Sermon on the train

Question: how 'public' is public, actually? Especially, how 'public' are 'public lectures'?

Many universities go out of their way to organize lectures that are accessible to anyone who's interested. This means, however, only that an institute choses to liberate only a small part of the information available, at a carefully picked place and time. Generally, the effect is that only visitors from a small circle will attend, not the general public. Most of the time, this isn't out of a lack of interest. It could be that the institute is, despite the open entrance, not easily accessible. Or that people outside the confined universe of the institute don't know when or where the public lecture is. Or think about the psychological barrier someone who's not accustomed to a university might have.
All in all, it's pretty safe to argue that, however good the intentions might be, public lectures are, in fact, not completely public.

The logical next question could be to think about how to increase the public character of those lectures. Think about the biblical public sermons, for instance. Jesus preached on the mount and on the plain, he went towards the public to share his view. If that idea is converted to our times, "Sermon on the Train" isn't that far-fetched.

Here, well known academics, as well as artists, go out into the public realm to share their ideas. Or, more precisely, they hold a lecture on a train in South-Africa. The lecture is announced beforehand by means of posters and such, meaning that people who want to hear the lecture mingle with the normal traveling public.
The difference is that the commuting public didn't choose to listen to the lecture, they are immersed into it, simply because they cannot get out of the train. In that essence, it's a bit like preaching in public - hence the term "sermon". One could ask whether this is more public as the traditional form, what the relation between lecturer and audience is, and who can access (or owns?) the information.


The idea behind the sermons stems from the artists "Made You Look". That means Nare Mokgotho and Molemo Moiloa.
"The works of Made You look are, as the name suggests, tongue-in-cheek interventions that encourage a re-observation of and de-familiarization with the ordinary." as they say themselves.

Kindergarten in Fuji - Takaharu+Yui Tezuka architects

Now more than ever before, kids spend a great deal of their time in schools, kindergartens and daycare centres. For many kids, those places are basically the largest portion of their lives: the place where the live, rest, encounter others, experience their surroundings - which is a relatively new fact of life, in comparison with some decades ago.
Earlier on, schools and kindergartens served one simple function: to educate children. The function of a kindergarten today requires a fully different kind of building, with a different kind of atmosphere, than the classic form of a school.

A contemporary kindergarten needs to appeal to the child, to provide them with a sheltered, comfortable place, but at the same time needs to challenge children to explore and to invent. Both functions seem to be heading in different directions: at one hand, the building should be about security (in all aspects of the word) - and at the other hand, the building should be about adventure.

In a building for a kindergarten / Montesori-school in Fuji (Japan), Takaharu+Yui Tezuka architects found a perfect amalgamation of what a contemporary kindergarten means to children. Everything in the building is designed to fit the scale of a child. Ceiling heights are a maximum of 2100mm and all furniture is leightweight enough for a child to pick up, for instance.

The oval shaped building encompasses an interior courtyard, which is something of a safe haven for children to play - in the middle of the city. But at the same time, the building isn't aiming to turn itself away from the city completely. This is where the extremely low ceiling height comes into play: aside from fitting the building to the scale of a child, it gives way for a close relation between ground level and roof. The entire roof is accessible as a playing field - which is a space for joy and adventure - but also a different way to experience and see the surrounding city for the children.

As a nice extra touch, three large, existing Zekova trees remained on site and are incorporated into the new building. The most common way would be to build the oval building around the trees, placing the trees (conveniently) in the courtyard. But that might have made the building a bit too "perfectly cute". The trees are actually passing through the building, giving the clean shape a little rough edge. And that little thing gives the building a lot of extra character. It's a bit like a really goodlooking person, that gets more personality in the appearance because of a remarkable scar.



I found this building via noticiasarquitectura.info, where you can find more pictures and some drawings, too.

Pixorama

A classic theme in painting is the so-called Panoramic painting, an all-compassing view of a subject. It might seem a rather traditional form, but it inspired Eboy to create something similar for a recent exhibition in Barcelona: he came up with the Pixorama.

The Pixorama is a complex view of an urban scene, all built up out of pixels. Because of the style of projection (axonometric, stylized computer images), the objects can be re-used, and remodeled. This makes a pixorama more like a living city than panoramas could ever be: the pixorama changes constantly, and is thus not a reflection on the world, but a world in itself.

How to expand a historical city?

