SLAB Magazine

The Hejduk Tower, yesterday at sundown [Click to enlarge]

The petition to save the John Hejduk Tower from defacement is now closed, having run for two weeks. The response to our call for support has been immense and has helped get us the results we wanted. I would like to thank all 2960 people who signed, not just personally, but also in the name of everyone who worked away behind the scenes, getting shit done: Jim Hudson, Robert Slinger, Claire Karsenty, Matthias Reese, Florian Köhl, Christian Burkhard and Renata Hejduk.

BerlinHaus have informed Matthias Peckskamp, Head of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg urban planning department, that work on the façade has been halted until an agreement can be reached. Senate Building Director Regula Lüscher is also backing the cause, and has been penciled in as a possible mediator in discussions.

A second press release has been drafted, and is poised to be distributed after the Easter break early next week.

This week the story has been covered by the Berliner Morgenpost and TAZ newspapers. It’s been pretty amusing to see how the story has been covered by both papers: the MoPo going for the “star architects” angle, and the TAZ skewering the social dimension. More on this later.

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: Read the rest of this entry »

News has reached me from Claire Karsenty of Kapok, that the new owners of the Hejduk building have removed the images of their renovation plans from their website, and have replaced them with photos of the building as it is. This is the first visible result of the last few days of campaigning.

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

The petition “Stop the disfigurement of John Hejduk’s Berlin Tower” is now online. Please read the full text carefully before signing. The text is in English and German.

www.petitiononline.com/hejduk/petition.html

Should you be so inclined, join the Facebook group here.

A press release is also available in English, German and French.
Download it here (PDF, 71KB)

Many thanks to everyone involved in getting this effort together over the last few days.

Despite what it says as the bottom of the online petition, I am not its sole “author”. Credit must go to Jim Hudson (architectureinberlin) and to Robert Slinger and Claire Karsenty (Kapok) for putting it and the press releases together. Thanks also due to Katja for break-neck translation. Matthias Reese (RLW) has also been extremely active in spreading the word and flexing his professional reach, as has Florian Köhl (FAT KOEHL).

Here’s a fresh press image from J. Mayer H., the latest in development group-fueled post-Stimmann era stylized boxes. It feels kind of blobby, but underneath a box is clearly lurking. I remain equivocal as I prefer my boxes boxy, my blobs blobby. Still, plans and sections are yet to have been reviewed by the discerning eyes here at Slub Slab.

And here’s Juergen Mayer’s accompanying press relaese text:

JOH 3 – New Apartmenthouse Johannisstraße 3, Berlin

Property development group Euroboden is building a unique apartment house at Johannisstraße in Mitte, Berlin’s downtown district. J. MAYER H. architects’ design for the building, which will soon neighbor both Museum Island and Friedrichstrasse, reinterprets the classic Berliner Wohnhaus with its multi-unit structure and green interior courtyard. A suspended lamella facade not only provides privacy but also draws historical reference to the elaborately decorated facades from the Wilhelminian period. Plans for the ground floor facing the street also include a number of commercial spaces. The generously sized apartments will face south-west, opening themselves to a view of the calm, carefully designed courtyard garden. Spacious, breezy transitions to the outside create an open residential experience in the middle of the city that, thanks to the variable heights of the different building levels, also offers an interesting succession of rooms. The units’ varying floorplans and layouts indicate a number of housing options; condominiums are organized into townhouses with private gardens, classic apartments or penthouses with a spectacular view of the old Friedrichstadt. The integrated design concept, which incorporates everything from façade to stairwells, elevators to apartment interiors, promises a unique spatial and living experience with an eye to high design.

This seems more the language of a property developer than the artist-cum-architect, and I wonder who really penned these words. As far as the new building’s “historical reference to the elaborately decorated facades from the Wilhelminian period”: oh, come on! I have to be honest and state that this is not far off from the tricky-ricky lingo we’ve become accustomed to whist browsing promotional material for such projects as The Fellini Residences.

And the last sentence is pure fluff. The architect – who has been touted by several publications as one of the hottest young German designers of the last few years – appears misguided in the approach he’s taken to representing his own work. Why not save such low-brow stuff for the people who actually have to sell the real estate? Because consumers of culture generally want to use their minds while reading such blurbs.

News just in that the Hejduk story has also been picked up by Charles Holland of FAT architects over at his Fantastic Journal. Read his scathing opinion here where he quite accurately describes the renovation work as a cheap and “insensitively fucking-up of an architecturally distinguished building.”

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

My first story covering the defilement of John Hejduk’s Kreuzberg building has attracted quite a bit of discussion. Nine comments so far, including my own, which is a record for this exceedingly modest journal. The last person to comment was architect Robert Slinger, of Kapok here in Berlin.

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