Contested mythologies: The architectural deconstruction of a totalitarian culture

One question facing post-totalitarian countries such as Romania would appea r to be the extent to which the creation of a political theocracy is rooted in place or in persons, and the extent to which revision of this built env ironment can deconstruct this. This 'political spirituality' may, perhaps, be better described as a network of mythologies, some of which are contempo rary myths and memories created to explain or assimilate contemporary event s and some of which are more archaic or folkloric but reattached to new con texts of meaning. The 1996 architectural competition, the Bucuresti 2000, i n its attempt to reframe the urban and architectural interventions imposed by Ceausescu before his deposition, illuminates the complexity of this goal and the ways in which the entire competition process was informed by the h istories and mythologies of Bucharest--in particular, the reality and mytho logy of trauma.