Many cities throughout the world are looking for a viable strategy for growth. In many cases, the answer to "growth" is seen in "expansion": increasingly adding suburban areas to an already sprawling city. The looming problems are ominous: an increase in congestion of traffic, an increase of pollution, a longer distance (both absolute and relative) to a city's vital cultural and recreational functions, risks of segregation and gentrification... the list of potential woes of increased suburbanisation of cities goes on and on.

The solution is obvious: if one is able to increase the density of existing historical city centres, without losing life-quality in those inner-city cores, growth is contained within it's own structure. Thus allowing for a compact city, with smaller distances to travel, proximity to all the lures of the centre, and a more lively centre at that.
Strangely enough, in many cities the exact opposite effect can be seen. For instance, take a look at Rome: in 1951, about 357.000 inhabitants were living in the historical centre of this city. Nowadays, their numbers have dropped to about 100.000.
So whereas it might seem logical to densify (and intensify) the historical city in order to allow the city to grow, there is a big drop in number of inhabitants.

This was the point for the Italian architecture firm IaN+ to start their research project. A case study of the historical centre of Rome serves as an example of a wider phenomenon, which they called the "Re-living the Historic Center".

Their analysis of the reasons for the decrease of inhabitants in the centre is threefold:
1. The financial profit:
downtowns are exclusively transformed according to economic “needs”, seeking mainly the increase of property value; the residential emptying produces the disappearing of the neighborhood structures and dynamics that have always characterized the city's life and complexity.
2. Tourism:
the invasion by the “tourism machine” causes the replacement of residential use with accommodation facilities and the resulting eviction of residents. In various areas of the historic center the daily number of tourists is at least twice the number of inhabitants in the same areas. The tourist-oriented structures are becoming the prevalent program; the downtown commercial fabric, constituted by small businesses, is disappearing, to be replaced by large shopping malls in the outskirts of the city.
3. University:
in Rome there are three large public universities, and the same amount of private universities plus a series of specialized institutes. Since there is not a proper typological response to the student population, students are forced to look into the normal residential market, so that they often replace most of the residents who used to live around university campuses.

These three effects create urban tissues with holes in it. Not physical holes, but holes of practical use. The streets and the facades are important for mass tourism, some building blocks have strong economic value. But for many buildings, only the facade (the way they present themselves to the public) matters: the inside of the building has become out-of-use.

The solution they propose is as simple as it is radical: demolish the under-used buildings in the historical centre. But leave the facade, since this is an important part of the decor for the huge tourist-industry of the city. Behind this empty facade, the social structure of the neighborhoods can be strengthened, by inserting housing facilities in this recycled city structure.
Behind the facades, structures of housing and open space can co-exist, in order to create a second type of structure of the city: next to the tourist economy of the city, a system of inhabitants and ecology.


It might be a bit naive, it might be a bit too simplistic, and their architectual solution might not be the most convincing one: The idea of this project certainly has some fascinating points to it.
A fact is that an increasing number of historical city centres are falling prey to mass tourism. A fact is that there are less and less inhabitants in these historical centres. And a fact is that one needs to devote though to the reclaiming of the city centres to actual city life, and consider alternatives for the continuing de-densification of those centres.

The (other) man in black

Have you ever wondered why so many architects wear black? Well, Cordula Rau definitely did, so she went ahead and asked a bunch of architects that questions. And she made a book out of the (sometimes hilarious) responses she got, which is adequately dubbed "Why do architects wear black?".

My answer is that black clothes form a nice contrast with the modernist white building. Who is responsible for the white modernist building? I'd have to call on Le Corbusier as trendsetting. And he probably was also on the forefront of trend to start wearing black. I'm glad that he was less successful in starting the trend of "painting the houses of fellow architects, while being nude" - but that's a whole different story alltogether.


I found the book by Cordula Rau through http://architecture.myninjaplease.com The first image is found through them, too - and they have it from architecture students from hell.

Reading material: Dance of Days

The problem with reading a lot of books is that you can never fully remember everything you've ever read. Some books leave small reminders, some others make some impact, and some others stay with you forever. But also a lot of books that are actually pretty good, are getting lost amid the myriad of other letters, syllables and words. So I decided to ocasionally post a little bit on this blog, about something I've been reading lately. As a small momentum for myself, or maybe as an inspiration for someone else?

Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital - Mark Andersen, Mark Jenkins

In many ways, punk made an impact on my life. And I still consider myself a punk. Not by anyone's definition, but by my own definition. For me, it started with the music, but somewhere along the line, the ideas behind it grew to be more imporant. Whether it's self-empowerment, the meaning of DIY-ethics, the idea that actions speak louder than words, the inspirational power of stepping outside of your own comfort-zone, the moral obligation to not follow the flock, taking your beliefs from thought to action - all that is something that came from a punk-influence. And I think that these concepts made a lasting impact on me. And even though my punk-affluence started with music, it's definitely more than just "loud and abrasive" for me.

That being said, it's exactly the idea behind this book. On the surface, it's a step-by-step description of the history of the Washington D.C. punk-scene. It's about the bands that spawned it, the people that inspired it and all that. It's nice to give some perspective on bands, but if that would've been it, the book would've been a bit limited. More inspiring, it shows how a small group of kids, starting with energy and an idea, creates something special out of nothing.
Sure, "Dance of Days" isn't complete. Surely, the book has a particular focus on a certain part of the Washington scene. And surely, you see the scene through the eyes of the author. But that's always the case with histories as such: it's always a story from someone. So yeah, I was missing some bands that I really love (like Moss Icon, to name one) and others were omnipresent (there's only so much one can tell about Fugazi-songs, for example).

But what I enjoyed about the book is that it shows that music and ethics can go hand in hand. That there's another option than stupid macho rockstar bullshit, and that there's more to life than music: That music can actually help to spread ideas and meaning among a crowd. That punk is not just "rock hard" and "look the look", but that it can inspire initiatives as the "punk percussion protests", tons of benefit shows for charitable causes, songs that have an actual message. And that there's nothing different between audience and public, and that if you have an idea or want to do something, you should just go for it!

But all these ideologies aside: I wouldn't have read the book if it wouldn't have been about bands that I feel deeply about. It's great to read about bands that you've never been able to witness first-hand, but have still lit a spark somewhere inside you. So for me, I'd enjoyed reading about the crazyness of HR of the Bad Brains. I enjoyed reading about the passion of Rites of Spring (who are the band in the picture above, by the way). I also enjoyed reading about the little high-school kid Dave Grohl dropping school to play with Scream.
So to me, the book was a nice amalgamation of who's who in punkrock-gossip and an empowering message. And while we're at it, why not listen to some Rites of Spring? Or Minor Threat? Or Bad Brains?

Carloft

Let's imagine that you really want to live dead centre in a metropolitan area. But you don't want to experience all the possible negative side effects of living in such a place. And you have a lot of money. These three elements are crucial assumptions to understand the concept of the Carloft.

Apparently, living in a closed cocoon yourself, in some sort of gated community for wealthy urbanites isn't enough. Let's imagine: it could be hard to find a decent parking space. It might be slightly uneasy in a dark, underground parking space. So the people behind the carloft thought it must be a good idea to include the car as a part of your private luxourious condominium with a splendid view over the city centre.
So the appartments built with the carloft-system come with a built-in carlift, with which you can park your car right in front of your home, in front of your own window. Even if you live on the fifth floor in the centre of Berlin.

Honestly, I like luxus in appartments. I like stupid gadgets. And the private loft-gardens that every floor has in this building is just a lovely contrast to the city around the building. But this is overshadowed by a way to park your car that is just over the top in all possible ways. It's a way for inhabitants to close themselves off even more radical from everything around them that is slightly different (and thus: a potential threat to peace and security). Sure, it looks good in a photoshopped image, but the concept is just a bridge too far for me. If you'd want to live in the city, you'd have to deal with the fact that it's actually a city. And parking your car on the fifth floor might be a nice gadget, but for the god's sake: aren't there smarter (and less flashy, maybe?) ways to organize parking for an appartment building in an urban settings?

Jose Vasconcelos library - Alberto Kalach

It most be rather intimidating - or even frightening - to enter the Jose Vasconcelos library in Mexico City. The spectacular building, designed by Alberto Kalach, is not just a regular library. It's a monument to books.
It is one of the major cultural buildings that should function to turn the urban decay of the north-central area of Mexico City around. It's also something of a scandoulous political affair, but I don't want to get into all that.

This building is just spectacle in the interior. Highrising stacks of books fill this building, dizziling high. I don't want to spend a tons of words on this buildings, because I truely believe that the images of this building speak for themselves. I'm in awe. And I am pretty sure that I'm not alone at that...

