ВУЗ:
Составители:
Рубрика:
which form reflected function are disappearing; but the transition to structures dominated by communications
and intelligence is not reflected in the architecture.
It is not easy to formulate a precise and acceptable definition of industrial building. One set of guidelines
for industrial construction lists "buildings or parts of buildings that serve the production, processing or storage
of products and goods". Under the same heading, the Brockhaus encyclopedia includes buildings for industrial
production and research, together with administration and social structures.
In his "History of Building Types", Nikolaus Pevsner confines his treatment of industrial structures largely
to factories of a certain size in which products are manufactured in great numbers, as well as to warehouses,
market halls and exhibition structures.
Pevsner soon stretched his own definition, however, to include the steam-turbine house erected for the
fountains of Sanssouci. Built in 1842 by Ludwig Persius, a pupil of Schinkel, the building is in the form of a
mosque in Moorish style. Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower is a similar case. Adolf Behne cited this structure
in his analysis of the Modern Movement, which appeared in 1926, as a workshop structure with the qualities of
a historical monument.
In the catalogue to the exhibition "The Useful Arts" staged in Berlin in 1981, Roland Gunter argued that
"architecture and art studies have to learn to understand the processes of this world in all their complexity in-
stead of reducing them to a string of beads"; i.e. the presentation of facades like a sequence of pictures.
In 1996, Helmut С. Schulitz warned that architects were enamored of form and were neglecting the techni-
cal aspects of building, especially new concepts related to content and space. As a result, architects were losing
ground in the race against industry, which was demoting them to the role of packaging decorators. Most indus-
trial buildings take place without any relation to the surrounding city and the population at large. A factory can
be more than just a provider of workplaces for production, though. It can also make a contribution to the city-
scape and the urban image. It can help to create urban spaces. It can reduce the noise from a traffic artery far
more effectively than acoustic screening walls. With the proper layout and landscaping, it can have a positive
effect on urban climate. Solar energy can be generated and stored on its large roof areas, or additional parking
spaces can be made available at weekends for leisure activities. For generations, in the face of urban concentra-
tion, environmental damage, traffic chaos and mass consumption, a solution was seen in the separation of func-
tions. As a result, the concepts of connectivity and plurality have been lost, even though they offer the chance
of mutual enrichment between habitation and workplace. Partial needs may be satisfied, but at the expense of
the whole. By linking industrial buildings with other areas of urban life, more problems could be solved than
would be caused by mutual disturbance. With the development of cleaner, more compact technology, industry
has created the conditions in which a rethinking process is necessary. Even cities with a great architectural
awareness, have an antiquated approach in this respect, as is shown by the recently extended building of the
lamp designer Tobias Grau. In spite of efforts by the company over many years to secure a city location, the
architects Bothe Richter Teherani were finally obliged to conceal their spectacularly spare spacecraft-like de-
sign for the works - the operation of which causes no environmental disturbance - behind an embankment in a
commercial zone in Relingen. Such acts of exclusion challenge the very nature of the city as a collective phe-
nomenon in which human history is reflected.
Companies like Volkswagen and Siemens avail themselves of urban metaphors to keep the loyalty of their
clientele or as a reference joint for innovative processes (e.g. "the revi-ralization of the polls"). In this way, ur-
ban qualities are exploited to create a synthetic surface that rouses emotions and sparks innovation. Helmut
Volkmann's miniaturized "city of the future" - Xenia made by Siemens -is a "studio for innovators" set in Neuper-
lach, a suburb of Munich, but it would have been better located in real urban surroundings.
Rather like the Palais Royal in Paris 200 years ago, the Xenia project was conceived as a means of explor-
ing the pressing problems of our age through an exchange between technology and the arts, between the work-
ing city and the city as a place of human intelligence. A century ago, the composer Maurice Ravel marveled at
the ironworks in Duisburg, speaking of palaces of flowing metal, glowing cathedrals, a wonderful symphony of
whistles and terrible hammer blows. A glimpse behind the scenes of our modern epoch-making "cathedrals of
labor" and "corporate identity" is less satisfying than enthusing over the highlights of building history. Never-
theless, it is strange that the term "industrial culture" is used mainly in a historical context and not to describe
the future potential of modern architecture. The main sites of industrial tourism are memories of the past, to be
found in the new "industrial museums" and in the conservation of important industrial buildings from the "good
old days". For example, the former textile-producing town of Lowell, Massachusetts, with a population of
70,000 has been designated a national park.
Страницы
- « первая
- ‹ предыдущая
- …
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- …
- следующая ›
- последняя »
