For the 7^th edition of the Failed Architecture debate and talk show, on May 9 in De Verdieping/ TrouwAmsterdam, we had chosen a somewhat provocative title to evoke the discussion we wanted to have.  By naming it “Ruin Porn”, we wanted to take a step back from what we have done in previous editions – which is analyzing cases of architecture and built environment regarded as failures – and address the widespread fascination with ruination and decay in photography, urban analysis and other media. Apparently, we were not the only ones interested in this issue, looking at the large turn up it generated.

We had invited several guests to explore the different dimensions of this fascination.

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Waiting Hall, Michigan Train Station. By Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre ©Galerie Fontana Fortuna, Amsterdam

Talks and Q&A | Wednesday May 9 | 20:00h | English | 5 euro

With a.o.: Hans Aarsman (photodetective), Rob Funcken (photgrapher), Kim Bouvy (artist) and Jarrik Ouburg (architect). Hosts: Michiel van Iersel, Mark Minkjan and Tim Verlaan (Failed Architecture)

In previous editions of Failed Architecture, we have primarily looked at the why, how and when of failed architecture, trying to get a grasp of the various dimensions of failure and to understand according to whom certain buildings or built environments are malfunctioning. This time, we will try to figure out why many people like to see and talk about failed architecture and whether this influences the future of failed buildings.

Aestheticization of modern ruins is popular: we love romantic, wistful pictures with perfect compositions and dramatic light, beautifying decay and mortality. Over the past years, the number of so-called urban explorers has grown, visiting or breaking into derelict buildings. Just take a look at the infinite number of pictures of abandoned buildings, ruined factories and rundown train stations on Flickr and other websites and blogs. These ruinous structures seem to be much more to us than just piles of rubble.

Detroit is the primary example. The extreme case of decay, deindustrialization and poverty after a prosperous century has become the mainstream case of failure fixation and a popular subject in picture, writing and film. Where does this fascination come from? Why are we so preoccupied with failure in photography, urban analysis, literature and other media? And does this obsession help or obstruct attempts to restore urban ruins and learn from past failures? These and other questions will be answered.

Psychiatric Hospital Bloemendaal. By Rob Funcken.

We have invited several guests to discuss the beauty of failure with us:

Hans Aarsman is a photography journalist, photographer and writer. Aarsman will analyze forms of failure photography in order for us to understand the underlying motives of the photographer and the collective love for beautiful decay. 

Rob Funcken is a Brussels-based photographer, graphic designer and former urban explorer. He has been invited to talk about the act and glamour of urban exploring, and why so many people are intrigued by the act of urban exploring and the photography connected to it. 

Kim Bouvy is an artist working with photography and text, exploring the ways our urban environment is perceived and valued and how that again is being reflected in visual culture and architecture and urbanism. 

Jarrik Ouburg was trained as an architect at renowned offices in Switzerland, Japan, Belgium and The Netherlands, before he founded his own office in 2008. Starting in September 2012 he will be the new (parttime) head of the Architecture department at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture.

Location: De Verdieping / TrouwAmsterdam | Wibautstraat 127 | Facebook Event

Simultaneously with this edition of Failed Architecture, the solo exhibition “The Ruins of Detroit” of the renown Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre is programmed at Galerie Fontana Fortuna in Amsterdam.

Savamala streetscape, Belgrade

Failed Architecture is coming to Belgrade, from April 2 - 6, for a workshop focusing on the Savamala neighbourhood, in collaboration with KC Grad. Please join us for a week of urban exploring and co-creation.

The makeup and dynamics of our cities are continuously subject to changing demographics, market forces, political volatility, aesthetic preferences, technological advancements and other variables. Within cities, this creates differences between areas and neighbourhoods. Some areas are more popular than others for particular population groups, businesses and (hence) for flows of capital, causing a variety of local development paths and differing spatial articulations as a result of the aforementioned variables. Next to the changing makeup of the built environment, this can cause social frictions and morphing identities.

The local expression of urban dynamics will be the subject-matter of the first FA-mobile edition, which will take place in Belgrade, April 2-6. It is a cooperation with Grad (European centre for culture and debate) and will concern itself with the Savamala neighbourhood.

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Talks and Q&A | Wednesday November 23 | English | 3,50 Euro

In the sixth edition of Failed Architecture, we will focus on the more concrete, technical and practical failures of architecture. Which seemingly clever building technologies or materials have turned out to have unforeseen negative implications for the inhabitants, users, repairmen and janitors? Which types of buildings are more often subject to failure or usage problems? When can we speak of just unforeseen complications and when are architects or contractors to blame? Which cases are exemplary and what lessons can be learned for future architecture?

- Peter Luscuere will give a lecture titled ‘How buildings kill’, in which ten mechanisms that lead to irritation, sickness or even death will be discussed. Peter Luscuere is professor in Building Technology at Delft University of Technology, guest professor at Tianjin University, China and former director of engineering consultancy Royal Haskoning.

- Hielkje Zijlstra will further zoom in on the night’s theme and elaborate on how buildings can get lost in urban space, hitherto resulting in a missing link between the former and the latter. Services and installations meant to make life in the built environment easier are more often than not obstacles for users and inhabitants instead of helpful devices. The TU Delft campus will serve as a case study in this lecture. Zijlstra is associate professor in Building Technology at Delft University of Technology. 

