 204–213. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1380203804001254
____. 2013. “The Business of Archaeology is in the Present.” In Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity, edited by A. González-Ruibal, 117–129. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Olsen, B. 2003. “Material Culture after Text: Re-membering Things.” Norwegian Archaeological Review 36(2): 87–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293650310000650
____. 2007. “Keeping Things at Arm’s Length: A Genealogy of Asymmetry.” World Archaeology 39(4): 579–588. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438240701679643
____. 2010. In Defence of Things: Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.
____., M. Shanks, W. Webmoor and C. L. Witmore. 2012. Archaeology: The Discipline of Things. Berkeley: University of California Press.
____. and Þ. Pétursdóttir, eds. 2014. Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Pétursdóttir, Þ. 2012. “Concrete Matters: Ruins of Modernity and the Things called Heritage.” Journal of Social Archaeology 13(1): 31–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1469605312456342
____. and Olsen, B. 2014. Imaging Modern Decay: The Aesthetics of Ruin Photography. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 1(1): 7-23.
Poulios, I. 2010. “Moving Beyond a ‘Values-based Approach’ to Heritage Conservation.” Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 12(2): 170–185. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/175355210X12792909186539
Rico, T. 2014. “The Limits of a ‘Heritage at Risk’ Framework: The Construction of Post-Disaster Cultural Heritage in Banda Aceh, Indonesia”. Journal of Social Archaeology 14(2): 157–176. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1469605314527192
Schofield, J. 2005. Combat Archaeology: Material Culture and Modern Conflict. London: Duckworth.
Shanks, M. 1998. “The Life of an Artefact in an Interpretive Archaeology.” Fennoscandia Archaeologica 15: 15–30.
____. 2007. “Symmetrical Archaeology.” World Archaeology 39(4): 589–596. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438240701679676
____. and M. Pearson. 2001. Theatre/Archaeology: Disciplinary Dialogues. London: Routledge.
Simmel, G. 1958 [1911]. “The Ruins.” Translated by D. Kettler. The Hudson Review 11(3): 379–385.
Solli, B. 2011. “Some Reflections on Heritage and Archaeology in the Anthropocene.” Norwegian Archaeological Review 44(1): 40–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2011.572677
Torz, M. 2013. “Cmentarzysko Tramwajów we Wroc?awiu. Zobacz jak Niszczej? Zabytki.” Gazeta Wroc?awska. 18 April. Available online: http://www.gazetawroclawska.pl/artykul/872263,cmentarzysko-tramwajow-we-wroclawiu-zobacz-jak-niszczeja,1,4,id,t,sm,sg.html#galeria-material
Trigger, B. 2006. A History of Archaeological Thought (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813016
Webmoor, T. 2007. “What About ‘One More Turn after the Social’ in Archaeological Reasoning? Taking Things Seriously.” World Archaeology 39(4): 547–562. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438240701679619
____. and C. L. Witmore. 2008. “Things are Us! A Commentary on Human/Things Relations under the Banner of a ‘Social’ Archaeology.” Norwegian Archaeological Review 41(1): 53–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293650701698423
Witmore, C. forthcoming. “A Politics of the Past Present: Four Quandaries for Archaeology.” In Fragmenting Archaeology, or Taking a Leaf Out of Shanks and Tilley’s Book, edited by J. Dixon. Oxford: BAR Press. Available online: http://humanitieslab.stanford.edu/ChristopherWitmore/48
Žižek, S. 1989. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
____. 2001. The Fright of Real Tears, Kieslowski and the Future. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
____. 2012. Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism. London: Verso.
Buchli, V. 2013. An Anthropology of Architeture. Oxford: Berg.
____. and G. Lucas., eds. 2001. Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past. London: Routledge.
Burström, M. 2008. “Looking into the Recent Past. Extending and Exploring the Field of Archaeology.” Current Swedish Archaeology 16: 21–36.