Schalalala

I've seen it pretty often during the last weeks. Cars with national flags attached to it, to show support to a specific national football team. And I must say that I really enjoy seeing cars with two different flags. Especially in the area where my girlfriend lives, I've seen a lot of cars with both the German and the Turkish flag attached to them. What happens on wednesday (when the two nations collide in the semi-finals of Euro 2008) is a different story.
But normally supporter-kits for football-fans are pretty absolute. They leave no room for double choices, or multiple options. Since not everybody it as rigid as this supposes people to be, Schalalala was invented. As they say themselves on their website: Schalalala is a fan-scarf remix project, which offers you a more self-determined formulation. Use the Remix-Interface to turn existing fan-scarfs into your own message. Download your knitting pattern from the Remix-Gallery and go ahead and knit it.

Some pretty stadiums

As might be the case with more than just one reader of this blog at the moment, I am currently pretty much completely immersed in the European Championship Football. I don't mean that I'm walking around my neighborhood, wearing an orange clog on my head, or that I go to work in a lions' suit or anything like that. It's just that I'm watching pretty much every game possible, and that I'm discussing tactics with friends and collegues. So as a avid football-watcher, this tournament is pretty interesting. But to be honest: as an architecture geek, it's not that fascinating at all: most of the stadiums that these matches are being played at, are quite bland and unspectacular. I don't mean that I'd like all stadiums to be spectacular, but it's nice to see stadiums in which the crowd relates really closely to the pitch, in which the conditions for fans, players, grass etcetera is optimized, and has a nice idea about sports appreciation or context behind it.
So I decided to dedicate this post to five random football stadiums that are "interesting", "special", "spectacular" or anything like that. It's just a collection of random stadiums that came to mind...

1. Allianz Arena - München (Germany)

The first one is a pretty obvious choice: I think everybody with even the faintest interest in architecture knows this stadium, by Herzog and DeMeuron. And even though the interior is pretty spectacular and grand, it is the facade that makes this stadium stand out. It's made up of ETFE-cushions that can be lit in three colors: red, blue and white. This is because the stadium is home to two clubs: Bayern München and 1860 München. If Bayern is playing, the stadium is lit in red (their club color), and in case 1860 is playing, the stadium is bright blue (which is their color). And the white, you might wonder? That's for games of the German National team.

2. Estadio Municipal - Braga (Portugal)

The stadium in Braga only has two lateral stands, supporting each other by means of steel cables. Eduardo Souto de Moura decided against putting seating against either of the goals, in order to take advantage of the spectacular site: The stadium is dug into Monte Castro mountain. Behind one goal, there is a granite wall of the mountain, and behind the other one, there's a spectacular view of the valley below.

3. Olympiastadion - Berlin (Germany)

The Olympiastadion was originally built for the 1936 Olympic Games by Werner March. It was intended to house 100.000 people. However, when you approach the stadium, it doesn't feel that gigantic. That's because it's sunk halfway into the ground: the part that is sticking out is only the upper ring of the stadium. This also means that , from ground level, you get views right into the stadium. And, of course, the entire stadium has a typical Nazi-monumentality to it. In 2004, a renovation to bring the stadium up to the level needed for the world cup 2006 was finished, done by Von Gerkan, Marg & Partner. They left many characteristics of the original stadium intact, but added a sleek roof over the stands.

4. "The Ring" - Maribor (Slovenia)

A stadium doesn't necessary have to be big to be beautiful. That's what Ofis proved with their stadium in Maribor. On a parkland, where a small concrete stand was built in the sixties, a stadium should be erected to house 12.500 people. The architects put a ring on top of a base filled with public programs. The ring slopes up and down, adjusting to the best views for the public.

5. Nou Mestalla - Valencia (Spain)

Granted, this stadium isn't finished yet and it's not quite certain what the stadium will finally look like - since it won't be finished until May 2009. But the images of the design show a potentially great stadium. It is designed by a cooperation of Arup Sport and Reid Fenwick Associates. There is a lot of talk about the design of the building, that would mimick the city of Valencia itself, with the river Turia and the different neighborhoods represented in the facade and all that... Well, to be honest, I don't care too much about phrases like that. The important thing is that the stadium is prone to look amazing from the outside, and will probably be spectacular from the inside, when 75.000 people are watching a game in there - all with a perfect view of the pitch because of the geometrics of the design.
And that is, of course, still the most important thing: the pitch. A stadium without a decent pitch is worthless. Just ask the people at Ajax Amsterdam...