The evening will be hosted by Michiel van Iersel (De Verdieping). Tim Verlaan (UvA) and Mark Minkjan (independent researcher).



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This edition of Failed Architecture is part of a dual programme on concrete architectural failures. Next time we will focus on how inhabitants and users actually deal with their failed environments, exposing inventive ways of improving standardized apartment blocks and central service systems from a pan-European perspective.

Location: De Verdieping / TrouwAmsterdam | Facebook event

Detroit. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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Anthony Tung sees the preservation of our built environment as a struggle between competing interests, which has to be decided yet. In a detailed and extensive lecture the author (of Preserving the World’s Great Cities, 2001) and former New York City preservation commissioner elaborated on the importance of preservation, and the different approaches to heritage in Europe and the United States.

 

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25 Ridgmount Street, London

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When first seeing this photo (courtesy of Courtauld Institute of Art), I thought it was from somewhere former Soviet Union, or so. Finding out it was something called “Priory Green Estate”, a rather prestigiously titled housing area in Islington, UK, from the 1950’s (architect Berthold Lubetkin), made me instantly more curious about how Soviet it would look today. While this, was mainly due to my inclination for modernist endeavours (and tragedies), it was also related to the fact that I often feel lost-opportunities-sadness about the way many shining works of modernism are being repaired and decorated into something they never were, after their usually inescapable social and physical decline.

If you look at things this way, modern architecture and urban planning has been a major failure. It’s not lasting forever. Often, the most interesting or valuable aspects modernism, are impossible to preserve because the world has moved on. The planners of today are forced to try and balance the clarity of yesterday’s design and repair the sociological, tecnological, or ecological problems, often losing the best bits in the process. This is because the modern look, only works in the exact context it was planned. The ways you can appreciate its chic, are mostly academic and nostalgic and of acquired taste.

So, what had really happened. As it could be expected, the place had gone sour. Stuff broken, up to 100 drug needles collected from the grounds weekly, prostitution, stuff the architect Lubetkin probably didn’t have in mind. What happened to people supposingly living perfect modern lives? In 1999 the governance of the Priory Green Estate was transferred to UK’s oldest housing association Peabody. After this, things started to run differently. Very refreshing, to see something good still coming out of the old modern.

(photos via Peabody blog)

via mikasavela 

House of the Soviets, before its paint job

Architecture is the perfect means to an end for those in power to express their authority. A new architecture can symbolize the dawning of a new era. The symbolism of space and its relation to power plays a decisive role here, as may be exemplified by the 1969 deliberate destruction of the Königsberger Schloss in present day Kaliningrad, Russia.

Who thinks of Communists blowing up the remains of the past, will probably think of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow or the Berliner Stadtschloss. Most of these communist-destroyed symbols of the ancien regime are now being rebuild, or will be rebuild in the near future. The rebuilding plans are usually highly debated and publicized, not only in the city concerned, but also on a national and even international level.

However, in the Russian enclave Kaliningrad a historical gem comparable in size and splendour to the Berliner Schloss may well be rebuild within the next couple of years, without the usual international attention. Maybe the vague post-war status of Kaliningrad as a Russian enclave has turned the city into a blind spot on our mental maps. Up until the end of the Second World War Kaliningrad was known as Königsberg, capital of East Prussia and part of the German Reich. During the war the city was obliterated, mainly due to the Nazi’s stubbornness to give up fighting. When in April 1945 Berlin was already slowly falling into the hands of the Soviets, German troops were still fiercely defending Königsberg.

After the German surrender the vast ruins of the Schloss – of which construction began in 1255 – were one of the few points of recognition for the German inhabitants of Königsberg, who were soon expelled by the new Soviet rulers and replaced by Russians. Only in 1969 did party leader Leonid Brezhnev decide to demolish the remains of the ‘hornet’s nest of militarism and fascism’.

In its place came the twenty-story ‘House of the Soviets’, built as the party headquarters for the Kaliningrad Oblast. However, already during construction the building came to symbolize everything that was wrong with Communism. There were construction faults, the building process took too long and in the 1980s the Communist party lost its interest in the building, leaving a city and its citizens with an unfinished concrete eyesore. Everything that makes architecture potentially fail, failed here.

 
House of the Soviets, present day

While the building was painted for a visit by president Putin in 2005 (a modern version of a Potemkin façade), it is still an unused shell. Not for too long, if it is up to the Kaliningrad city council and especially Russian oligarchs willing to invest. There are plans to rebuild the old Schloss, albeit with some post-modernist additions to make the place interesting for commercial activities.

The nearby ‘Fishermen’s Village’ is an example of how the rebuild Königsberg may look like. The elderly German tourists, flocking to Kaliningrad since the downfall of Communism, will be more than happy with the Russian rebuilding efforts since the only present remains of the old Königsberg are sewage lids. Whether you hate or love the rebuilding plans, if you still want to take a glimpse at one of Europe’s most impressive examples of failed architecture, you should join the old Königsbergers, albeit with a different reason.

A note in a guest book left by an old Königsberger