28 February 2011

‘nother sixpack of bollards, please.

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Aesthetics of Survival ∕ Hardscape ∕ Miscellanea ∕ Urban Environment

modular gentrification kitfive sixpacks of bollards

… for traffic swamped Winskiez. By the looks of it, a new stretch of Hadrian’s wall is under construction. Ah, no, just the next installment of public space improvements on Winsstraße these days, presumably to link up with the exclusive condominiums of current development Wohnquartier on the corner of Jablonskistraße, a kind of Kollebelle light in aircrete and pvc by the same architect. By the looks of it, someone imported Kollebelle’s curved facade into Vectorworks with the wrong arc segmentation settings, though the architect says it’s a reference to the Japanese art of origami. Aha.

Kollebelle light: aircrete and PVC Parisian origami
Kollebelle origami facade by the man himself, Marc Kocher

This city really takes care of you. Phew, glad I am just inside this perimeter of respectibility and decorum, qualities directly proportional to the redundancy of bollards and pedestrian traffic lights in the ‘hood. Earlier that day the Ordnungsamt had saved me from unknowingly purchasing grilled salsiccie that a rogue organic butcher had tried to cook from a raw state at Kollwitzplatz market. He only had a license to grill cooked sausages. What people try to get away with! And I know how busy they have been in the trenches of the newly installed neigborhood parking in this area. So hats off to them. In fact, let’s dedicate these bollards as tiny monuments to the noble travails of our friends from the Ordnungsamt, scouring our sidewalks daily for first signs of decay and traffic indiscipline. Protect and serve. Things are looking up.

the edge of respectabilityGentrification bridgehead into unchartered territory