deconcrete

Fantastic article by Jan Loerakker at Failed Architecture on the role of architectural metaphors in the media.

as well as ‘Architects Talking Architecture‘.

^ The cell room in each 4 Phases of Agema’s prison model. Images by Jonas Staal.

‘Closed Architecture’ is the 2004 Master’s degree thesis in Interior Design of right-wing Dutch politician Fleur Agema. Based on her sketches, concepts and descriptions, visual artist Jonas Staal 3D-rendered her visions for a phased prison model in the Netherlands.

Agema’s space for reintegration of prisoners into society aimed to toughen current forms of detention to an extreme. Her model consisted of four disciplinary phases: The Bunker – The Wait – The Habituation – The Light. The inmate would upgrade depending on his behaviour, thus obtaining more daylight, space and typically consumerist commodities in his living area. As penalty for misbehaviour within her prison model, the inmate would revisit previous stages, backwards towards a ‘dungeon’ condition.

Through his Foucauldian visualizations, Staal brilliantly unmasks the ideal of citizens and society behind Agema’s political agenda in real life. He manages to show how an early architectural mind evolves into a populist understanding and construction of guilt and punishment.

^ The buildings in each 4 Phases of Agema’s prison model. Images by Jonas Staal

^ Margaret Thatcher in the kitchen at 10 Downing Street. Above: ca. 1979. Below: 1989

Yesterday there were two fantastic articles on The Guardian about Thatcher. One about death etiquette with public (not private) figures and another about the possibility of privatising her funeral as a tribute to her legacy. As brilliantly narrated on CHAVS – The demonization of the working class, the whole dismantlement of the welfare state and social housing is something for which the world will remember her administration, amongst other issues. Unfortunately, the British privatisation model is ‘enlightening’ today south-European countries as a remedy to the crisis.

Today several sets of images of the kitchen at Downing Street residence are virally circulating. They compare the interior design of Margaret’s and Samantha’s kitchen in a fake domestic atmosphere. This iconography seems to be the means of representation for carefully staged ideal housewives. More or less spartan, the kitchen is still used as heteronormative propaganda for certain values in order to connect with wider ‘middle classes’. Apparently, this is the place where a powerful woman is expected to publicly inhabit if she wants to communicate closely with her citizens and transmit a feeling of ‘normal’ life. But who needs to believe still in this Ikea-catalogue plastic happiness? I wish Prime Ministers and/or spouses were a bit more Ikea-disobedients and were also photographed while a night out with Berlin’s mayor at Berghain: sweaty and vulgar.

^ James and Samantha Cameron in their West London apartment, 2010 via The Telegraph

^ Samantha Cameron and Michelle Obama sitting at 11 Downing Street semi-open kitchen. Image released by the White House 2011 via bbc news

Source of plans and images below: Montague H. Cox & G. Topham Forrest (eds). Survey of London: volume 14. London, 1931. via British-History

^ Main Kitchen for the Downing Street residence

^ 11 Downing Street. Ground, First and Second Floor plan. 1846

^ Ground floor 10 Downing Street with 1781 alterations. Note that the drawing is South-oriented

^ 10, 11 & 12 Downing Street. Ground Floor plan. ca. 1931

^ 10, 11 & 12 Downing Street. First Floor plan. ca. 1931

^ 10, 11 & 12 Downing Street. Second Floor plan. ca. 1931

^ Elevation and section Downing Street. ca. 1931

^ Elevation and section Downing Street. ca. 1931

^ A digital rendering of the ‘musical geography’ of Auschwitz Camp II (Birkenau). The red circles indicate where the ‘forced music’ played by guards could be heard, while the blue circles illustrate how the ‘voluntary music’ of the inmates spread throughout the camp.

Stanford researcher maps melodies used in Holocaust to control prisoners

[Read full text by Benjamin Hein_Stanford University]

[…]

Using survivor testimonies and camp administration records, [Melissa Kagen, a doctoral candidate in German Studies at Stanford] is developing digital maps of the “musical geography” of the prison. By focusing on the spatial aspects of music, Kagen’s research offers historical insight into how music can be used as a means for controlling and torturing prisoners in present-day detention facilities.

