Urban Co-Existence - Architectural Strategies for Communication.
Exhibition by Transgressive Architecture Atelier of Greenwich School of
Architecture & Construction – and “Stalker”.
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@ The Italian Cultural Institute
Friday March 1: 18:30 to Thursday March 14
39 Belgrave Sq. London, SW1
Tel: 020 72351461
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“I consequently ask myself how,
before the separation between theory and practice, between thinking and
architecture, a way of thinking linked to the architectural event could
have existed. If each language proposes a spatialization, an arrangement
in space which doesn’t dominate it but which approaches it by approximation,
then it is to be compared with a kind of pioneering, with the clearing
of a path. A path which does not have to be discovered but to be create.
And this creating of a path is not at all alien to architecture”.
J. Derrida, Where The Desire May Live.
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In central Rome- hidden from the tourist’s
eye- within the building and courtyard of an abandoned old slaughterhouse,
immigrants from 3 continents converge to find refuge. Kurdish political
refugees run a makeshift community centre and a museum about their struggle
in an abandoned building, which they have named Ararat. Another building
has been squatted in by communist and anarchist immigrants and transformed
it into a Social/Cultural Centre. In the middle of the abattoir, in a
huge courtyard similar in size to the Coliseum, gypsies live and trade
during the winter months. Over the summer, the courtyard is used for rave
parties and music festivals. The site, named Campo Boario, is also the
centre of operations for the renowned Italian architects group 'Stalker',
whose last work with the Kurdish community was exhibited at the Venice
Biennale.
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In January 2002 Atelier 2: Transgressive
Architecture from the Greenwich University School of Architecture &
Construction went to the Campo Boario for a week long workshop with Stalker
to work on a project entitled "Architectural Strategies for Communication".
The work of the students, created on 150 postcards, was posted back to
England, to the Italian Cultural Institute.
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The Campo Boario, which has been occupied
by the immigrant and gypsy groups for the past 20 years, has for a long
time been multicultural and inclusive - it was an open and radically democratic
public space. However, in the past few years the different groups have
started to shelter themselves in their own "territories", and
build physical and mental fences. The openness of the space has started
to be eroded. The aim of the students work was to propose spatial strategies,
which will generate communication and interaction between the groups,
will engender the transgressive-ness of the space and at the same time
will open the site to more uses and communities. The aim was to do all
these through spatial strategies, which are non-verbal or textual, since
the different communities on the site do not share a common language.
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The proposed projects were very diverse
and included conceptual or symbolic projects as well as very realistic
and feasible ones, temporary art interventions and installations, small-scale
structures to mega- blocks, and more. Examples of the project include
"The Ark" - a proposal transforming the ex-slaughterhouse into
an urban farm, operated by the Kurdish refugees from the Ararat centre;
'(A)maze’ - layering the site with giant infrastructure of a labyrinth
which integrates public functions and private spaces for the site's communities;
'The Babylon Tower' - a multi- storey tower that functions as a "museum
of the present" for the diverse ethnic communities that live on the
site; and "Entropic Walk" - a temporary art project inspired
by the Entropy game by Robert Smithson.
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Another challenge that Stalker posed
for the students' work was to open this 'Dead Zone' up to the rest of
the city, without commercialising or gentrifying it. Answering this challenge
"Skywalk" - creates an aerial route from the Coliseum to the
Campo Boario; Inclusive House - is a linear mega structure that starts
from the Pyramid train station and ends by the river, crossing the air
space above the Campo Boario and is used by all of the communities which
it crosses , and 'Fire in the Sky' - a live sculpture created by a bonfire
made by people within the Campo Boario and projected into the sky using
a complicated mirror structure so it can be seen from any point in Rome.
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The medium for producing the works was
the postcard. An object of communication, of immediate impressions or
messages. The postcard indicates the tourist’s limited perspective,
which the student's had- working in the site only for one week. The understanding
of this position, and its representation through the postcard draws a
critique of the architectural education institution of the 'field trip'
where students are asked to 'find solutions' to problems in remote sites
that they are visiting for a very short time.
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The postcard size and the absence of
computers required the students to reinvestigate the medium of hand drawings,
which has become scarce in the architectural practice. Being architectural
proposals presented as an everyday object, the work transgressed the boundaries
between different mediums, between professional knowledge and representation
and personal experience and statement.
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Atelier 2: Transgressive Architecture run by Gil Doron
& Bruce Stewart.
Catalogue Design: Bumsuk Chung.
To buy the exhibition catalogue (£5 include p/p)
please send an e-mail to bums_uk@hotmail.com
The installation at the exhibition was sponsored by Julian
Thomas.
The exhibition installation was built by Nigel Pollock,
with the help of John Marchant.
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Transgressive Architecture Atelier at
the University of Greenwich is engaged with conditions in which urban
nomad communities claim “waste” space in cities across the world
and redesign it to their use. More information about the Atelier or the
group can be found on:
www.gre.ac.uk/directory/archland/degree/atelier2/atelier2.htm
www.geocities.com/transgressivearchitecture
Stalker is a collective of architects,
artists and writers, who research and work in cities' margins and forgotten
urban spaces, and collaborate with marginalised communities who occupy
these areas. Stalker takes its inspiration from writers such as Foucault
and Derrida, and use Situationist tactics such as games, events, and the
de’rive, operating with immigrant communities, and inhabitants of
zones of conflict or war where the sense of community has been destroyed.
Founded in 1990, Stalker work has been exhibited widely in Europe and
the U.S. in venues such as Storefront Gallery (New-York), Manifasta3 (Ljubljana),
Venice Biennale (Rome), and invited to exhibit at SP1, NY.
www.stalkerlab.it
The Urban Coexistence exhibition will run
from
Friday March 1: 18:30 to Thursday March 14
at the Italian Cultural Institute,
39 Belgrave Sq. London, SW1.
Tel: 020 72351461.
Free Admission.
Lectures by Stalker’s member will take place at:
The Bartlett School of Architecture,
Wates House, UCL,
22 Gordon St,
London WC1 UCL,
on Wednesday, 27/02, 18:00.
Greenwich School of Architecture & Construction, Dartford,
on Tuesday, 26/02 at 16:00.
Caron Jones Public Relations Unit Manager, University of Greenwich, 020-8331
8248
For CD with all the students’ works, and pictures
from the site and any more information please contact
Gil Doron, 07796928215, or e-mail g_doron@yahoo.com
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