The phrase “Paradise is a promise as well as a memory” comes from Joseph Rykwert’s architectural history book ‘On Adam’s House in Paradise’, where it appears as part of his exploration of the “primitive hut” as an imagined origin point for architecture. Rykwert was interested in the way people have repeatedly imagined an ideal first dwelling, not just as something lost in the distant past, but as a model for what human shelter and society might still become.
The phrase has also been used in Letchworth Garden City, where artist Bettina Furnée incorporated it into her 2003 public artwork Paradise Is, commissioned for the centenary of the original Garden City. And here, across three photos, is this rather pleasant and slightly quirky signage.
