Tag: architecture

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Housing renovation

The huge amount of buildings that need renovation is a task for each generation. New constructions are relatively easy to realize even to the best available standards. Particularly energy standards asking nowadays for serious isolation of buildings are easy starting from scratch. Energetic renovations of existing buildings are much more challenging and have to take into account the various stages or predilections of previous generations. Repurposing of buildings raise additional questions like transforming a family home into a representative office building. New technologies like fiberglass instead of copper cables or copper or plastic tubes instead of other hazardous materials cause additional costs and worries. The use of asbestos for interiors of previous generations has created the greatest liability for existing buildings. Technological choices of the past and also of the present (heat pump or not) have lasting consequences and sometimes even health effects. To cherish old buildings and styles is a mixed blessing as the renovation of housing confronts home renovators with more tricky challenges than building a new home. Incremental repairs might do the trick rather than all in one go renovation, however, you might enter into a situation when renovations are always on your mind. Not only the times are a changing, but homes are a changing, too.

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Great Petit Palais

The Petit Palais in Paris was built together with the Grand Palais for the World Exhibition in 1900. The great architecture of both buildings is complemented by great interiors. The Petit Palais has also been the home of donations to, as well as commissions by, the city of Paris since 1870. This means that a sizable collection of sculptures and paintings has accumulated since then. In spring 2025 the visit of these collections is free of charge and gives honor to the donors and artists exhibited. Over time the collections spread more than 2500 years of art history similar to the exhibition at the BNF gallery Mansard. In the 21st century the exhibition of a piece of art, which stems from the North of Syria reminds us that art is a treasure that can last even if the civilization has been lost or at interrupted for many centuries. This is an important aspect of taking a long term perspective on international politics and history. The breadth of the collection allows a stroll through art history in a splendid setting. Romanticism and impressionism receive a little bit of attention, but the architecture of the Petit Palais invites you to delve into lesser known territory. This, probably is the specific merit of the joint presentation of otherwise necessarily eclectic collections of donors across centuries.

(Image: Anse de chaudron Syrie du Nord 700 years before our time, Petit Palais Paris).

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La défense Végétale

Greening a metal and concrete block and buildings is a big challenge. The logic of unrealistic growth and big business has left liabilities for future generations. More vegetation in inner cities is part of our responsibility towards future generations. Therefore, urban planning has started in Paris to get rid of concrete walls and floors.

Eventually the district might have a more human touch which attracts citizens and new businesses and services. The adaptation of the infrastructure to facilitate mobility with bicycles and secured pedestrian paths has started but will take a lot of time before people adopt again these more healthy modes of transport. The big boulevards reserved for polluting transport is no longer adequate in combination with residential living spaces.

It will take a change of a whole generation to accomplish such a fundamental change. The reduced demand for office space due to more employees choosing to work from home contributes to such a change as well. Many other cities go ahead with similar changes (Copenhagen, Berlin). In combination with the „All electric society“ there are fundamental changes at work which will make inner cities more attractive again. Ease of clean transportation and other infrastructure for urban lifestyles ensures that cities remain strong points of attraction. They keep pulling people from nearby and far away towards them, if we like it or not.

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Berlin Mind

For a long time now, I have been asking myself the question: What is like to be in a „Berlin state of mind“. The exhibition of the 2 photographers of the Berlin Landesarchiv as part of the Berlin activities of the EMOP contributed to understanding and more precise description of the „Berlin state of mind“. As we shall celebrate in 2025 the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Europe, Germany and Berlin from Nazi rule and terror, we have seen endless reconstruction and reshaping of the city. The ever growing need for housing and space-grabbing office buildings bring about a permanent feeling of change, of becoming, of under construction. The years of the separated city as well as the building and taking down of the Berlin wall created many new opportunities for developers of the city and its structure of quarters, arrondisements or „Bezirke“ and „Kieze“ within the districts. 

Due to the continuous urban renewal also of basic infrastructure Berliners have the impression that there is construction work all around us all the time. With the abundant construction works come the construction fences. They too have changed. Some fences show digital prints of virtual worlds of the Berlin living in some future time. However, the promises often mask the reality that fences will be replaced by concrete walls and inaccessible buildings for most people of the neighborhood as gated business space or city blocks grab the space to form and reform the metropolitan landscape. The construction fences themselves become the contested areas where different strata of society interact or intersect. The „Berlin state of mind“ is one of becoming. Longing to become something else, something aware of the overwhelming historical duties, but still rising from the ashes. The experience to see a wall come down between cold war enemies liberates a belief that we can overcome frontiers. However, this in-between state of mind has brought us multiple fences of all sorts. Construction fences are only the most visible ones that surround the many spaces under construction. In the imagery of Berliners and visitors beyond the wall, fences are continuously on our minds in the „Berlin state of mind“.

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Digital Visions

Urban planning has been digitalized for a long time. 3D modeling of places and buildings including their interiors are state of the art. As urbanization is also about investment, speculation and anticipation, digital imaging has entered the public spheres in form of cover up of building sites behind fences and in form of large digital prints for information, curiosity and advertising purposes. The inner cities are frequently an avantgarde and microcosm of societal developments. Some dream of full or total flexibility for office spaces (see image below), others experience the inner cities as the spotlight of inequality in society. The best paid executives are catered for by the worst paid delivery personnel. The photographers of the Landesarchiv Berlin, Grönboldt and Wunstorf, brought together a documentary exhibition entitled „Pixel aus Beton“, pixel made of concrete.