Because it was among the first prison camps to systematically employ music in such a way, Auschwitz provides a valuable case study that sets a precedent for facilities such as Guantánamo Bay where music has been used as a form of “no-touch” torture.

Measuring music’s impact

Scholars have long known that music was a regular part of life in Nazi concentration camps. But the inherently transient nature of sound has made it difficult to measure its impact on the camp and its inhabitants.

“Music in the Holocaust is a relatively well-explored research topic,” said Kagen, a student of modern German musicology and literature. “But because it does not leave a lasting historical footprint, it has not been considered spatially before.”

Kagen uses an unconventional interpretation method to translate the source material into a visual form. Rather than dwelling on the significance of a specific song, she focuses on references about the locations where music was heard.

“Reading the first-hand accounts of prisoners, I noticed that one particular space – Block 24, near the camp entrance – kept coming up in relation to music,” she said.

Music, as Kagen discovered, provided a proportionally small number of prison guards with the means to maintain control over large portions of the camp without any actual physical presence.

[…]

“The prisoners wished to die in peace, which is to say, they wanted the barest hint of autonomy over the space in which they die,” said Kagen. “But the melodies of Bach, Beethoven and Horst Wessel, along with jazz songs, wrested every last bit of space away from them.”

 […]

Thanks, Mattey!

The physical size of an event can be easily grasped if related to one’s neighbourhood. Dimensions, as for the authors of How big really is a new way to communicate history, by overlapping the total size or extent of an event over a certain postcode area at the right scale.

However, this tool could also overlay more critical contemporary spaces, instead of doing it from a very perverse neutrality. In their site, topics range from the war on terror in Afganistan, the Moon landing, Ancient civilizations, environmental disasters in Pakistan and Chernobyl… But I just missed some more controversial issues in this project, which was launched and supported by the BBC.

And since they kindly ask for readers’ feedback for further implementation, I will suggest some other possible visualizations that I am very much looking forward to seeing in how big really, such as:

the size of London neighbourhoods expresssing civil discontent during the riots 2011,

the shrinkage of university facilities affected by cuts on education budgets,

the Queen’s properties put together over a slum in Mumbai,

the total amount of public space that is under current CCTV surveillance in London,

the distance in miles that soldiers walk within a year during changing the guard at Buckingham Palace,

the total floor area of privatized housing under Thatcher,

the size of demolished urban fabric that has been carried out to make place for the Olympics,

etc.

Turbo Sculpture, 2010 by Aleksandra Domanovic.

Video Essay 18:29 min

via We Find Wildness

One topic, two points of view:

Protest by Rachel Engler and Deconcrete at The Bi Blog

[image> Milk Farmers Protests by Axel Schmidt via caminootoñal]

During Anti-Apartheid riots in Cape Town, South Africa 1989, water mixed with colour dye was shot at the protesters; from then on, the Purple Rain would be associated with a whole strategy to fight urban rioters. This weapon initiated a new form of psychological and geolocational repression. Jet Pulse Water Cannon Systems have an additional tank of paint that is mixed with water when the shooter presses the injection button. Not only does it make demonstrators retreat, but it also “tags” protesters with humiliation and ridicule as a form of punishment. Almost like returning back to feudal times, opponents to such political regimes have to pay their complaints with a deep sense of guilt. Furthermore, Government authorities can control their movements more easily, identify and arrest, once they leave the demonstration area and try to camouflage in the surrounding areas. Their bodies are automatically turned into public display of their thoughts.

