Studio: P3a AL / Academie van Bouwkunst / Tutor: Edwin Gardner (Monnik)
How can instead of the believe in progress,
notions of tragedy and dealing with limitations
inspire architecture?
CASTLE ALMERE
— Landscape, Ruin and Spolia
A design and research studio by monnik, and part of the Still City Project.
— THE STUDIO —
introduction
— LANDSCAPE —
our relation to nature
This studio is a combination of theoretical reflection and
designing. It combines a concrete design challenge with
raising questions about our society at large. Especially how
we as humans relate to the idea of progress and our
contemporary surroundings. The concrete assignment is to
reinterpret and reuse the Castle Almere building and
surrounding estate. To approach this assignment the studio
offers three lenses: Landscape, Ruin and Spolia. These will
be introduced through the introductory lecture,
discussions, modest readings and popular culture.
— CASTLE ALMERE —
the location
Castle Almere is an unfinished and abandoned castle build
in Almere that has become a ‘modern’ ruin. It had to
become a place for weddings and other large events, after
the project went bankrupt, and the municipality refused to
finish it, it stands there in a feral landscape waiting... but
for what?
As an object Castle Almere raises some interesting
questions. It is a symbol of mankind’s hubris and failure,
real estate speculations and the believe we can create any
experience anywhere. It undermines ideas of authenticity
and history. The castle is an anachronistic object that tries
to suggest historical origins that go back a thousand years
to a place that is less than thirty years old.
Villa Rotunda, Andrea Palladio
Landscape as a consideration of design is deeply connected
to the idea that mankind places itself outside nature.
Nature is the outside, and culture the inside world. Also the
idea that the essence of architecture is shelter, to erect
walls and a roof is directly related to this. “A room with a
view” But what happens if we question these classical
notions.
“If we view buildings as shelter, inevitably they become immovable
barriers seperating us from the environment, but if we think of
buildings as new environments, perhaps we can find alternative ways
for them to endure.”
- Junya Ishigami, Another Scale of Architecture
— RUIN —
about the tragic, sublime and the end of the world
What to do with this ruin, one cannot simply put a new
function in the space. It can be finished or demolished, reappropriated, disassembled and reconfigured. But how? and
what for? How is it to be related embedded in the
landscape? What does the ruin evoke? How can we think
about reuse and recycling that is culturally significant, and
not just a technical challenge?
I Am Legend (2007), starring Will Smith
in post-apocalyptic New York
In recent years, the end of the world seems to be an
increasingly popular theme in cinema and TV series. In a
time of economic crises and looming doomsday scenario’s;
the depletion of natural resources, climate change and
robotization, just to name a few, we unconsciously believe
that the world we live in is truly unsustainable an must end,
one way or another. But the fascination with decay and
ruination is not new, it has a long history in art and
architecture.
Today urban-explorers are flocking to shrinking
cities and depopulated villages to roam abandoned factories
and empty building, snapping pictures and sharing them in
online communities. What is the role of the ruin today? Is it
still a memento mori, or has it become something else?
— SPOLIA —
reuse, reinterpret and re-appropriate
Doris Salcedo, Untitled (Armoire), 1992
Notions such as recycling, the circular economy, cradle 2
cradle are becoming increasingly prominent in design
discourse, and with the depletion of the earth's resource so
is the urgency of this topic. The dominant narratives about
reuse revolve around efficient use and planning of material
and space, repurposing existing constructions or objects,
limiting waste, and modular and flexible systems. Besides
this argumentation, reuse is also associated with a
particular aesthetics, usually an aesthetics that sends the
message of that one cares about the environment, is an
ethical consumer and/or likes authentic objects (i.e. second
hand objects, patina, wabi sabi, etc).
We’ll use the old notion of Spolia as a starting point to
reconsider ideas about recycling. As a lens spolia lets us look
at reuse in a new way.
“As a label, spolia is both metaphorical and anachronistic. A Latin
word meaning“spoils” or anything “stripped” from someone or
something,“spolia” was coined as a term for reused antiquities by
artist-antiquarians active in Rome around 1500.”
- Dale Kinney, The Concept of Spolia (2006)
In the middle ages, roman temples or fortification were used
as mines for resources to build new building, since it was
easier to get the pre-carved stones from the ruins, than to
quarry new ones. But with this practice also intriguing
cultural practices came along. For instance if you wanted to
use a stone in a church, but it had a pagan statue on it, it
had to be placed sideways, so its spiritual powers would be
exorcised.
Perhaps spolia can offer us new ways of thinking
about reuse and recycling.
—PROGRAM—
Week 1 — Introduction Studio and Themes
Week 2 — Worksession inspiration/fascination
Week 3 — First concepts and site analysis
Week 4 — Final concept and design direction presentation
Week 5 — Worksession design
Week 6 — Worksession design
Week 7 — Worksession fine-tuning / final meeting
Week 8 — Final Presentation
—TO BE DETERMINED—
- Lecture by Prof. Lex Bosman, UVA. Architectural
historian and expert on Spolia
- Visit to the Monumentenwerf Amsterdam, here historical
building materials are stored for use in renovation of
historical monuments
- Visit to Van Ganzewinkel. One of the biggest waste
processing companies in the Netherlands
- Screening of Jim Jarmush’s film Dead Man