Evelyn Osvath
i n t e r v e n t i o n
Malevich, the painter of the Black Square , once said that you have to free the things of their own weight. This can be understood as a phenomenological method, approaching anything with an open mind withholding judgement, oriented to a conscious experience of things as are found and perceived. As a subject/non-participant of the existing space, I can rely on my own physical presence and experience of the site as an important part of self-reflection and sensitivity. As structure is the primary principle of architecture and to create a dialogue of the existing and new, I have used the very basic, existing elements of Checkpoint Bravo as a starting point. As an act of decoding Checkpoint Bravo, I was seeking details, slight connections and shapes, the assemblage of planes, walls, circles, foundations and their relation to each other, as the intrinsic architectural logic of the site. This creates a material and objective substrate for new elements that carry both the past and the present. Meaning lies within the creation of liveable space while balancing out the severity of the site’s past and its historical, cultural importance. The legibility of Checkpoint Bravo remains, as the past and the present will simultaneously exist, inseparably connected, something Juhani Pallasmaa writes about in The Architecture of Image .
Checkpoints on GDR and FRG territory are classified as an ensemble heritage site. The Berlin Monument Authority lists a particular structure as heritage if it has an inherent meaning as evidence of history regardless of its ability to evoke positive or negative memories. This identity-creating ability of the structures due to their visual effect and the implicit political statement of Rümmler and Schröder ultimately led to their protective status as cultural heritage in 1992. Despite the intrinsic political effect of Checkpoint Bravo it is important to acknowledge that history and memory do not stop, but rather shift and evolve over the years. This idea is the basis for my architectural intervention: existing structures require confrontation and dialogue. The fact that in Germany the awareness and the rehabilitation of its divided history is relatively weak motivates my desire to work with the extant structures, not to overwrite or eradicate the past, but rather to balance the preservation of the elements and simultaneously to create something new with a different character. Regardless of the general awareness of historic sites I do believe that anything that is a part of a collective identity is important to preserve.
on site review 38: borders, lines, breaks and breaches 22
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