Most cases where colour was sprayed are complex political realities, where the people is clearly divided between those in power and those under power. Obviously, it is important for to the ruling class to stop the riots. However, when colour is used, the balance of power has become so critical to the remain of the Government, that it is even more relevant for them to track disobedience and prevent the menace of a general uprising.

protests palette:

Protests against homophobic laws in Kampala_Uganda May 2011_Marc Hofer

Protests against George W Bush’s visit to Seoul_August 2008_Chung Sung-Jun

Indian police against Kashmiri_Srinagar June 2008_Tauseef Mustafa

Israel police against Palestinians in Bilin_March 2011_Issam Rimawi

Protests in Dhaka_Bangladesh April 2011_Shuvo Das

Protests commemoration anti-Soviet Uprising in Budapest_October 2006_Joe Klamar

Protests in Ramallah_August 2006_Nasser Shiyoukhi

[all images via TIME Light Box]

The irony of Pyongyang_A Journey in North Korea already starts with the title of this graphic novel, based on author Guy Delisle’s stay in Pyongyang. Working as a cartoonist supervisor for a French animation company outsourcing their most tedious drawing tasks to North Korean labour, he describes his routine and discoveries in this public diary. But rather than travelling from one place to another, Delisle is literally taken from one spot to the next one, experiencing the everyday struggle against hyper-controlled environments. What he sees is what he is allowed to see. But the most striking views result in those that the 1984-like Estate takes for granted, does not try to hide or even cannot prevent him from experiencing. There is no way as a foreigner to prove whether there are citizens starving or being tortured, but the spatial condition of the city is the interface where propaganda is unwillingly shown; extreme scarcity in power supply, the vast emptiness of the surroundings or even absurd volunteering labour speak for themselves. His snapshots of daily reality gather more than enough trace evidence to guess the perverse political ambitions behind the scenes.

[all images by Guy Delisle in Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea. Drawn & Quarterly, 2007]

________

________

________

Germany is progressively disarming, but the world needs more and more weapons. And armament production keeps on going.

According to SIPRI, Germany is the third weapons exporter in the world, after the USA and Russia. Since a few decades, the armament industry main cluster concentrates around the lake Constance (Bodensee), the largest in the country; an idyllic border resort where Switzerland, Germany and Austria meet, surrounded by hundred-year-old forests.

These factories, self denominated as “Security and Defence-engineering related companies”, need to gain Bodensee locals’ approval for their activity next to their dwellings. And so, they employ thousands of locals, pay millions of euro in taxes, support associations and kindergartens, make donations to schools, orchestras or sport events. Armament Industry provide most social budget in the lake surroundings.

As published this week in the printed version of Die Zeit, a priest from Friedrichshafen reluctantly declares: “For us, as Church community, the topic of tanks and missiles is very delicate. The one who criticizes here the armament industry, speaks against himself. It is not only about church tax. It is also about hundreds of members of our community, who nobody wants to aggravate.”

The site started its tradition, when the Earl von Zeppelin produced his Zeppelin in the surroundings. Even if it started as a civil means of transport, it ended contributing to the I WW. At that time, his airship industry employed 3,000 people. Like today, the issue of armament engineering can ambiguously conceived. This region, with the largest amount of patents in Germany per year, improves both the military, but also, the civil aviation systems.

Meanwhile, at the lake Constance, everyone seems to have a clean conscience and high life standards.

[source&image> Die Zeit 04/11/2010]

It is always inspiring to discuss daily news with fellows. Chinese communism-inherited neighbourhoods know it because of imposed collective street newspapers. No waste of paper for individually read issues.

In a current era of progressive disappearance of printed press, some projects arise more powerfully, to give new accessibility to another kind of information. The Kreuzberg Boulevard in Berlin is an informal recent poster-based publication about mysterious fiction narratives for pedestrians. NewYork has also started last week with its own:

“The New City Reader is a performance-based editorial residency conceived to take place in the context of The Last Newspaper, an exhibition at the New Museum in New York in fall-winter 2010. It proposes to temporarily transform a portion of the museum’s galleries into an active editorial office combined with forum for discussion. In this space, an editorial team will execute — for the duration of the exhibition and in full view of the public — the entire process of conception, design, and production of a weekly newspaper. This newspaper’s content will derive from a series of discussions, debates, interviews, and research into the spatial implications of epochal shifts presently occurring in the information industry. [...] The New City Reader adopts the traditional format of the weekly newspaper, but only in part. Taking inspiration from a custom of hanging entire newspapers on boards in the streets or pasting them on walls in public places so they can be read collectively, this newspaper will be affixed in a multitude of locations around Lower Manhattan.“

[image1> Kreuzberg Boulevard in Berlin by deconcrete2010] [source & image2> the New City Reader]

I’m scared. I hadn’t notice how many advertising surfaces surround us, until Berlin advertising company itself reminded me yesterday by means of a billboard. On it, one can see all the possibilities that the underground or above ground public space has; every yellow area is subject to be hired at the rates they show.