____. 2009. “Garbage or Heritage: The Existential Dimension of a Car Cemetery.” In Contemporary Archaeologies—Excavating Now, edited by C. Holtorf and A. Piccini, 133–135. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Cahir. 2008. “Opis Zajezdni Tramwajowej Numer 5 we Wroc?awiu.” Available online: http://dolny-slask.org.pl/503321,Opis_zajezdni_tramwajowej_numer_5_we_Wroclawiu.html
Chilton, E. S. 2012. “The Archaeology of Immateriality.” Archaeologies 8(3): 225–235. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11759-012-9215-y
Dawdy, S. 2010. “Clockpunk Anthropology and the Ruins of Modernity.” Current Anthropology 51(6): 761–793. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/657626
DeSilvey, C. 2012. “Reckoning with Ruins.” Progress in Human Geography 37: 465–485. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309132512462271
____. 2014. “Palliative Curation: Art and Entropy on Orford Ness.” In Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past, edited by Bjørnar Olsen and Þóra Pétursdóttir, 79–91. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Edensor, T. 2005. Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality. Oxford: Berg.
Fowles, S. 2010. “People without Things.” In The Anthropology of Absence: Materialisations of Transcendence and Loss, edited by M. Bille and F. Hastrup, 23–41. New York: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5529-6_2
González-Ruibal, A. 2007. “Making Things Public: Archaeologies of the Spanish Civil War.” Public Archaeology 6(4): 203–226. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/175355307X264165
____. 2008. “Time to Destroy: An Archaeology of Supermodernity.” Current Anthropology 49(2): 247–279. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/526099
____. 2012. “From the Battlefield to the Labour Camp: Archaeology of Civil War and Dictatorship in Spain.” Antiquity 86(332): 456–473.
____. ed. 2013. Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Harrison, R. 2011. “Surface Assemblages. Towards an Archaeology in and of the Present.” Archaeological Dialogues 18(2): 141–161. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1380203811000195
____. 2013. Heritage: Critical Approaches. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
____. and J. Schofield, eds. 2009. “Archaeo-Ethography, Auto-Archaeology: Introducing Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past.” Archaeologies 5(2): 185–360. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11759-009-9100-5
____. and J. Schofield. 2010. After Modernity: Archaeological Approaches to the Contemporary Past. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hegel, G. W. F. 1981 [1837]. Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Translated by H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Holtorf, C. 2001. “Is the Past a Non-Renewable Resource?” In Destruction and Conservation of Cultural Property, edited by R. Layton, P. G. Stone and J. Thomas, 286–294. London: Routledge.
____. 2007. Archaeology is a Brand! The Meaning of Archaeology in Contemporary Popular Culture. Oxford: Archaeopress.
____. and A. Piccini, eds. 2009. Contemporary Archaeologies—Excavating Now. Peter Lang: Frankfurt am Main.
Jerczyn?ski, M. 2001. “Z wizyt? w Muzeum Komunikacji Miejskiej we Wroc?awiu.” S?wiat Kolei 3: 38–39. Available online http://www.kolej.one.pl/_fervojoj/BIBLIO/OGOLNE/TRAMWAJE/MUZEUM.HTM
Kobia?ka, D. 2013. “A World in Decay?—A case of Tram Cemetery in Wroc?aw (Poland).” Archaeolog. Available online: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/archaeology/cgi-bin/archaeolog/?p=455
____., K. Kajda and M. Fr?ckowiak. 2014. “Night of the Living Dead: Modern Ruins and Archaeology.” Archaeolog. Available online: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/archaeology/cgi-bin/archaeolog/?p=497
Korzeniowski, J. 1995. Kalendarz Wroc?awski 1996. Available online: http://komunikacja.we.wroclawiu.net/muzeum.html
Lewandowski, K. and B. Molecki, eds. 2006. Tramwaje we Wroc?awiu 1877–2006. Wroc?aw: Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Wroc?awskiej.
Lowenthal, D. 1996. The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. London: Viking.
Maciejewski, J. 2004. O Wroc?awskich Tramwajach. Wroc?aw: Oficyna Wydawnicza SUDETY.
Meskell, L. 2002. “Negative Heritage and Past Mastering in Archaeology.” Anthropological Quarterly 75(3): 57–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/anq.2002.0050
Mire, S. 2007. “Preserving Knowledge, Not Objects: A Somali Perspective for Heritage Management and Archaeological Research.” African Archaeological Review 24(3–4): 49–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10437-007-9016-7
Olivier, L. 2001. “The Archaeology of the Contemporary Past.” In Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past, edited by V. Buchli and G. Lucas, 175–188. London: Routledge.
