Set up by the Service for Sites and Monuments of Luxembourg within the framework of the campaign of the Council of Europe "Europe, a common heritage", "Places of memory and future for Luxembourg" is a cultural route through 2000 years of history.

This route enabled the rediscovery of the cultural heritage of the country's twelve cantons, each one illustrating a period or a topic representative of the strong aspects of Luxembourg identity.

a diversified heritage

In each place of memory and future a monument evoking the selected topic was erected during the year 2000. The route covers a great number of the areas of cultural, scientific and natural heritage and wants to be carrying a memory that explains and allows for comparisons, that invites reflection and opens future prospects. Land of passages, exchanges, divisions, Luxembourg knew how to preserve the traces of what simply passed and of what remained, becoming a real place of cultural confluence.

From life in the Middle Ages to the new technologies, passing through the "lëtzebuergesch" or the religious heritage, this route approaches many components of an identity that has been nourished for more than 2000 years by multiple influences. It invites to live and relive, through a voyage in time and space, the great flows of history that have always made of Luxembourg a country rich in culture and future prospects.

This route recovers many aspects of interest for the European Institute of the Cultural Routes. Indeed, far from sticking to a purely patrimonial design of the places of memory, the National Service for Sites and Monuments knew how to accommodate various components of national memory and more largely a memory that exceeds its borders.

a diversity of approaches

Entire historical periods are evoked as places of memory from the traces left in the Luxembourg memory and identity. It is the case of the 1798 peasant revolt, known to all Luxembourgers under the name of "Klëppelkrich" or the clubs war, which is perceived as the first effort towards the independence of Luxembourg, a country often coveted and occupied (canton of Clervaux); of the Middle Ages, which left a number of castles strongly marking the Luxembourg landscape (canton of Vianden); of the Second World War, which deeply and painfully marked the Luxembourg collective memory, the country having been invaded and annexed to the Reich in spite of its neutrality (canton of Diekirch) or more recently the case of the construction of Europe, a history which continues to be lived and which is celebrated in Schengen (canton of Remich), where the agreements of the same name were signed to give freedom of movement to people and to start abolishing certain physical borders.

The route also sticks to the various architectural styles existing in Luxembourg, to their interactions and external contributions. It is concerned with religious heritage (canton of Capellen, where the church of Koerich constitutes a sanctuary where architecture, sculpture and painting complement each other harmoniously and which is strongly marked by the ideals of Baroque art or with rural heritage (canton of Redange). The route is also interested in the industrial heritage (canton of Esch/Alzette) and it approaches the stratification of the town of Echternach, which presents a unique architectural panorama.

Of course, the fortified military architecture of Luxembourg finds room in this route; it gave rise to two cultural and tourist routes: the Vauban route and the Wenzel route.

But the route "Places of memory and future for Luxembourg" does not take into account other less material places of memory such as the language of Luxembourg, a first order component of national identity (canton of Mersch), technological developments (at the castle of Betzdorf where the ASTRA satellites are developed and where the headquarters of the European Satellites Company are located, canton of Grevenmacher), or natural landscape (canton of Wiltz), the concept of landscape having won in these past years its place in the field of heritage.

These places of memory are not univocal, they do not treat only one single memory but rather memories that intersect and sometimes cross each other. Some evoke several memories, such as for example Esch/Alzette which, in addition to industrial memory (which accounts for the paramount role of iron and steel industry in the economic and social evolution of the Grand-Duchy), is a place carrying two other equally significant memories: social memory of the mines and the memory of migrations.

Even if these places of memory and future are treated within a national dimension, they do not find lesser echo beyond the country's borders.

For several years already, a partnership has been established between the town of Luxembourg and two towns in Romania in order to work and reflect together on the topic of fortified military architectures: those of the Middle Ages with the Wenzel route and the fortifications of Sibiu and those of the Vauban type with the town of Alba-Iulia. This type of partnership should in the long term expand to the twelve cantons of the country, all the approached topics being able to form the subject of a reflection in common with other "places of memory" in Europe.