Kein Mensch ist Illegal, No One is Illegal

KEIN MENSCH IST ILLEGAL NO ONE IS ILLEGAL

J O R D A N B E R TA THESIS MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE CORNELL UNIVERSITY M AY 2 0 1 6

Jordan Berta B.S. Arch Texas Tech University 2011 M. Arch, Cornell University 2016 jcberta@me.com www.jordanberta.com Presented Spring 2016, Ithaca, New York 24. May 2016 Š Copyright 2016 Jordan Berta, All Rights Reserved

Thank you: My parents, Jeff and Susi, and my family My advisors Caroline O’Donnell and Esra Akcan Thanks to Henry, Matej, Alex, Yue Maria, and Alireza All of my mentors throughout my education: Brian, Zach, Upe, Ellis, Lily, Jenny, Cruvs, Laila And every classmate and colleague who causes me to think.

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00.INTRODUCTION 07 01.SITE HISTORY 08 0 2 . R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S 3 8 03.SITE:TEMPELHOF 88 04.TESTING INTERVENTIONS 102 05.PROPOSAL 134

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“Universal human rights are linked to Europe and its history. They were one of the founding motives of the EU. If we fail on refugees then the connection to those rights is destroyed and it won’t be the Europe that we wished for.”

- Angela Merkel, press conference 31. August 2015

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“If it can be pursued without imperialist intentions, translation is the process through which each place is opened up to and enriched by its outside; and if it can occur in multiple directions...translation is the prerequisite of cosmopolitan ethics.

Things do not get lost in translation, but they get multiplied through displacement and replacement. And based on the specific story of this transfer in each particular case, the places of departure and arrival of each transportation–which are both already constantly changing with the continuing translation process are connected to each other in a unique way.”

Esra Akcan Architecture in Translation 25-6

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00.INTRODUCTION

We as designers enjoy fictions and narrative, which in their own way are fanciful and elaborate lies we create.

We claim hegemony over narrative and the narratives of our designs and try to establish a sovereignty over them through rhetoric. Criticism of this staid tactic, such as from Keller Easterling, addresses “wrong stories,” looking around the traditional narrative to expose its limits, follow the consequential things which weren’t supposed to happen.

Render the familiar structures of narrative as ineffectual.

Anthropologists also remark that Narrative exerts power and creates order but at cost to those excluded from that meaning. Cornell West makes a critical statement: “hegemonic Western discourses… invoke universality, scientificity, and objectivity in order to hide cultural plurality, conceal the power-laden play of differences, and preserve hierarchical…. relations…. Narrative controls and surpasses just as often it can empower and liberate. Despite being perceived as such, narrative is not a liberal and liberating source of meaning and value, it is not the dumb instrument of a culture’s control over helpless individuals or even over its oppressed minorities.”

This leads us to the idea that this presumed hegemony is fiction, sovereignty is a lie, as Giorgio Agamben has exposed to us. It’s appropriate to begin to understand that we need to break down/subvert/expose the lies and limits of the sovereignty of our narratives.

For this reason, the refugee crisis in Germany is an ideal focus for criticizing sovereignty (the state of supreme power

or authority, or the authority of the state to govern itself or other states) in all its forms. The influx of refugees has called the legitimacy of nation-state into question. In Berlin and Germany as a whole, the largest mass camp for refugees is located at Tempelhof Airport. Tempelhof is a very contentious edifice in that it was, first, a Nazi embodiment of monumentality, technology, and massiveness, eventually becoming the US Air Force Base, playing a huge role in a moment of American exceptionalism during the Airlift and Blockade of 48/49, later a popular civilian airport. No one knew what to do with the 300,000 s.m. well-remembered airport after its closure in 2008, so it became predominantly exhibition space and the airfield was preserved as a park.

Last September, because of the desperation of the crisis, city officials have designated up to 8000 beds to be housed Tempelhof ’s hangars. The city has even revised stringent zoning laws to build more housing on the apron.

We have to begin to subvert sovereignty at the level of the building’s narrative and consider the agency of its inhabitants. Agamben writes that these people who should be the epitome of man par excellence are actually deprived of rights and agency by their status as non-citizens.

This is an opportunity to subvert lies in architectural sovereignty, in the sovereignty of the nation state, of the status of the refugee as anti-citizen, in Berlin and in Europe as a whole. We can begin to understand the McGuffin of integration not as assimilation, but as exchange, synthesis, amalgamation. How do we upend these binary sovereignties and begin to see refugees as resource?

