(The Pretense of Craft in Contemporary Construction, Part 1)

Decosterd and Rahm have a great reference to Nietzsche and his concept of a phsyiological art as part of the introduction to their book Physiological Architecture. Unfortunately, I don’t remember exactly what it is except that it was really hard to read (white print on white paper) and awesome, but trying to be more a blogger than an online magazine writer, I’m too lazy to look it up. Maybe you can look it up. Something about how an aesthetic experience can have a physiological effect on people. So perhaps for the only time in history, Decosterd and Rahm and Marc Kocher (Palais Kolorectalbelle, and the building below, etc.)  in one text. Carpe dieminis, or whatever.

I don’t want to end up a bitter man all alone, walking around with the eccentric shuffle of an orthodox Jew, whose bent frame and flapping arms serve the sole purpose of taxiing his brain from A to B, lamenting the decline of a once exciting city full of architectural potential. So I check my initial reaction, try an open mind. Yeah, maybe this is not so bad, he’s trying to loosen the strict Prussian window bands of Gründerzeit urban blocks. I want to have positive reactions to Berlin’s new buildings one is often too quick to bash.  But I can no longer ignore the feeling of nausea spreading to my limbs from my gut, and I know this wobbly building is doing it to me. I mean, if this is origami (the architect’s project inspiration according to his website), then this pile of orange polyester construction netting might as well be Macramé. If I were mean, I might speculate that the origami spiel conveniently masks the fact that the developer one day value engineered any Italianate and expensive to build curves away with the highest arc segmentation setting in FunCad when the financial crisis hit. I want to sneeze, or cry, or puke, just flush it out, this physiological effect of an architecture that my entire aesthetic apparatus wants to reject and eject and purge.

I have to check myself. I must be getting carried away, here. But it’s there, undeniably, a visceral reaction, a feeling of having ingested something bad with my eyes, a dead oyster, some shady street food, too much cake, the fumes of a burning tire.

By God, what are these drops on the underside of the window’s top molding? (excuse the phoney pics, but if you look closely) Are they a 21^st century aberration of Guttae?  Towards the window’s bottom, the unfinished application of acrylic render reveals blocks of extruded polystyrene. You’ve got to be kidding. If I remember correctly, guttae are stylistic vestiges of a time when Greek temples were still built of wood thousands of years ago. Guttae originally were wooden nails that fixed the timber roof to the wooden architrave. It’s amazing that this little, millennia-old tectonic detail that pertains to craft, to things made by skilled hands as an expression of an architecture of assembly, has found its way onto a building made of goo, poured, spackled and sprayed together of concrete and polymers, and entirely not assembled, let alone by craft.

How did it all get so muddled? The Greeks started it, I guess, emulating wooden nails in stone, but that’s ok, they did it for tradition, and I assume they knew that they once were wood. Not sure what happened in between then and now. But here we have it, a renaissance of the wooden nail, on thermoplastic buildings, a haphazard stylistic reference to something whose meaning is entirely lost, the architectural equivalent of an Arschfax (see below), Chinese characters haphazardly applied on someone’s lower back for looks. Guttae (Greek drops) articulated as droops seems a lot more appropriate for an architecture of pouring. Make them gooey drops next time, please, make me chuckle, a more pleaseant physiological reaction to architecture.

Arschfax (German ass facsimile,  often meaningless motifs applied as tattoo to someone’s lower back)

image courtesy: http://www.photofunblog.com/fashion/free-lower-back-tattoo-designs-for-women-2011-12/attachment/kanji-and-flower-free-lower-back-tattoo-collection/

There have been a handful of positive developments in the continuing campaign against the blandification of John Hejduk’s tower:

Firstly, BerlinHaus has updated its news page with an open letter* acknowledging the demand for a public discussion on the fate of the building.

Secondly, and more recently, word has reached us that renovation work has been halted following discussions between Matthias Peckskamp, director of Town Planning at the Senate Department for Urban Development, and Mr Lomb, architect in charge of the changes.

Thirdly, Petra Vellinga, director of the Berlin State Association of German Architects, has informed us that she has urged members to show their support via the petition. Both are very welcome signs, as it means that the city is really getting involved.

The petition, which has only been online for a week, has been growing at a staggering rate (nearly 400 signatures per day), and now reads like a Who’s Who list. Alongside some of the biggest names in contemporary international architecture, it has been particularly pleasing to observe growing support coming out of Berlin itself over the last 48 hours.

On the press front, city listings magazine Tip seem to be poised for an article, and net coverage has grown to include Blueprint, Design Observer (in the “Observed” sidebar), Baunetz, MoNa, Exportabel, B-like-Berlin.

