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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Architecture In the Ruins of a Cement Factory

Posted by Charles Mudede on Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 9:34 AM

Yes, the people who own and live in this Barcelona property are stinking rich. Yes, the music for the video is horrible. But if you put those two things aside, you are left with something amazing: the renovation of the ruins of a cement factory.

The greatness of this project is that the decay of the factory (the way it deteriorated, the way nature adopted it) has been preserved. The best part of the project are were we see the unity of the old structure, nature's intrusion, and human reoccupation.

It's also meaningful that the old cement factory looks a lot like an old cathedral. Cement is the god/substance of the city. The city is all human. And a human is a god to a human (Spinoza put this way: Man is a god to man).

Comments (7) RSS

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You should read Stewart Brand's "How Buildings Learn".

Posted by Fnarf

on December 29, 2011 at 10:09 AM

@1, have you seen that he posted up the six-part, three-hour video of the 1997 BBC documentary he did on it? With music by Brian Eno?

Most of the 27 reviews on Amazon treat it as a book about system and software design, which tells me that architects are not as alert as computer people.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=…

Posted by gloomy gus on December 29, 2011 at 10:29 AM

@2, ack, I didn't even know there WAS a series. Speaking of not being alert. Thenk yew, Gus!

Posted by Fnarf

on December 29, 2011 at 10:47 AM

In the early 1990s Thomas Sieverts oversaw the recovery of disused industrial landscapes in the Ruhr region of Germany, especially in Dortmund, Frankfurt, Bochum, and Essen. At a number of old steel factories he preserved the ruins while interlacing both new construction and natural overgrowth, so that plants and trees overtook the structures in rough equilibrium with the imposed "new" architecture and uses that also refigured the ruins. You probably remember Tom from your conversations with him in 2009, at NW Film Forum, or his work in Portland, Beaverton, Seattle, and Burien, in 2008 and 2009.

Posted by Matthew Stadler on December 29, 2011 at 11:04 AM

Very, very cool.

Posted by Dougsf on December 29, 2011 at 12:08 PM

Charles, you need to know about the plan for an abandoned cement factory in St. Louis: blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2011/…; . Visionary, character, mysterious death - this story will intrigue you.

Posted by deign_to_say on December 29, 2011 at 10:25 PM