Manhattan in Tuscany

They must have been pretty useful at one time or another, those towers in San Gimignano in Tuscany, Italy. Historians haven't reached an agreement yet about their original goal was. Their estimated guesses mount up to functions such as storage space or defence. In medieval times, San Gimignano was a town devoted to trade, situated on a crossing of some main trade routes from the east to the west.

But, as things go: the practical towers grew out of proportion, into a status symbol. Everybody wanted a tower bigger than the next door neighbors, to show the wealth of the family owning the tower. Laws dictated only that the towers shouldn't be higher than the La Rognosa, the 51 metres high tower of the Palazzo del Podestà (the seat of the magistrate). And even though a tower of 50 metres high wasn't of that much use in medieval Tuscany, as the years passed, the towers of San Gimignano grew higher and higher. And their numbers kept increasing, too. Eventually, there were 72 of these towers in the city.

And the story goes as many historical stories go: the righ and famous families of San Gimignano were increasingly obsessed with their rivalries and feuds. And eventually, they couldn't defend themselves against the attacks from Volterra or Poggibonsi. The power and wealth of the high society of the town decreased, and the towers became obsolete. Slowly, San Gimignano became a sleepy, dull town.

And paradoxically, that is exactly the reason that 15 out of the original 72 towers are still standing in San Gimignano as a unique tourist attraction in this particular small town in Tuscany.

The biggest parasite in the world

Looking at skyscrapers and dense urban areas makes one wonder: how could these become more sustainable in the future? It isn't that much about all the new skyscrapers that are being built - since "green" has become to mean "big bucks" all new skyscrapers are green in one way or another - but the existing urban structures. For the evolo skyscraper competition, Daewon Park has taken exactly this as his starting point, with another idealistic concept in the back of his mind: "a way to reunite the isolated city blocks and insert a multi-layer network of public space, green space and nodes for the city."

He designed a series of prefabricated, stackable modules, that can attach to existing structures. Thus, the new structure adds extra qualities: it could be either green space for gardening, wind turbines for renewable energy, or any kind of other green or sociable programme.

Sure, it's not the most realistic proposal in the world, and it is quite unlikely to ever be built, but that's not the point in an open idea competition. The point is that the concept is a refreshing look at the problems and difficulties of inner-city life in very dense areas. Just imagine that you could clip a parasite to your building to gain such an extra quality of life. Wouldn't that be great?

I found this project on treehugger.com.

Linked Hybrid

Many works of modern architecture in China's big cities seem to be solitary, free standing objects, that don't react on their urban surroundings all that much. Instead of adding to this culture of isolated islands, Steven Holl came up with these linked towers in Bejing, in a project that isaptly called "Linked Hybrid". In this project, it is attempted to create a more coherent social space. Not only is the program injected with functions that inhabitants of the complex could use for their daily life (such as hairdressers, laundromats and the likes), but the eight towers (which are considered as a "city within a city" are also linked at the 21st floor,by a spatial ring of skybridges. In these skybridges there's a lot of cafés and other services to create a second public plaza level. The routing at this level is not just one of quick and straight connections, but slight ramps, jumps, corners and cuts in the routes make for an interesting suspense of movement and place: the perspective of the building changes with every move.

There's a lot of criticism possible about the project (it creates a isolated capsule for the inhabitants, the relation to the public ground floor is one of negation etcetera), but what I really like about this project is that it looks exactly like a student project that would regularly be dismissed at the final crit with the words "nah, in reality this would never even be considered to be built." But Steven Holl and the developer Modern Group made it happen.

The floating school of Halong Bay

It's likely that almost every single tourist visiting Vietnam spends some time in Halong Bay. The caves in the area are pretty much the main attraction of the area: the caves run between the rocky islands: this long stretched piece of coastline is home to approximately 2000 islands. Most of which are too rough to be inhabited. Around these islands, some floating villages can be found. It all seems rather idyllic: about an hour away from main land, a bunch of fishermen live in a more or less normal community-life: they trade their fish for other kinds of food, have families - of which some members have probably never set foot on the main land. The question is: what happens with the kids? Well, there's a floating school in Halong Bay. It's amazing to see how a normal community life can take place in an un-normal situation...