Between posting campaign updates and attending to my day job, there has been little time to reflect more on the reasons why I think this is a cause worth supporting. I intend on coming back to this soon.

The Petition

* English translation:

Project development Charlottenstraße 96-97

As new owners of the building ensemble Charlottenstraße 96-97 in Berlin – Kreuzberg we are planning urgently necessary facade repairs.

After the completion of some initial works, we have received repeated requests to engage in a broader public discussion in respect to the design of the facades, and to consider the special characteristics of the building and its architecture.

We see ourselves as a responsible company, which does not only undertake refurbishment for the preservation and increase in property values, but acknowledge the interaction which takes place between such measures and their surroundings and site specific conditions.

Therefore we are glad to face up to the challenge of finding a broad design consent.

First discussions into how a promising inclusion of different interests groups of can be achieved, are currently taking place.

We are glad to continuously keep you informed about the current state of this process.

The BerlinHaus website. Datestamp: 20th March 2010

The cringingly twee pink awnings may no longer be on display, but the cringingly ignorant headline “Light Apartment in Bauhaus Style” is still there. What is it about property developers and their infantile clutching on to styles? “Italian-style”, “Paris-style”, “loft-style”: it can all be found here in Berlin. Can’t a building be described on its own terms? What is wrong with “Light Apartment in True Berlin Original”? Why does so much of marketing appear to be prescription stupidity?

In my article “Chi-chi la Hejduk” from Monday 15th I posted the renderings via the cautious method of linking to them directly, rather than ripping them. The result is big hole in my article, which I’ve left for posterity. Luckily though, Fanstastic Journal made a hard copy of one, and another arrived in my email inbox:

Expunged renderings. According to the developer, those purple awnings are blue.

The images may be gone, but one can only speculate about what it means for the building. Pressure though, is growing. The online petition has already gathered over 540 signatures since it went online on Thursday afternoon. It’s been interesting to see such names as Peter Eisenmann, Massimo Vignelli or Diller + Scofidio appear.

The list of concerned university faculty members is also impressive reading: the University of Texas School of Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design, Universität der Künste Berlin, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, and of course, Cooper Union, where Hejduk was Dean.

Base coat, or new hue?

Here’s a recap of events:

Renate Hejduk wrote to BerlinHaus in January expressing her concern over the images appearing on their website, showing new purple awnings. She encouraged BerlinHaus to work together with architects who appreciate the importance of her father’s work, underlining the importance of the grey/green colour sceme and her role as an architectural historian and head of the Estate of John Hejduk.

BerlinHaus replied that the new awnings will not be purple, but “light blue”, a change which they insisted had been cleared by the “Monument authority, the Architect’s chamber and the Bauhaus Archiv”. This is a thinly disguised and insulting dismissal: the monument authority have nothing to say on the matter since the building is not listed, and the Bauhaus Archive have no say in the matter because, as the name implies, they curate the archive of the Bauhaus, not the IBA. In an especially pathetic passage, BerlinHaus non-committingly suggest that they might even try to find out what significance the old colour sceme had, and why it might be considered better than their new one.

Matthias Reese of RLW Architekten has been busy pulling strings at the Berlin Association of German Architects, who are to hold their Spring Assembly on Sunday 21st. This resulted in the DAZ, the German Architecture Center, getting on board as well. Kristien Ring, director of the DAZ, informs us that an ‘extra newsletter’ will go out on Monday, addressing the issue to a wide group of architects and architecture interested public.

Florian Köhl of FAT KOEHL, has also been scurrying around the halls of Berlin’s district authorities trying to grab the attention of the Senate Department for Urban Development. Oddly enough, whilst at the Senate Department, he bumped into the architect acting as contractor to BerlinHaus, directly responsible for the mechanics of the renovation. Köhl already knew him from other building projects. Two-fold pressure was applied.

Köhl has also been prodding Blueprint Magazine into running the story. Meanwhile, Robert Slinger of Kapok has been coordination communications behind the scenes, and has been prodding Blueprint Magazine and other members of the UK press into running the story. Abitare, though, have been quicker off the mark.

One strand of the story which is particularly interesting is that of copyright. Renata Hejduk has stated that in the USA, her powers in such a case would be relatively limted. Withdrawing her father’s name from the building, and the removal of the building from architectural listings would be about everything possible. The case for copyright infringement in Germany seems to be stronger though. According to Luise King, Professor for urban development and settlement archeology at the Berlin Technical Universtiy, the building is protected by copyright for 70 years, in which time the Estate of Hejduk can and must be guaranteed a say in matters of profound structural change such as this.

