spatial identities
| portal to an industrial harbour
[the royal danish academy of fine arts - school of architecture]
The industrial harbour of Copenhagen, Nordhavnen, presents some of the most extreme contrasts of scale in the city. The purpose of this project is to train the intellectual approach to architectural aspects of an impalpable nature. An analysis is expected focusing on the scale concept’s impact on the perception of the surroundings, leading to a proposal for an architectural manifestation.
- Parametre / the inner objectivity (homogeneity / density / fix-points / orientation points): These four parametres set up the entire harbour in subdivisions, enabling a comparison from which a specific area of interest can be singled out.
- Border / the reality between 1 and 0 (barrier / connection / structure / consciousness): A differentiation is being made between barrier and border – the barrier between the city and the harbour is evidently the lifted railway tracks, the border, though, excists only as a “non-place”, either side being inaccessible from the train. The two city structures are fundamentally different, the city resembling a baroque garden (linear) and the harbour resembling an English garden (asymmetrical). The consciousness on these differences is blurred, however, because of the barrier.
- Vacuum / the relation c1-c’ (scale / incompatibility / inaccessibility / alienation): Crossing the border from the city to the harbour creates a twisted relation between the anthropometry of the city and the container scale of the harbour. Not really being introduced to the harbour structure, one mentally pushes the border, making the area difficult to comprehend and relate to. This alienation creates a sort of vacuum between the two clearly defined urban structures.
- Axis / from tabula rasa to virtual reality (periphery / staccato / space / dislocation): The axis, the fysical and mental parallel to the railway, offers no implicit crescendo. On the contrary, the perception of harbour is split up in fragments, presenting the harbour in staccato. This same view from slightly different angles puts together a sort of gigantic hologram – impalpable, inaccessible, and unreal. The two dimensional city edge seems equally inaccessible, causing a dislocation in the context of the city as well as of the harbour.
- Identity / the truth behind the mirror (monument / relativity / convergence / anti-monument): Alienation and dislocation calls for identity – a vacuum is not filled by mass or volume, but by identity. The architectural manifestation of identity is the monument, being the relativication of man, space, and time. A monument is reconstructive in relation to its reference – its reference is absent. Replacing this divergense between the monument and its reference creates what I call an anti-monument: a monument to the present in time and space. Its reference is dynamic (not static), its function is active (not passive), its reason for existance is the surroundings (not itself), the material, glass, is fragile (“non-monumental”).
A glass wall cuts its way through the area, defining the border/perifery as a catalysator of scale perception. It leaves the centre inaccessible, forcing people around the central point of the border (ref.: C.Oldenburg: “suffering the monument”). The reflections in the glass walls will simultaneously, depending on the angle of light and sight, show both urban structures in one view. One moment of confussion, the thought and the sight turning back upon itself, as two realities become superimposed, focusing the consciousness on what is actually seen and what is believed to be seen.
- Parametre / the inner objectivity (homogeneity / density / fix-points / orientation points): These four parametres set up the entire harbour in subdivisions, enabling a comparison from which a specific area of interest can be singled out.
- Border / the reality between 1 and 0 (barrier / connection / structure / consciousness): A differentiation is being made between barrier and border – the barrier between the city and the harbour is evidently the lifted railway tracks, the border, though, excists only as a “non-place”, either side being inaccessible from the train. The two city structures are fundamentally different, the city resembling a baroque garden (linear) and the harbour resembling an English garden (asymmetrical). The consciousness on these differences is blurred, however, because of the barrier.
- Vacuum / the relation c1-c’ (scale / incompatibility / inaccessibility / alienation): Crossing the border from the city to the harbour creates a twisted relation between the anthropometry of the city and the container scale of the harbour. Not really being introduced to the harbour structure, one mentally pushes the border, making the area difficult to comprehend and relate to. This alienation creates a sort of vacuum between the two clearly defined urban structures.
- Axis / from tabula rasa to virtual reality (periphery / staccato / space / dislocation): The axis, the fysical and mental parallel to the railway, offers no implicit crescendo. On the contrary, the perception of harbour is split up in fragments, presenting the harbour in staccato. This same view from slightly different angles puts together a sort of gigantic hologram – impalpable, inaccessible, and unreal. The two dimensional city edge seems equally inaccessible, causing a dislocation in the context of the city as well as of the harbour.
- Identity / the truth behind the mirror (monument / relativity / convergence / anti-monument): Alienation and dislocation calls for identity – a vacuum is not filled by mass or volume, but by identity. The architectural manifestation of identity is the monument, being the relativication of man, space, and time. A monument is reconstructive in relation to its reference – its reference is absent. Replacing this divergense between the monument and its reference creates what I call an anti-monument: a monument to the present in time and space. Its reference is dynamic (not static), its function is active (not passive), its reason for existance is the surroundings (not itself), the material, glass, is fragile (“non-monumental”).
A glass wall cuts its way through the area, defining the border/perifery as a catalysator of scale perception. It leaves the centre inaccessible, forcing people around the central point of the border (ref.: C.Oldenburg: “suffering the monument”). The reflections in the glass walls will simultaneously, depending on the angle of light and sight, show both urban structures in one view. One moment of confussion, the thought and the sight turning back upon itself, as two realities become superimposed, focusing the consciousness on what is actually seen and what is believed to be seen.