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Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Saturday, February 17, 2007

slice der republik

Ok this project right here has really amazing conceptual value to me. I see it, i get it, it inspires me. It is a project done by some students in Berlin and it's a conceptual / adaptive re-use / public space thing that, in my mind, could really work. The building is called Palast Der Republik.

I think it could work because it has great symbolic meaning, but it is a simple physical manifestation, so the meaning is always very close to the surface of the thing. I think urban design (moreso than architecture) has to balance the conceptual with what's on the ground and that's why it is a difficult process. I was reading this article in the Harvard review about how concepts in architecture and concepts in art have to remain separate, because architecture has to itself be a usable, logical piece of built beform, while also being a conceptual piece of art. Architecture can never split itself from that.

I think urban design faces the same challenge of balancing concept and "usability", as a public space is democratic, and given to the people as free space. The Agora is a forum before it is a piece of art.

These students found inspiration in the works of the archtect/artist Gordon Matta-Clark, who seemed to believe that a physical deconstruction of a built form could reap a sort of interesting newness, and a new meaning. I'm pretty fond of this idea.

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