The story is now running in a handful of other websites:

Sleek, Fantastic Journal, Atelier, Nicht winken!, Archinect, Urbanophil

Links to:
The Petition

The Facebook Group

Also good to see some further blog coverage at The Architect’s Newspaper Blog.

Robert has been very active over the last few of days in getting this story out into the world, and has something to offer to the discussion which few of us can match: he lived in the tower with his partner and children for several years. Rather than have his comment fester in the cellar, I’ve decided to post it here:

A former resident speaks.

I lived in the 8th/9th floor of the tower for 8 years. It was extraordinary. The light is absolutely fantastic (maybe not so in the first floor of the wings, but those flats have other qualities too, such as gardens). The plan of the tower is not your standard plan, but they were designed as artist’s studios and transferrred into social housing post facto when the DAAD programme which they were supposed to facilitate was stopped.

It’s a plan that makes demands of you; but gives and gives and gives, too. I lived there as one part of a couple, with one and then two kids, and the plan always adapted. Where else do you pay for 80 m2 and get two 36m2 rooms with light from four sides? This is difficult to understand from the severe exterior – but anyone who tells you these flats are dingy has just never been inside.
The fact that the previous owners went bankrupt had nothing to do with the building. I lived through their death rattles whilst there, and it was horrific. The rest of the time, they were merely dreadful.

Our Vormieter’s [previous tennant - Ed.] last words to me were, “Join the Mieterverien [a Berlin tenant’s organisation] – you’ll need it; and always refuse to pay the Betriebskostennachzahlung [suplimentary payments on running costs], as they will systematically try to rip you off”. Good advice. Had them in court once, and permanent trouble the rest of the time. You do not want to know the gory details, but we were not alone. They never did anything to maintain the property at all.

The owners were a nightmare all by themselves, and managed to devalue their entire portfolio without any help from the architecture – so don’t blame the building – it only suffered from long years of neglect.

I’ve uploaded a batch of photos to Flickr, covering the current state of renovation at Hejduk’s tower. All the photos are released under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons licence.

See, download, remix and share: Hejduk Renovation at Flickr

I’ve also set up a Facebook group, which is what you do these days.

Kollhoff’s tower (center) on Potsdamer Platz, seen from Leipziger Platz [Click to enlarge]

Ute von Vellberg, spokeswoman for Daimler-Chrysler – the building’s owner at the time – called the measures “precautionary and voluntary” and hadn’t followed any particular incident. However, the preceeding winter was blamed for unspecified damage to the large brick-look tiles which coat most of the building’s twenty-five floors. Looking back, the Tagesspiegel seems to deliberately tempt fate by quoting von Vellberg as saying that work would be completed by Christmas 2006.

Ms Cruz, the face of modern hairspray

Four Christmas’ later, and the scaffolding is still there. In fact, it’s getting hard to remember a time when it wasn’t there, and harder to think of a reason why it shouldn’t just stay as it is, in a permanent state of rennovation. At the base of the tower, a whole street has turned into a wooden village for builders and façade specialists. The scaffolding is some five meters deep around the base of the building, turning pavements into darkened tunnels. One can imagine that the businesses in the ground floor might soon want to extend their storefronts out into this new exterior space with tents, pieces of corrugated iron or plastic sheeting. A kind of high-class boutique slum.

By December 2006 though, it had become clear that extensive rennovation was needed, and that a messy and protracted legal battle was going to be the only way to find someone to blame. In October of 2007 Hans Kollhoff went on the record as saying “We’ve built so many buildings and proven that it can’t have anything to do with us”, which carefully avoided slandering some contractor, or making any sense whatsoever. A couple of months later Daimler-Crysler sold the building to the Swedish bank SEB for 1.3 billion Euros, and with it, one assumes, the 10 million Euro rennovation costs.

Hidden messages

But what this is really about is the twofold irony which has afflicting the building during the whole escapade.

The first is to be found in the choice of advertising attached to the scaffolding, which has always striven to acknowledge the extreme verticality of the space available. Adverts for hairspray are particulrly succesful. The proportions lend themselves particularly well to 50 meter pack-shots, whilst the product itself boasts of properties sadly lacking in Kollhoff’s tower: in the above detail we read that L’Oreal’s Elnett (hairspray to the stars) has “Ultra starker halt”, meaning it has super hold. Shame Kollhoff’s brick-look tiles don’t.

The second irony is that, in its wraped-up state, the northern flank of Kollhoff’s po-mo tower bears an eerie resemblance to Renzo Piano and Christoph Kohlbecker’s streamlined wedge next door, and with it, an altogether different approach to building high in a city proud of being squat.