Chaotic places can be inspiring, but at times you need to recollect your emotions in tranquillity and elaborate them in complete silence.
If you ever happen to be around Venice and to be on the lookout for a very quiet place, head to Ca' del Duca, a palace overlooking the Grand Canal.
The rooms of the palace are currently occupied by “Post – City”, the Luxembourg Pavilion's project at the 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale.
Each room contains a white structure, a model featuring small houses, office buildings and factories made in white plaster (produced in collaboration with Vincent de Rijk, Rotterdam).
Some of these models may look futuristic, others may hint at alienation in modern society, yet they all seem to have a hypnotic quality about them, especially after you realise that the models are all interconnected among them via a triangular shape that, representing the urban fabric, pierces the walls.
The triangle shaped figure is very inspiring from a symbolic but also from a visual point of view since it crosses the boundaries delineated by the walls (and in a way it goes well also with the theme of sculptural/geometric rigidity we analysed in yesterday's post).
This geometric figure connects five existing areas in the country - Belval, Berchem, Ingeldorf, Kirchberg and Schengen - trying to tackle the current and the future large scale issues the country is and will be facing.
“Post - City” is indeed not a hypothetical possibility for the future as Andrea Branzi states in the essay accompanying this project, but it represents the city of the present, a city in which architecture lost its role as a central scenario of history, becoming "non-figurative, that is an accessory, a catatonic, inexpressive presence".
Rather than a series of answers or a final solution to contemporary issues and problems, the project suggests a series of questions about buildings, urban areas and their requalification and reorganisation through what may be defined as “a zooming out” process consisting in looking at Luxembourg from a distance and in highlighting seven situations through hand-sketched collage illustrations by artist Eva Le Roi and through five locations represented by the plaster cast models.
Situations go from a pitch located on the roof of a station framed by office and hotel towers that accomodate supporters on their balconies during night-time matches to industrial complexes working closely with the university to build a solid link between the community and the world of business, from temporary autonomous zone-like vast forests located on the outskirts of a city and ideal for public gatherings to inverted pyramid-shaped public spaces that can be reconverted into water basins.
Tomorrow we will look at a personal and wearable piece that I developed from the “Post-City” project, so for today let's look at the five areas analysed through the models.
Belval
The site of the largest steelworks in Europe, Belval suffered from the abandonment of steel production in Luxembourg during the '70s. The area is undergoing an extensive regeneration program aimed at diversifying the local production. The redevelopment plan for Belval includes turning the brownfield site into a scientific and cultural centre that will also include the University of Luxembourg.
Berchem
Located in the south of Luxembourg, Berchem is the home of the largest gas station in Europe, selling over 200 million litres of fuel annually and it is therefore one of the most visited places in the country.
Kirchberg
This quarter in Luxembourg City has among its most notable features quite a few European Union institutions, such as the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Auditors, parts of the European Commission, the Secretariat of the European Parliament, the European Investment Bank and the European School of Luxembourg, all located in the western part. The eastern part includes instead offices, banks, the Luxexpo exhibition centre, the Utopolis Kirchberg cinema and the Kirchberg Hospital. Kirchberg also includes the Philarmonie (the oval shaped model in the following image), Luxembourg's national concert hall and the Mudam, the museum of modern art, that opened in 2006.
Ingeldorf
This village in the northern part of the country is the geographical centre of the Nordstad project, aimed at developing a new city core by merging the cities of Ettelbrück and Diekirch. The Nordstad project intends to create a new decentralised urban polarity in the north.
Schengen
A wine-making village and commune that became famous when on 14th June 1985 the Schengen Agreement was signed there. The Schengen area comprises today the territories of 26 European countries and covers a population of over 400 million people.
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Very nice blog.
Posted by: Hyip Monitor | March 08, 2013 at 08:36 AM