____. 2003. “The Past of the Present. Archaeological Memory and Time.” Archaeological Dialogues 10: 204–213. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1380203804001254
____. 2013. “The Business of Archaeology is in the Present.” In Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity, edited by A. González-Ruibal, 117–129. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Olsen, B. 2003. “Material Culture after Text: Re-membering Things.” Norwegian Archaeological Review 36(2): 87–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293650310000650
____. 2007. “Keeping Things at Arm’s Length: A Genealogy of Asymmetry.” World Archaeology 39(4): 579–588. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438240701679643
____. 2010. In Defence of Things: Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.
____., M. Shanks, W. Webmoor and C. L. Witmore. 2012. Archaeology: The Discipline of Things. Berkeley: University of California Press.
____. and Þ. Pétursdóttir, eds. 2014. Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Pétursdóttir, Þ. 2012. “Concrete Matters: Ruins of Modernity and the Things called Heritage.” Journal of Social Archaeology 13(1): 31–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1469605312456342
____. and Olsen, B. 2014. Imaging Modern Decay: The Aesthetics of Ruin Photography. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 1(1): 7-23.
Poulios, I. 2010. “Moving Beyond a ‘Values-based Approach’ to Heritage Conservation.” Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 12(2): 170–185. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/175355210X12792909186539
Rico, T. 2014. “The Limits of a ‘Heritage at Risk’ Framework: The Construction of Post-Disaster Cultural Heritage in Banda Aceh, Indonesia”. Journal of Social Archaeology 14(2): 157–176. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1469605314527192
Schofield, J. 2005. Combat Archaeology: Material Culture and Modern Conflict. London: Duckworth.
Shanks, M. 1998. “The Life of an Artefact in an Interpretive Archaeology.” Fennoscandia Archaeologica 15: 15–30.
____. 2007. “Symmetrical Archaeology.” World Archaeology 39(4): 589–596. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438240701679676
____. and M. Pearson. 2001. Theatre/Archaeology: Disciplinary Dialogues. London: Routledge.
Simmel, G. 1958 [1911]. “The Ruins.” Translated by D. Kettler. The Hudson Review 11(3): 379–385.
Solli, B. 2011. “Some Reflections on Heritage and Archaeology in the Anthropocene.” Norwegian Archaeological Review 44(1): 40–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2011.572677
Torz, M. 2013. “Cmentarzysko Tramwajów we Wroc?awiu. Zobacz jak Niszczej? Zabytki.” Gazeta Wroc?awska. 18 April. Available online: http://www.gazetawroclawska.pl/artykul/872263,cmentarzysko-tramwajow-we-wroclawiu-zobacz-jak-niszczeja,1,4,id,t,sm,sg.html#galeria-material
Trigger, B. 2006. A History of Archaeological Thought (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813016
Webmoor, T. 2007. “What About ‘One More Turn after the Social’ in Archaeological Reasoning? Taking Things Seriously.” World Archaeology 39(4): 547–562. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438240701679619
____. and C. L. Witmore. 2008. “Things are Us! A Commentary on Human/Things Relations under the Banner of a ‘Social’ Archaeology.” Norwegian Archaeological Review 41(1): 53–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293650701698423
Witmore, C. forthcoming. “A Politics of the Past Present: Four Quandaries for Archaeology.” In Fragmenting Archaeology, or Taking a Leaf Out of Shanks and Tilley’s Book, edited by J. Dixon. Oxford: BAR Press. Available online: http://humanitieslab.stanford.edu/ChristopherWitmore/48
Žižek, S. 1989. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
____. 2001. The Fright of Real Tears, Kieslowski and the Future. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
____. 2012. Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism. London: Verso.
Published
2015-02-03
Issue
Section
Research Article
How to Cite
Kobiałka, D. (2015). Let Heritage Die! The Ruins of Trams at Depot No. 5 in Wroc?aw, Poland. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 1(2), 351-368. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v1i2.18438
