the culture of destruction

What are characteristics of these destroyed/rebuilt cities? Cities that have suffered a disaster, period of persecution, or an event of extreme devastation tend to be rich in a culture of music and art - if not before their destruction, this culture develops from the wreckage of their broken buildings.

In Dresden, Richard Peter published a photo book called Dresden - eine Kamera Klagt an (Dresden - a camera accuses). It is classified as one of Dresden's Dances of Death.


a photograph in Dresden - eine Kamera Klagt an by Richard Peter. image courtesy of www.praktica-collector.de.

Dresden's art, particularly of those who were alive during the city's bombing, has a stoic aura about it. War and the static economy remain in the minds of the artists.


artwork found on the wall of a club in Dresden, according to the band MK9. image courtesy of www.mk9.org.

Dresden was known for its porcelain China and its porcelain dolls. The craft carried past the war.


Dresden dolls. image courtesy treadywaygallery.com.

Much Dresden painting includes faceless figures interacting with light, darkness, and color rather than solid objects. Perhaps there is little faith in that which is physical.

Alles, was das Herz begehrt..." ("All that the heart desires...") by Eva-Maria Korsmeier. courtesy of dresden-art.de.


"Zwei Menschen im Licht und Shatten" ("Two persons in Light and Shadow") by Jutta Damme. courtesy of dresden-art.de.



In comparison to Dresden art, the art of Hiroshima also portrays figures in some sort of physically boundless environment, but in more detail outlines the gruesome physical details of the atomic effect on the human body.

"Melting Hand" by Takakura Nobuko.













"Charred Child" by Yamashita Masato.









"Hiroshima Horse" by Shimada Tsuruhiko.













"The Last Drink" by Ono Kiaki.









the above four images are all courtesy of art-for-a-change.com.



"Monument to the Victims of Hiroshima" by Arto Tchakmaktchian. image courtesy www.naregatsi.org.

This artwork is highly descriptive, unlike the mostly ambiguous Dresden art. Hiroshima's disaster seemed to be focused on the ability of the nuclear bomb to do things to the human body that were never expected.

The art of San Francisco surrounding the earthquake of 1906 focuses on the large scale of the destruction rather than the human scale; the levelling (from shaking and burning) of an entire city.


"San Francisco Fire, 1906" by Walter A. Coulter. image courtesy the California Dept. of Conservation.


(Some of the) stills from a film (called "1906," by Jeremy Blake) exploring the famous Winchester Mansion as affected by the 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy fiegencontemporary.com.


As we study New Orleans' struggle to (re)establish its identity, my next post will explore the culture of destruction as it exists in New Orleans.

sources:
www.dresden-art.com
"Dis/Continuities in Dresden's Dances of Death" by Christiane Hertel. The Art Bulletin.
Art Academy, Dresden. www.art-academy-gmbh.com/
Art-For-A-Change: the Nagasaki nightmare.
Feigen Contemporary.

recovery:Dresden

The last case study of a revived city is a study of Dresden. Dresden had a much longer and arduous recovery from being nearly leveled by World War II than did Hiroshima or San Francisco. It is believed that the firebombing of Dresden caused more than 10,000 deaths in one night. Bombing Dresden was part of a strategic effort on the part of the Allies to confront Germany from its eastern, Soviet front.


Dresden shortly after its bombing. image courtesy Wikipedia.com.

It had been a beautiful tourist destination for many Europeans for a hundred years, full of art museums and theaters. It was famous for its China.


images of the Dresden devastation as graphic as these were kept hidden from the public for decades. image courtesy bbc.co.uk.

How could Dresden regain identity as a tourist attraction, as a center for culture and art and music as it once had been? The answer, for many people, was in rebuilding certain monuments, such as the Frauenkirche, Zwinger, and the Semperoper. The problem was this: these landmarks were rebuilt to imitate as best they could their former selves; it seemed to many people like a forced and false way to pretend that the bombing had never occurred.

Dresden struggled to find its identity among its ashes. These monuments (particularly the Frauenkirche, which is still not fully restored) took a long time to rebuild, and by the time they were finished, people may have been expecting something "more spectacular."

The city began its rebuilding process through the new Socialist government's agenda: bland, socialist architecture to help the people break away from their history and nationalism. The historic buildings were rebuilt but it was over time and done by private organizations. What was laid was an infrastructure of research and industry for the Soviets. While Dresden fought to find and reestablish its identity, another land had seized control and turned it into what she wanted.

Another important fact to state is that residents of Dresden were not allowed to go to the west, while trains to the west from Prague and other countries went through Dresden. The city's populations lacked the ability to choose their own homes or destinations. The identity of post-war Dresden was defined by imprisonment and war itself. The reconstructions of those sacred landmarks almost made a mocking of current affairs around the citizens.



these dolls are famous from Dresden, made with special Dresden porcelain. image courtesy http://sonia.tululuka.net/en/travel/2004/dresden/_1577/.

design within reach

The best in modern design should be accessible to the public.

