My photos seemed to be in several clear categories; openings/doorways, steps, ground, layering, surfaces or fragments
These are some notes and photos I jotted down during the trip:
07.06.12
Today I visited Daniel Libeskind’s Military Museum in
Dresden. It took a while to find the entrance to it, but when I did I was
amazed. Yes, part of it is an older building and Libeskind has renovated it,
but the contrast between new and old totally transformed the experience of the
building.
Voids slashed through all floors of the building and allowed
views down to up and up to down. Sloped and slanted walls were unbalancing, but
in a good way. It was like walking for the first time. Libeskind’s insertion,
visible from the front, is a platform which you can walk out onto on the top
floor to see a view of Dresden. This is pretty scary, as it was like being in a
cage, you could even see through the floor
Everything was beautifully presented and laid out
-the most unnerving part of the museum is on the 2nd
floor, and appears at first to be just a black shape/volume in the room. Walking around it, you discover an
entrance-way, and a sign saying ‘in here there are human remains, we have tried
to treat them with the utmost of respect…’, and inside there are black closers
and shutters… you don’t know what one will unveil. One was a human face… I shut
this one very quickly!
08.06.12
Dresden’s castle: lower than the rest of the city (as the
city is so old, it has been built up over time, by approx. 1m. The fortress
provides a reference for the old ground level of the city. It also references
to where the fortress has been flooded up to.
Deep deep windows
In, out
Up, down
Around and back through (movement)
10.06.12
Prague’s Jewish memorial. An entire building with walls
covered in names, when they were born and when they died, from ceiling to
floor. It is too much to absorb.
On the top floor are children’s drawings (of those who lived
in the concentration camp). Some are shocking, others bright and happy –
surprising.
Jewish graveyard. Up to 11 layers of bodies buried on top of
each other because of lack of space within the confines of the Jewish quarter.
Absolutely crammed fiull of gravestones. Estimates are up to 100,000 bodies
The entire Jewish quarter is lower than the rest of Prague
because of its age. The Nazis decided to preserve it to keep it as an
example/reference point of Jewish culture. That is why it still exists
11.06.12
Memorial to those who died fighting against communism
Large, sloping stairs, statues disappearing into distance
-> like burning?
13.06.12
Whiteread’s memorial, Vienna: feel like there needed to be
more space around it. Are the books too regular?
Cut into the ground to old foundations in central Vienna.
Imagine depth, into depths
18.06.12
Fraunekirche, ceiling restored after bombing. There are
photos in the foyer, but you can’t really tell otherwise
History of Hitler in city
Golden brick lines a memorial to those who used to use a
particular lane to avoid haling hitler at a series of plaques
Plaques now gone, only outline traces remain. Idea that
people are intrigued by the subtle memorials and then go to do their own
research about them, not able to disrespect them (unlike in Berlin, for
example). Do people actually do this, though? No one really seems to see them.
19.06.12
Links to the ground (subway system)
Connection/disconnection (a type of connection too)
Collective, outside, vertical/horizontal cuts through layers.
Individual/outside.
20.06.12
Dachau. Things like this need witnesses. They need people to
say ‘this cannot happen again’
It is unbelievable how much of Munich is seeped in this
history
‘the dead, a reminder and a warning to the living’
Footprints of the bunkers
Herzog and de Mueron’s football stadium: semi-transparent,
wonderfully detailed cladding
23.06.12
I like the peepholes in the Nuremburg castle walls. You look
back and catch glimpses through something you hadn’t seen before
24.06.12
Typography of terrors. Slight ramps parallel to the wall.
Footprints of
old buildings/ prison highlighted and left visible underground. These buildings
became/ were discovered later in the ‘80s, only through excavation: ‘lets dig!’
‘it happened, therefore, it can happen again. This is the
core of what we have to say.’ – Primo Levi
www.memorial museums.org <-database
layers, like the cities built up by layers
-there seems to be something very significant about being
able to say
-> ‘this was here’
-> this happened at this particular time, date
It puts a certainty on the memories, they are then
substantiated, validated, and provoke them
-use of ground, layers, revealing and concealing is evident
throughout these memorials
+ Berlin walls looking like my plaster models
Eisenman: deliberately walking to it, but it took me by
surprise. It was just suddenly there… and it was so grey.
It wasn’t as disorientating as I thought it would be. It was
all in a grid, so you always knew the way out. The undulating ground and staggered
blocks did suddenly mean you were deep down, then high up
-it is as though the revealing occurred when going
underground. Outside, upwards, the concrete blocks were all the same, you
became part of it. Underground, in the museum area, the blocks became
identifiable.. reach one represented a photograph, a story, an event, a family,
a place.
Ceiling, information volumes, varying heights from ground,
but never touching it
Gedenkstatte Berlin Wall. Location of remaining Berlin wall
and another memorial set-up, to the victims of the wall
It is good and strange how throughout Berlin there are tiny
pieces of the wall are left in certain locations
25.06.12
Daneil Libeskind’s memorial museum. Subterranousely
connected – because that is history, it is disconnected?
Not very much material evidence of the Jews in Berlin: just
objects, that’s why there are void spaces in the museum on every floor
It was very confusing inside
I think the art work “Fallen leaves” was the most striking.
The sound of steel echoing in the tall empty void.
Catching glimpses through windows was also especially
effective
Similarities between two Jewish museums: attempt to
individualise and personalize history. They also show WWII in context
It is clear that what we do today is a continuation of
history
Bebelplatz/ Rachel Whiteread: no explamnation, a bit
ambiguous for onlookers? AGAIN: the ground!
Neue Wache: a building badly damaged in the b0ombings,
reconstructed, the new in brick. Dedicated to soldiers who lost their lives,
within it are the remains of one unknown soldier. Opening to the sky. AGAIN,
openings.
02.07.12
San Michelle Island. A lot of people buried here, a lot of
them vertically. The complex has developed over time, consisting of open spaces
with headstones, gridded, vertical volumes (8 feet high, people buried 6 x 12
on each side of the blocks), and churches. The last addition by Chipperfield:
light/water corners.
05.07.12
The Colosseum. Once inside, it is clear how much of it has
been reconstructed, though it is still amazing that this ancient structure
exists! The grand scale is one thing, I am transfixed by all the layers and
opening, the different materials and views through to different walls, to
outside. It is exactly my language.
06.07.12
Crypts of popes underneath St Peter’s church
08.07.12
I am amazed by all the vents, grated ones, but depths
beneath the ground still visible as we walk along the footpaths
09.07.12
Scarpa castle, Verona. Layers, views, cuts everywhere… but
so subtle, so elegantly done to become part of the original building. The
new/old is obvious, but neither take away from the other. They compliment, and
do not compete despite their different styles and materials
No comments:
Post a Comment