Hey all,
Sorry for the lack of general contact, been busy working in order to fund my site travels in the upcoming week...
However since finishing the pavilion... for the time being. I have been looking into a variety of locations, although have been confining myself towards Germany, a preferential choice based on prior and enjoyable experiences.
I have looked into many of Germany's cities, but have settled upon concentrating my efforts on Cologne, Frankfurt and mostly Munich. Three different-ish cities, riddled with a variety of styles; historic and contemporary, as well as their playful masterplans, and scales (particularly with the variety of cathedrals distributed throughout the cities).
I haven't looked too much into specific sites as of yet, although my preference is more to city centre, as I have never really had much of an opportunity to develop a project enclosed by architecture, I have quite often gone for more 'secluded' sites, which was no different this year.
However with this said, I would still ideally like to go to my eventual chosen location with an open mind and try to absorb as much culture as I can whilst out there, and hopefully transform it into something usable.
So if you have any thoughts on these locations, or have any experiences to share (with in reason) or any suggestions to make, anything would be greatly appreciated and well used.
Of those, I only know Cologne (a bit), and Frankfurt (even less). IN Frankfurt, there's quite a bit going on along the river - and there's a great art school where lots of my friends studied - staedlschule - which also has a great museum and contemporary art gallery. The head of the school is an architect they also teach architecture there.
ReplyDeleteCologne is an altogether differnet place - well known for its Media/Film school and industry. The city is Roman in origin - the name meaning literally 'colony'. You've probably seen Zumthor's gallery next to the cathedral in the centre of town. You can now get a train there direct from St P, I think :-) And perhaps also to FFurt.
I don't know Munich at all.
Have a scout around on google, and see what you can find.
FFurt is known to be a 'boring' city - and Cologne more known for nightlife / gay scene, etc. In many ways C is a classic central European city with charcteristic rings of development around a Roman core, spreading out into 19th C tenement block suburbs, etc. Also as far as I remember, also the same 'ring-gap' you often find in the place of what was once a city wall.
s.
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DeleteOver the last few days I have rather extensively looked into Munich, and as a result am leaning towards locating my CDP there. Upon investigation I have learn't that the city is the capital of Bavaria and has also been said to be the centre of the European Union (geographically). It is flourishing economically, mostly technologically (the main reason alot of companies are locating themselves here i.e. Siemens new-ish headquarters) as well as industries bio-sciences, aerodynamics, etc , and not to mention its ever increasing popularity as a tourist destination. The city is laced with many traditional buildings, baroque, neo-classcial, gothic, romanesque etc, alot of which are often being restored, or extended depending on the demands of the city; as well as contemporary developments which are often slotted into the city landscape. Not to mention its culture traditions that bring in the tourists, for example Oktoberfest; although I haven't really looked into that too much, as I'm trying to steer clear of these Bavarian clichés.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of potential program, my initial thoughts are developing some sort of splice between culture and technology, my initial idea being a museum of nuclear science and disaster. This is as a response to Germany's plans to phase out nuclear power by 2022, with 8 having already been shut down permanently, this decision was as a result of the disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear power plant back in 2011. As well this looking at linking with current technology, with Germany being the forerunner of renewable energies, with Bavaria, as being previously mentioned, being the main state of development.
In terms of site I'm not too sure as of yet, I will probably look to map museums in Munich and try to link it to some sort of tourist type route maybe, if not try to connect it to the surrounding areas of technological development. So at this stage will either be quite central-ish or towards to outskirts of the city, where there is a bit more freedom.
However I could well be grasping at straws with this one, just need a fresh perspective on the matter. Thoughts?
Apologies if the above seems a rather incoherent rambling, with undoubtedly a few grammatical errors, but I was just trying to get everything out of my head.
Matt.
Museums for particular collections or themes are very hard to do without actually working with curators and/or the collection itself - so this would need a great deal of research, but not unworkable. Are you sure there is enough 'stuff' to justify a whole building? especially if after 2022, it will all be history. Would a 'Museum of Energy' be more sustainable - adapting its role as the cultural / technological debate moves on?
ReplyDeleteA Museum of Energy would definitely be more viable, particularly as it is an going debate throughout Europe, and the World. Although I would probably confine it more to the European Union, rather than the whole world; unless it is important to show the work of the entire planet?
ReplyDeleteOn top of this it could be a convention/Conference centre bringing together of the different disciplines to discuss the overall goal of energy production.
This would be quite a nice way of bringing together culture and technology together, as well as educating and informing the public of energy developments, something that affects most if not everyone, particularly throughout Europe.
My thoughts were, particularly with Nuclear Power Plants, to introduce culture rather than it just being dominated by culture/technology. For example perhaps exhibition space for urban photography or something... abandoned power plants, and obviously how that progress over the years etc, as well as wars over resources... maybe?! Rather than just the facts, how it actually affects people/culture. This is just an idea anyway.
Overall I think it could be great creating a broad variety of spaces for the different energy based technologies, creating different environments for each type 'exhibition' areas; bringing them all together in a continual architectural form of energy.