Maybe the company needs to remember how easy and cheap might be invading the city with whatever. Even a baby’s diapers or the book that a woman is reading are represented in yellow; which can be understood as if I could practically hire my neighbour’s front cover of his novel for my own desires!

I’m terrified that one step can be hired for only 0,50 euros/day, that a poster in the street can cost less than 1 euro a day… maybe i should just try to rent every single available space of one corner of the city for one whole day, and leave them just blank (or yellow). It would be such a relief!

(image> advertising available areas in Berlin by deconcrete2010)

Poetically, Lord Byron suggested that the bridge where prisoners should take their last glance at the outside world before execution could be renamed as the Bridge of Sighs. However, its dense stone-lattices in its two windows almost prevented them from seeing anything, just exactly as the huge billboards that Venice resigned herself to install last year in every restorating façade.

The marketing-city par excellence has already closed 10 out of her 100 churches, since public budget does not meet the vast amount of renovation needs. As a result, hordes of visitors are also resigned to experience the decaying monuments as former victims from Inquisition walking through the Bridge of Sighs used to; through the most rancid way of attracting investment.

No matter if the city sinks or not. We won’t notice. Floating billboards can remain over the water surface.

[image1> view from the Bridge of Sighs by phileusfogg] [images 2-4> Venice advertising via unbound edition] [image5> Venice billboard by sarasculli]

In Ancient China, Shanzhai was a term designating warlord holdouts that were outside government control. But today shanzhai refers to any knock-off product outside government regulations, something hilariously unprofessional, home-made, on the fringe of intellectual property rights. This is generating a parallel copy-paste city of virtual optic effects, where one needs to be cautious all around in case a sudden trompe-l’oeil (one of my favourite Spanish words: trampantojo) appears:

Kentucky Fried ChickenVs. KFG, female KFC, MFC, FBC, CKF;

McDonald’s vs. oMcDnoald’s; Google.com vs. Goojje.com; SONY vs. SQNY; NIKE vs. IVIKE; iPhone vs. HiPhone…

[image sources> shanzhai phenomena via chinasmack, chinadaily, chinahush and chinahush]

After reading in Pruned about Ikea’s labyrinth condition and its visualization of pedestrian models, the company’s eagerness to Conquering becomes clearer. Buyers’ minds are intentionally remote-controlled to certain corners of the shopping-space.

The Swedish giant already governs the field of cheap design worldwide, erasing any trace of local tastes. As Theo Deutinger states, New Year’s Day is now globally shifted to 1st August, when Ikea releases its new catalogue, the only printed medium with larger circulation than the Bible.

Consequently, the Blue-and-Yellow Empire has somehow captured every home mattress, worktop or threshold. In an older entry in this blog, it was shown the role of IKEA in unwillingly providing a public consumption-park in Shanghainese everyday entertainment. In New York is providing free public transport, by means of a rapid ferry connecting two sides of the city, either for clients or not. And in Badalona (Spain) it has appropriated of the aerial view of the city from above, with its large-scale sign painted all over the roof.

Like in the Spanish, British, Dutch, Austro-Hungarian or French Empires, its soft-colonialist strategy is constantly playing Risk, assuming rulers’ roles. Aiming higher sales, it is already improving open spaces and mobility in cities. Will Ikea also be another Sun-Emperor providing urban facilities, such as social housing with standard dimensions, fitting its own products?

[image 1>pedestrian modelling of ikea agent trails by ucl bartlett] [image 2> colonial expansion of ikea by td] [image 3> ikea new york ferry via newyork seriouseats] [image 4> aerial view of ikea badalona from googleearth]