Place is central to human existence. It is one of the means by which
we structure our lives. Place is often itself an event, a center of meaning.
Consider the following places: Ground Zero, the White House, the National
Mall, Tiananmen Square, and Auschwitz. These are not mere locales or
sites. They are not undifferentiated spaces. They are all dynamic places,
expressive aspects of cultures. In their unique ways, these places say
something about politics, pain, triumph, and loss. They are repositories of
memory, conveyors of rhetoric. The experience of being in these places is
very different from the experience of being elsewhere.