Failed Architecture #7: Fascinated By Failure
For the 7th 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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Failed Architecture #2: Almere to Zagreb
Detroit. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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Failed Architecture #1: Preservation as a matter of urgency
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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London’s Worst Building
Making Amends, Priory Green Estate
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