This is the founding idea of Design Within Reach, a group of people who love modern design. They define MODERN as based on two principles : utility and simplicity. The design team is enthusiastic about new ways of construction and the pioneering use of new materials. This design is available for home and office at www.dwr.com. And, it as easy to purchase online as it is in one of their Studios, which not only displays the furniture, but serves as a community center and often hosts design-related events.

sources : www.dwr.com

recovery:San Francisco

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Restoring the Culture of New Orleans - article by Andrés Duany

In this Metropolis Magazine article Andrés Duany speaks of the Caribbean way of life of New Orleans as a culture that would never be restored unless there is an uncomplicated system for building. He states that it should be a “process whereupon people can build simple, functional houses for themselves, either by themselves or by barter with professionals”.

http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=2510

VirAps (Virtual Apartment System)

VirAps hopes to allow for a new degree of customization in multifamily housing.
From: Jarmo Suominen

The VIRAPS-system is a database diven Web-based application allowing inhabitants to participate in the planning and design of their homes and immediate environments Flows of information and decision-making systems in the building process are relatively complex and involve a large number of players from politics, planning, financing and industry. The consumers have, until lately, had very little influence on the outcome of the process, mainly only when they've been a part of an experimental housing project. The consumers have, however, become more vocal in expressing their desires and construction companies are facing the problem of accommodating these wishes into the tight schedules of the existing building process. Furthermore, the further down the building process the changes occur, the more expensive they are for the consumer and the more pressure they put on communication within the process. Therefore the VIRAPS system has been constructed with two goals in mind: firstly to support decision-making process in the consumer end and secondly to facilitate reorganization and communication between the different companies in the building chain.
The VIRAPS-system is divided into to sections: a business-to-business section and consumer section. The business-to-customer side allows consumers make a number of choices concerning their future apartments based on the material presented on the VIRAPS Service www-pages. The VIRAPS databank gathers this material from the public sections of databanks of companies and institutions involved in the building process. From the professional point of view, the consumer becomes just another information producer within the whole building process. In the business-to-customer section choices can be made on three levels: 01.The Environment (city, area, neighborhood) 02.The Building (immediate environment, location in floor and plan, apartment size) and 03.The Apartment (organization, materials, finishes and fixtures). This division is supported by consumer studies on one hand and observations on the building chain on the other. On the professional side this division fits well with the building schedules, where certain windows of opportunity open at certain times. This is especially important in making the choices for apartment insides and possibly for the immediate environment. However, It is not enough to give consumers the freedom of choice and design. An apartment is a sum of technical, functional and aesthetic considerations. These considerations have to be met both to ensure immediate consumer satisfaction and resale value of an apartment. Therefore consumers need quite extensive support to bring their everyday experience of living in an apartment to a level where it can be used to make informed choices about their future environment. The consumer choices are fed back into the professional branch, where it will be used for two purposes. First, to design and build the kind of apartment the customer wants to buy or rent, and second to give general information of the customer preferences to the institutions (city planning) and companies participating in the system. This information helps the municipalities to target their planning and development efforts to better answer the needs of their citizens. It also allows the companies (such as developers of kitchen cabinet manufacturers) to adjust their production to the demand. The VIRAPS-system is built on using existing systems for the handling of CAD,GIS,text and pictorial information.

alternative materials: AshCrete

Image of micron-sized earth elements in AshCrete

Through my research in sustainability in architecture, I've become intrigued by the studies of Pliny Fisk. Fisk has made a significant contribution to the progression of sustainability in architecture and is pioneering new techniques and materials on this path. One material I have run across that he has coined as AshCrete, is an alternative material to Portland Cement. AshCrete is made of 97 percent recycled materials.


The discovery came about when Fisk mixed a couple spoonfuls of water into a teacup filled with fly ash from a coal fired power plant. The result was a material with the compressive strength twice that of Portland Cement. AshCrete is a mixture of fly ash, bottom ash from aluminum smelters, and a dash of citric acid, borate, and a chemical from the chlorine family (not mentioned)- which he is seeking a substitute for. One concern mentioned about the production of this material is the fine silicon inherent in the composite material, which poses no threat embedded in the concrete, but may cause respiratory disease if exposed to overtime in a factory. These concerns are ones that Fisk is attempting to resolve.
Replacing Portland Cement with AshCrete would reduce the overall carbon dioxide emissions, because the manufacture of concrete generates about 9 percent of CO2 emissions globally, and secondly it would reduce the waste stream of fly ash left over by coal-fired power plants .