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01. SITE HISTORY

VERGANGENHEITSBEWÄLTIGUNG [noun/suffix]

“GANG”

[suffix]

“-HEIT ”

[verb]

“ B E WÄ LT I G E N ”

GESCHICHTSAUFARBEITUNG [noun]

“GESCHICHTE”

[adv/prep]

[noun/verb]

“AUF” “ARBEIT”/ “ARBEITEN”

[adj/noun/verb]

“ V E R G A N G E N ”/ “VERGEHEN”

[noun]

“ B E WÄ LT I G U N G ”

[noun/verb]

“AUFARBEITUNG”/ “AUFARBEITEN” [noun]

“VERGANGENHEIT”

Berlin, the “poor, but sexy” world capital. Berlin is regularly beset by identity crises about what it wants to be when it grows up. Reinier de Graaf claims it is a cultural amnesia, a history being re-written right now, celebrating the “happily ever after” of 1989 reunification that has never actually happened. There is often a hypocrisy present in the way architects address this city. It oozes historical significance from every street corner, often only concerned with either erasure of that history or the monumentalizing of it. Berlin’s problems, namely gentrification, immigration, racial tension, bureaucratic mire, political gesturing, touristic commodification, etc. are not unique to Berlin but are specific in their intensity, overlay, and frequency.

Berlin is a microcosm of the world’s change. In Europe, migrancy is the biggest crisis when considering rapid change, Germany and Berlin receiving traditionally huge influx. Because of Angela Merkel’s decisive suspension of the Dublin Regulation, 750 refugees arrive in Berlin every day and between 800,000 and one million are expected by the end of the year in Germany as a whole. Germany and its Hauptstadt also have long and challenging histories in its treatment of foreigners, particularly in terms of housing.

This includes the IBA projects of 1984/7.

Because of its Nazi past and position in the European Union, Germany feels compelled to receive refugees, but struggle to know how to do so. No one really has a good solution. No one also really knows what to do with Flughafen Tempelhof either.

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Of many of the remnants of regimes pasts stands one of the most bipolar of histories. It was the first of modern airports, built under the National Socialist Regime, also intended as massive parade grounds. Later the US Air Force utilized it to supply all of West Berlin during the blockade in 1948.

Tempelhof is a problem serving the another portion of Germany’s crisis of self, Nazi and western exceptionalist remnant. Today, its massive 300,000 square meter edifice sits largely unrented, a conflict between two cultural events that prohibit overt alteration of the building along with its use outright. It is simply too large. Yet it is well remembered as Berlin’s airport. Until this fall, it hosted design festivals, galas and concerts, sparsely rented. Citizens voted to keep the airfield intact as a public park.

People don’t want Tempelhof to change, it would seem, but avaricious developers see a new opportunity for a development ringed with trendy housing. If these measures are renewed, Tempelhof will ultimately be contributing to gentrification of Berlin, pushing the currently young and immigrant-heavy Neuköln towards the squeaky clean aura of boroughs Mitte and Prenzlauerberg.

Tempelhof Airport is and always has acted as a colonizing figure upon the city. It maintains a hegemonic control as an icon of painful and exceptional pasts. In addressing the figure, the site of Tempelhof Airport, we require a consideration of Tempelhof ’s long gravitational history as a parade ground, as airport, as Nazi symbol, as American symbol, as Berliner airport, as community center, and, currently, as refugee housing.

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Tempelhof had been used as military parade grounds long before its conversion to an airport. As a demonstration ground, relatively flat, and so near the city center, it became popular for air demonstrations.

The Wright Brothers flew here, and an airport was established in 1923. A terminal was constructed (see following page) in 1927 to accommodate an increase in air traffic.

Under the new regime of the Third Reich, Albert Speer planned an invasive master plan for Berlin. Hermann Gรถring sought to include Tempelhof in that endeavour and his chief architect Ernst Sagebiel began work on what would become the new Tempelhof Airport.

The grounds of the Tempelhof would be dramatically restructured to accommodate a new axis connecting to the Reichshauptstadt planned by Speer.

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Ernst Sagebiel was employed as a project manager in Erich Mendelsohn’s office. After Mendelsohn fled Germany, Sagebiel found employment under Hermann Göring, embracing the Neo-Classical, but still maintaining a more Modern aesthetic than typically expected from Neoclassical architecture. For this reason, Tempelhof is not a pure neoclassical symbol in the Nazi rhetoric because the intent of the airport was to exploit and extol the virtues of technology as well as a literal funnel for incoming travellers.