With a bird‘s eye view they reveal past, present and future details of how Berlin is experienced and envisioned by investors, architects and people living through the seemingly endless construction going on in the city. The keywords list as part of the exhibition creates a link to scientific literature and to the TU Center for Metropolitan Studies. Photography and even more so digital photography offers a social science perspective to the digital images exhibited. Cities are data spinning areas and a formidable place for digital visuals and visions.

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Air Concept

Well yes, this is the latest fart in design and architecture. The Berlin International University of Applied Sciences composed an exhibition on “Air Architectures” which takes air seriously. The international group of 7th semester students took Air Architecture seriously and developed their ideas in the context of a curated exhibition. Nice semester project.
Air is a fundamental precondition for humans to (co-)exist. The biology of air (breathing) or the chemistry of air (fine particle matter) have been studied extensively. The physics of air flows in cities receive more attention as well in architecture. Interior design has yet a lot to contribute in the age of heat pumps and air conditioning.
Let’s think architecture from the perspective of air and air flow. Depending on our cultural background we might have very different associations with air. Indian or Chinese practices like yoga or Tai Chi teach us to take air more seriously than Western practices. Most architecture in cold countries of the northern hemisphere aim to keep air to the outside of buildings. Yet, the percentage of humidity of air is a serious concern of architecture as well. Air flow and quality then becomes a key issue of construction and architecture, somehow through the back door.
Maybe in approaching architecture we might think first of what is or has been the architect’s concept of air or aerodynamics. 100 years after the death of Gustave Eiffel and the Olympic Games in Paris, we still gain from thinking about air (not only air pollution) and its dynamics. Looking forward to the next generation of air architects.
(Image: Exhibition, Air architectures, at Berlin International, University of Applied Sciences 2024-12)

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Paris Vision

You got to have a vision in urban planning. Long term visions are best to then realize them step by step. The center of Paris has been restructured since the time of Haussmann at several places. The previous commercial center of Paris with « Les Halles » and the building of the commodities exchange « La Bourse de Commerce «  have been turned into a pedestrian area long ago. This axis runs nowadays from the home of the Pinault Collection to Les Halles almost to the Centre Pompidou (in the background of the image below). Whereas Les Halles is usually very popular and crowded with people the art museums are a bit less busy. Walking around in the area is offering amenities for people of all walks of life. It is an area, better called a pedestrian boulevard, where the wealthy and the poor may meet or at least pass by. Social urban planning is in high need to be considered as a vision not only for Paris, but many places and cities again. Inclusive societies also begin with a rather simple vision of togetherness putting people first.

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Lost Objects

Project yourself into the future more than a hundred years from today, maybe even more than a thousand years from today. Some archaeologists will work on the planet earth to uncover the story behind the disappearance of the once very advanced species of homo erectus. They start drilling near some of the mystical sites of this civilization, the cities where mass celebrations were held called Olympic Games. These archaeologists use huge drilling machines to take samples at previous Olympic sites and uncover the remains of the thought to be modern civilizations on earth. Amongst all these samples they find all sorts of artifacts and layers left over. Plastics and metal structures appear in the samples as well as other forms of „artificializations“, transformations of earth’s principal „natural“ raw materials. The inhabitants of earth apparently lost or destroyed the planet‘s capabilities of CO2 storage and eventually became extinct. After fighting for survival on another planet the archeological expedition on earth saved this block of the remains of a doomed civilization. All this is pure science fiction, yet the specimen sample is exposed on the roof of the futuristic Fondation Louis Vuitton building near the Jardin d‘Acclimatation in Neuilly sur Seine. (Image of „Where the slaves live“ of Adrian Villar Rochas, 2014).

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Olympic Village

The newly built Olympic Village in Seine Saint Denis consists of 82 buildings and offers 3000 appartements. With up-to-date cooling and heating technology from a nearby geothermal source the eco friendliness is assured as well. Inclusive accessibility allows for games for all and the needs of an aging society. The price level of renting apartments remains a difficult to solve issue as demand will exceed supply for years to come. Universal accessibility is a necessary precondition to host the Paralympic games also in 2024. Historic sites are notoriously difficult to adapt to aging societies and inclusive approaches. However, the adaptation takes a large step towards the realization of inclusiveness of extraordinary people. The care for environmental sustainability has been honored as well. The exhibition in the Museum of the city of Saint Denis at the outskirts of Paris demonstrates the significant size of the urban renewal project. The socioeconomic and environmental benefits are evident and will give a push towards this previously deprived suburb. A lot remains to be done but the new trajectory for urban development is already put on track. The oblivious factories and enterprises give way for urban renewal of housing for people with easy access to the Paris city centers as well. (Source of Image)

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Olympic Visits

The Olympic Games 2024 in Paris are celebrated in the Stade de France and the Nautical Stadium which are both situated in nearby Saint Denis. There are fast trains and a Metro station to reach the venues.

Just one stop further you may visit the historic site of the Basilica St. Denis where most of the French royals were buried. A dive into history with the crypt of graves and splendid church windows will compensate for the additional effort to walk to the site. Quiet places are rare during the Olympic frenzy of cheering spectators and buses rushing sportspersons between venues and the newly built Olympic village. Security can feel intimidating at times but preventing bad situations is in the interest of everyone. The small historical center allows to start a visit off the busy calendar of events with a walk around the city center and the basilica.

Saint Denis Basilica 2024-7 France