Those images are from a blog called "Mulloskeys adventures abroad".

Urban agriculture

Agriculture in an urban setting: that pretty much sounds like a contradictio in terminis if there ever was one. But lately, urban agriculture is increasing in popularity. There are several reasons why urban agriculture is an interesting concept - depending what the goal is. For instance, food awareness and ecological education. Many children living in contemporary cities have no clue where food comes from. Or how nature functions, generally. By integrating agricultural practices in their day-to-day environment, they can get a better understanding of ecosystems and increase their awareness for food production.

Also, urban agriculture can be a way to become (semi) self-servicing. If you can grow your own crops, you don't have to depend on external parties for supply. And you know what you get - in terms of pesticides, for instance. . There are examples of restaurants already functioning like this (restaurant "De Kas" in Amsterdam, for instance, gorws its own herbs and vegetables. The ingredients are therefore fresh, seasonal, and don't cost tons of petrol to be transported), but the concept also functions in housing groups and other social collectives.

But moreover, urban agriculture can have practical, eco-friendly consequences: most consumers live in cities. To get fresh goods from farmlands into the cities is quite an endeavor. So by actually placing food-production near the food-consumption, supply lines can be effectively shortened.

The thing is: there is a reason why agriculture is traditionally not embedded in cities: density. There simply isn't all that much space available for agriculture. So for integrating agriculture into urban life, new technologies and alternative ways of growing food need to be developed. One could think of vertical farming, enabling roof gardens to be used for crops or something else - the key factor is increasing intensity of land use. For instance in developing nations, it could be a way for city dwellers to gain more independence.

disclaimer: Yes, I know that this entire post sounds rather naive, but I really appreciate the ideas behind urban agriculture, and therefore I didn't mention the drawbacks, challenges and problems involved.

By the way: the image above is taken from verticalfarm.com - a site on which the design for a vertical farming factory is explained.
And for more information on the subject of urban agriculture, you can check out websites, such as cityfarmer.org, ruaf.org urbanagriculture.wordpress.com or urbanagriculture-news.com. Or any of the other sources on the subject.

Moresnet - the story of a micronation

It was the year 1815. After Napoleon was defeated, two countries couldn't agree on their shared borders. The debate between Prussia and The Netherlands was about a zinc mine called Altenberg/Vieille Montagne. It took over a year to reach a compromise: the village of Moresnet would become Dutch, the village of Neu-Moresnet became Prussian, and the area inbetween (containing the town of Kelmis) became a condominium - a territory ruled by two authorities. Both countries were to govern the "Neutraliteit Moresnet" as it was officially called : a neutral territory of roughly the same size as Monaco. Simply put: the area became a new country (a micronation), of which the head of state was the major of the village of 256 inhabitants. After Belgium became independent in 1830, they took over the governing part of the Dutch. Considering the geographic location, the point at Vaals (in the south of the Netherlands), which is now known as the "drielandenpunt" (three-nation point) because of the meeting of three borders, was a "vierlandenpunt" (four-nation point) at that time. If you look at older maps, this position is actually marked as such.



It didn't take long for the town to understand the possibilities of the position as a self-governed state. For instance, it wasn't allowed to either of the countries (Prussia and the Netherlands) to place a military power in Moresnet. The country also wasn't allowed to have a military of its own. As a result, the inhabitants of Moresnet didn't know conscription (it wasn't until much later (1847, to be exact) one was supposed to chose between either Belgium and Prussia for military service). They also had very low taxations in Moresnet, and low import-taxes, with higher wages than in surrounding countries. And brewing your own alcohol was legal there.
As a result, the nation started growing rapidly. In the year 1858, 2572 people were living there - ten times as much as when the country was established.

One of the most intriguing figures in the history of the place was the German physician dr. Wilhelm Molly. He moved to Moresnet to start a doctors' practice. He quickly became popular because he was a good doctor for fair prices. After his successful attempt to end a Cholera-epidemy, he was more popular than ever. But he wasn't just a physician. He was also the founder of the "Kelmiser VerkehrsAnstalt", issuing stamps and such - as a symbol of independence for the country. But that wasn't all: Molly was eager to turn Moresnet into a Esperanto-state. The neutrality of the territory was suited for that, in his eyes. This new state was supposed to be called "Amikejo" - meaning "place of friends". At a propaganda-congress in 1908, local citizens and international Esperantists came together to discuss Amikejo. Shortly after, many international newspapers reported about "a new Esperanto-country"...