The massing of the building was meant to resemble an eagle in flight. The building’s trademarks became its central axis, the 1.2 km arc which encompasses 7 closed and two open hangars, and the large trusses which support the hangars’ roofs, whose back portion was meant to serve as seating for up to 100,000. The airfield was to double, once again, as parade grounds.

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At the time a feat of engineering, the hangars were enclosed by a truss-supported roof extending beyond 36 meters. The building itself was one of the earliest extensive uses of reinforced concrete. It was clad in the favoured limestone of the regime.

The main hall was oppressive in its proportion and scale, a large concrete truss spanning some 30 meters. This, however, was to be concealed between coffers.

The full effect of this space was eventually diminished when the glazing at the end of the hall into the hangars was replaced by a restaurant.

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In this structural section, it is easy to distinguish back portion of the roof as tiered stadium seating. Most projects hypothetically intervening in the airport erroneously attribute the “100,000 spectators� to have occupied the entire roof. The front cantilever cannot support such a load.

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After the war, the building was heavily damaged and large portions of hangar roofs required repair. Hangar 5 was almost entirely replaced and large portions of the main building had to be re-clad and glased.

Because the airport fell within the American sector, the US Air Force occupied it as their military base in the city. They were responsible for large adaptations within the complex to make it suitable for regular occupation.

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As seen here, the main air control tower was never completed. It was eventually built during the building’s transition to regular commercial use.

Tempelhof ’s major role during the Blockade of 48/49 and Airlift, where the USAF managed to supply West Berlin with food for 9 months, dramatically changed the relationship between the city and the airport. Because of this major event, Tempelhof became a city icon.

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During the blockade, the Air Force constructed two new runways capable of handling larger jets and the precarious nature of take-off and landing so close to the Wall. Following the end of the blockade, commercial airlines began to occupy portions of the building.

The USAF continued to use Tempelhof until they vacated the building in 1994.

The main entry hall of the building, through which all passengers travelled. Eventually, because of the increasing size of airliners, requiring longer runways, and the construction of Tegel Airport in the north in 1974, air traffic gradually declined through THF.

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Tempelhof Airport was closed to commercial service in 2008. Up until the fall of 2015, the building had been occasionally used to host events and concerts. The airfield was designated as a public park and minimal infrastructure was installed to that extent. Tempelhof and its grounds remain largely unchanged due to restrictions passed by citizens which prevent any alteration of the park or the building for 10 years.

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The airfield today, approximately the same size as New York City’s Central Park, has been repurposed through small interventions as a public park. Raumlabor designed some of the infrastructure as well as multiple site interventions.

Largely tree-less, the site lends itself to small interventions, including community gardens, skate parks, miniature golf, etc.

The park is open only during daylight hours.

One of many landscape and urban design competitions, the entry at right was a particularly controversial, and satirical, proposal to build a mountain at tempelhof. “The Berg” entry

by Jakob Tigges garnered both praise because of its satire, encapsulating the feeling of many Berliners about the rediculousness of competitions at Tempelhof, but also vision, as it was ironically a seductive proposal.

The proposals at right include an urban housing plan and new library at the end of the southern runway. Almost all competitions manage to remain subservient to the oval and arc of Sagebiel and Speer’s original plan.

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Ce ntr al P ark

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Infrastructureal changes to house refugees at tempelhof have been contentious since the necessary action to open the airport to refugees. The Berlin Senate voted to amend the THF-Law which prohibited building any structure of any sort beyond the airport’s apron (see bottom right). Any and all events at the airport have been suspended until further notice.

Right: Nazi-era Luftwaffe construction and storage.

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At left: Hangar 3 today in October 2015.

Most refugees today are arriving from Syria, but Tempelhof contains a large mixture of nationalities. Tensions are naturally high and violence is frequent between ethnic and religious groups, sometimes over misunderstandings and sometimes ideologies. There are at least a dozen dialects spoken at any one time in addition to Arabic and German.

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The question has become: what is Germany going to become now that 1-2% of its population are migrants? Will Angela Merkel maintain power or will the country swing dramatically to the right as so many other EU nations have done?

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VS. VS.

“THE GERMAN SUPREMACY”

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“MOTHER ANGELA”

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First Thesis Poster

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S T R AY O B S E R VAT I O N S “It is certainly more comforting to locate the repressive power of narrative in the canonical works of the last century than it is to recognize that contemporaneous culture exerts similarly effective forms of control.”

