Creeping demolition by stealth

The PbCRC proposal to rework the Maze Prizon suggested by the board and their appointed architects Libeskind and Egret West risks a less than successful outcome due to the destruction of most of the site’s heritage and architectural form, resulting from what McAtackney calls a “Creeping demolition by stealth” (McAtackney 2014 p05). A process that has compromised the site’s authentic redevelopment and reflects the quiet process of creating a “deliberately neutral or forgetful landscape being forged elsewhere in the centre of Belfast ……in an effort to attract financial investment and tourism” (McDowell and Braniff 2014 p01). With so much purposeful removal of memory and meaning, it is hard to imagine that a legitimate architectural intervention can help record and articulate the conflict’s narrative successfully as a means to peacebuilding. More