The first world war was the end for Moresnet. In 1914 Germany (including former Prussia) invaded the country. Oddly enough, even though they had always considered Moresnet to be Prussian/German territory, they called it "occupied territory" during the war.
After the war, in 1919, it was decided that Belgium gained control of the entire area of Moresnet. The actual zinc mine, the reason for its independence, was already depleted since 1885.

What is left of this former country is only a small museum called the Göhltal Museum. And of the original 60 poles that marked the border of the country, about 50 are still in its original position. As if the country still exists...

Complaints Choir

Probably everybody complains every once in a while. And even though it might feel as a relief sometimes to complain a whole lot, it's actually taking a whole lot of energy from people. This made Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen think about possibilities to do something more with this energy. In their mothertongue (Finnish), there's a word called "Valituskuoro". Translated, this means something like "complaints choir", and is used to describe a situation in which a lot of people complain simultaneously. They took this expression literally, and started an actual complaining choir.

So they set out to change the way we complain in places they were invited to as artists. Their starting point was Birmingham, England. The members of the choir - who were found through flyers and posters - turned their complaints into song with help of local musician Mike Hurley. The chorus of the song was a catchy "I want my money back!"

As the founders write on the website of the complaints choir:
As complaining is a universal phenomenon the project could be organised in any city around the world. So far, choirs have been founded in Birmingham, Helsinki, Hamburg, St. Petersburg, Poikkilaakso, Bodø, Penn State University, (some place in) Canada, Juneau, Gabriola Island, Jerusalem, Melbourne and Budapest. And more are under construction as we speak.
If you think that your town needs a complaints choir, get in touch with Tellervo and Oliver to do it yourself and start a choir.

Kowloon Walled City

Kowloon Walled City
Once upon a time, there was a large building block in Hong Kong. It didn´t follow "normal" urban laws, or architectural codes. It was like a surreal organism of building parts, growing in ways that were uncontrollable. It wasn´t a group of buildings, but the entire block was one huge buildings of 14 storeys high, with small inner streets. It was dark, smelly and damp. And dangerous, uncontrollable by official forces.

How could such a place have ever come into existance? Well, at first it was a simple fortress. When the british wanted to expand their hold on Hong Kong in 1898, with a 99-year lease covering the whole of Kowloon Peninsula and all the nearby islands, most of Kowloon City was subsumed under the new jurisdiction. However, part of the terms of the lease was that a small magistrates` fort would remain Chinese territory until the colonial administration was properly established.

This never properly happened: and the fort was a anomaly: within the british zone, but not under british jurisdiction. The chinese left in 1899, but the british never got a firm grip on the area - it became like a diplomatic black hole - no party wanted to upset the other, making way for an anarchistic society. All possible vices were present, and the place was more or less run by local triads. The area increased an increased, since no law was governing it.

Lateron, after extensive police raids in the seventies, the triads lost its stronghold on the place, making way for a self-organised community. The place started to grow. But the outer limits were set, so the place had to grow inwards. A labyrinthine network of buildings, with streets on different levels started to form, grow and change. It was like a monolythic sculpture, cut out by human activities. The only rules of construction were twofold: electricity had to be provided to avoid fire, and the buildings could be no more than about fourteen stories high, because of the nearby airport.

If there ever was a place with extreme density, it was Kowloon Walled City: considering that 35.000 people lived on 6.5 acres (about 200 x 100 metres), every person had about 5 metres (if I did my maths correctly). No car could fit in the narrow streets, and every visitor would´ve been lost upon entering. The only sunlight inside came from small cracks between the building. No one would´ve ever imagined such a place, but still it existed. It was finally destroyed in 1993, making way for a park



Watermark publications released a great book about Kowloon Walled City in the late nineties:
Girard, Greg and Lambot, Ian. City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City. London: Watermark, 1999.

SESC Pompeia - Lina Bo Bardi

In the mid seventies, an old factory for oil drums in Sao Paulo was not in use anymore. The plan was to convert it to a recreational centre. Lina Bo Bardi decided to keep most of the complex the way it was, to preserve the characteristics of the site. About half of the requested program could be placed in the existing structure. Here, her approach was that of freely placing objects in the space, in order not to disturb spatial qualities too much. For instance, a structure of very thin concrete divides the main hall in a library, exposition space and a collective living room (with fireplace and river running through). A smally allyway between different parts of the factory is turned into a lobby by use of a transparent roofing ß giving the complex a feeling of being inside outside and vice versa.

