Not a typo, but a new-ish term! According to nonument.org, which maintains an online database, nonuments are “twentieth-century architecture, monuments, public spaces and infrastructural projects that have lost or undergone a shift in symbolic meaning as a consequence of political and social changes.” In essence, it is a call to redefine what constitutes a monument, bringing different perspectives to architecture or other works that were originally created to symbolize one historical narrative.

The term “nonument” is relatively new and evolving, but a brief survey indicates that it is a broad term that can refer to works that have been destroyed, works that have fallen into ruin, works which have been forgotten, works that have been repurposed with new meaning or works for which plans were created but never implemented. At the 2026 Venice Biennale, Slovenia will be represented by the Nonument Group, a research and art collective, which will feature a project with the working title of Discomfort of Memorialisation. The project will focus on the ruins of the first mosque on Slovenian territory, built during World War I in Log pod Mangartom. The creators will treat it as a nonument. According to the press release announcing the selection, the project will

open a broader reflection on religion, military infrastructures, ruins, and empires in the contemporary age of reparations, marked by a cosmopolitan ethic as a counterpoint to new colonial, nationalist, or expansionist attitudes.

The following are other examples of nonuments:

• In 1907 the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale (The Garden of Tropical Agriculture) just outside Paris was transformed into an exhibition of France’s colonial holdings and included a “human zoo” where people were imported to the park to live behind fences. Today the Garden is abandoned and in ruins, with overgrown tropical plants taking over the old pavilions, changing what was intended as a monument to France’s colonial empire into a ghostly symbol of its past.

• In Baltimore Maryland, the McKeldin Fountain was a Brutalist landmark that was created in the early 1980s as a centerpiece of the Inner Harbor redevelopment project and a symbol of the city’s rebirth. It was later demolished as an eyesore (a controversial action since some considered it an icon), but a high tech augmented reality app was created as a virtual memorial to the fountain. The app includes interviews with people sharing their memories.

• The Buzludzha Monument in central Bulgaria was inaugurated in 1981 to commemorate the founding of a group that was a precursor of the Bulgarian Communist Party. With the fall of communism in Bulgaria, all maintenance ceased. While no specific steps have been taken, there has been some preliminary planning. One idea is to create an interpretive center for Bulgarian history.

We will continue to highlight interesting redefinitions of what we traditionally refer to as monuments.