Monument Implicit: An Archive for Spike Island Part 1 Project 2020 Cian Horan University College Cork | Ireland The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and Origin, written in 1903 by Austrian art-historian and philosopher Aloïs Riegl, outlines competing values to be considered when approaching the preservation and/or conservation of historic structures. It is the critical text in informing the design thesis, which is to explore how Riegl’s concept of the monument can be made manifest in the rhetoric, program and tectonics of a new archive and library situated on Spike Island.Riegl defines the monument as an artefact that retains in itself, intentionally or unintentionally, an element of the past. The archive/library is situated within the monument of a disused military barracks and prison structure within Fort Mitchel. Inscribed on the patina of the structure are the wounds of entropy, expressing its deep mnemonic connection to the complex history of the island. The intervention aims to restore a sense of wholeness, stitching structure into ruined walls but retaining a feeling of incompleteness. The design aspires to materialise implicit concepts of memory within the tectonics of the explicit storage of mnemonic artefacts.“Objects are analogues of memory, and as humans, we tend to translate our memories into objects in the hope that we can prolong memory.” Adrian Forty Tutor(s) Joseph Mackey John McLaughlin