For the other half of the programme, that couldn't be placed in the existing structures, Bo Bardi erected two towers. In the biggest of the two towers (a rather plump looking one), four sporting halls are placed on top of eachother, with a swimming pool underneath. The smaller tower consists of changing rooms, cafetaria and smaller gymnasiums. The two towers are connected with various skybridges, making the two heavy concrete structures a bit more airy looking.

It is said that the centre is one of the most successful public places in the city. Continually, there are people from the area on the site, whether they are there with a specific goal or not. All kinds of people, from all kinds of social classes are mixed in the centre.

CouchSurfing

Two of the most interesting things that the internet has brought forth over the last years are, in my view, so-called "social networks" and "interactivity".
Personally, I am mostly fascinated by virtual/real life crossovers. CouchSurfing is such a virtual network that is actually enhancing the real life.
The basic idea is rather simple: who better to show you around a city you visit? And why not help travellers out with a place to sleep? So, on CouchSurfing, you can find people who are willing to figure as some sort of travel guide for their place, or people who are willing to let you sleep in their place. And the only thing that is asked in return is that you are willing to do the same to others. No money involved, no difficult transactions, but instead a great way to meet nice people and see interesting people.

If you are wondering how it exactly works, this is how they put it on their website:

1. You become a member of CouchSurfing.com. Create a profile and fill it out as much as possible, including photos. Be sure to link to any friends you might already have in the network.

2. Consider joining some discussion groups in your areas of interests or engage in the chat. You meet some friendly people online and share in some interesting discussions.

3. You decide you want to spend two weeks traveling around Europe. You get a ticket arriving in Amsterdam and departing from Florence.

4. You log on to CouchSurfing.com and do a search for members within 20 km/miles of Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, Zurich and Florence- your new travel itinerary.

5. You contact interesting prospects from the list and explain the sort of travel/stay you're interested in. Use the "Request to CouchSurf with..." button to include specific details.

6. You get several offers for places to stay. You decide that you want to spend a few days in each city.

7. You confirm with your hosts, adjust your travel plans, and excitedly fly off to Amsterdam.

8. Martin picks you up at the airport and takes you back to his flat in the Rembrandtplein section of Amsterdam. The two of you walk around the neighborhood and meet some of his friends at a lively cafe for dinner. You stay up late sharing stories and getting to know each other. Martin recommends some interesting places you might like to explore around the city. When he returns from work the next evening, he takes you to his favorite pub and you tell him about your adventures. The two of you laugh and connect; you make new friends at the pub, and you're grinning the whole walk home along the canals.

9. As an example of a good surfer, you do as much as you can to give back to your hosts. This includes doing simple things like, for example, washing the dishes, making dinner or helping out in some way. Maybe you have a special skill you're willing to share?

10. You say good-bye and move on to Brussels, Frankfurt, and then Zurich. In each location you've met some great people and gotten to experience being a part of the culture through your connection with your host. You go places you would have never read about in a guidebook, meet interesting locals, and spend time bonding with your host. You're actually experiencing those "deep and meaningful connections" you've read about on the site, and you're making friends for life.

11. You decide to stay a little longer in Florence and your host, Donia, has agreed to let you spend a week with her.

12. You spend the week talking with Donia about politics, travel, art, your hometown, and a whole lot of other things. She lets you borrow her bicycle and gives you a map she's marked with some fun places to check out. On the weekend she takes you on a side trip to visit some relatives in a small Tuscan village. You learn to make awesome marinara sauce, you take a hike through picturesque rolling hills and her uncle, a craftsman, gives you a handmade leather belt. You're amazed at the time you're having! Back in Florence, Donia takes you to her favorite gelato place and you know it's the best thing you've ever tasted.

13. By the time you leave on the bus for the airport, you feel that you've gotten a good feel for the local life in each of the places you've traveled. You've made many new friends and you hope Martin, Donia and others will visit you. You can't wait for your turn to show them the great things about your culture.

14. When you arrive home you are so excited about CouchSurfing you go immediately to the participate tab and start helping CouchSurfing community advance the mission of the project.