Throughout my research, I continuously encountered moments of similarities between the rhetoric of contemporary designers, or contemporary projects, and totalitarian regimes. Either the rhetoric is re-contextualized for a different purpose or resultant forms are markedly similar despite different rhetorics. For instance, the notion that Tempelhof was to resemble an eagle in flight could have just as easily been a justification today given by Bjarke Ingels. Albert Speer’s “ruin value” in his designs is nothing novel or new, even Sou Fujimoto is seduced by the idea, it’s only because of the overlay of ideology that “ruin value” garners negative connotations.

Narrative and Culture, p10

“Architecture is to meticulously create ruin.” ~Sou Fujimoto

Albert Speer

Grand Central Station Penn Station Polizeipräsidiums Competition, Berlin

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BoullĂŠe vs. Speer

Symbol Destruction: Explosive demolition of the swastika atop the NĂźremberg Parade Grounds.

Demolition of the Palast der Republik.

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Leipzig Grünau, East German Plattenbau Complex “Containerstadt” modular housing for refugees

Leipzig Grünau, East German Plattenbau Complex Berlin-Britz modular refugee housing

1935 Ernst Sagebiel Berlin Reichsluftfahrtministirium 1919, Albert Kahn, Detroit, GM Headquarters

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There is no such thing as specifically National Socialist architecture, merely an emphasis on the colossal and overpowering. “Ideology was apparent in the definition of the commission, but not in the style of its execution” ~Albert Speer

Paul Philippe Cret

Speer was an outspoken admirer of Paul Philippe Cret, whose neoclassical aesthetic was applied to American courthouses.

“Earth Hut” Ramlabor, Institut für Kunst and Forschung, München Hut at Oranienplatz

David Chipperfield, addition to Museumsinsel, Berlin.

Reich Party Grounds, Nüremberg.

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0 2 . R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S

Instead of indulging ourselves in the romanticized idea of the architect-playwright, I argue for overcoming basic enamorment with storytelling in architectural practice and attempt to look at lies within architectural narrative.

uncomfortable questions, the overlooked yet obvious, the complexities we inherently know and understand yet ignore. What stories can be told which we avoid? Can we excel at what we find uninteresting?

Keller Easterling addresses unanticipated, subversive narratives: “On the threshold of the wrong story following the wrong traveller toward the wrong events, is a quest for… consequential things that were not supposed to happen.

From the nearest ordinary threshold, gliding past cues to the pageants of adventure.” Nigel Coates, in his book Narrative Architecture, goes to great lengths to dream of the narrative visions of designers as utopian ambitions being instilled upon an equally idealistic broader audience.

In contrast, to both Easterling and Coates, however, selling wrong stories embraces that narratives, and design and architecture by proxy, are essentially fraudulent. Narrative controls and surpasses just as often (if not more often) as it can empower and elevate. Narration itself exerts power by creating patterns of order and shape, yes, but such power is often exerted only at great cost to those excluded or deformed by the construction of such meanings.

There should be tension, which is then prodded. It could scare you, maybe bore you, be risky. But it is its own inhabited journalistic exposé, an endeavour in which the narrative places contrasting elements together to reveal to you that which we should already see. For example, is it about the latent dichotomy between “livability” in cities like Zürich where livability translates to mundane, uninteresting, and stagnate? What about materializing the jargon in PR architecture and designing what architects, such as BIG and OMA, actually say they’re selling? Or maybe it’s about literal shit, waste, in the theme of Aguaclara’s wastewater treatment ambition as an immediate service desperately needed across the world.

Despite being perceived as such, narrative is not a liberal and liberating source of meaning and value; it is not the dumb instrument of a culture’s control over helpless individuals or even over oppressed minorities. It is a contextualization device capable of re-creative and recuperative shaping of perception. (Narrative and Culture, Janice Carlisle and Daniel R. Schwarz)

We must accept this constant juggling: accepting narratives over which we have no control and manipulating new narratives, simultaneously subverting and inhabiting narratives you use/make/inhabit/falsify. It should be reciprocal. We cannot enter a dialogue with a problem without reserving your own suspicions. Can we be both factual and fictional? Wrong stories should be

Perhaps it criticizes hypocrisy in architecture where: – Liberal-minded architects who champion public space and affordable housing build luxury flats in rapidly gentrifying urban centers, already purchased by wealthy international investors who will rarely live there.

– Architect from Western Europe reminisces nostalgically for a communistic construction efficiency, ignoring failed ideologies and system flaws inherent in that system and the ethics question of operating in a totalitarian system.

– Middle eastern architect educated and based in the West returns to the middle east to build a new large-scale project which may or may not employ slave labor and may or may not incur casualties.

This thesis focuses upon a contemporary wrong story: that of the refugee crisis at Tempelhof Airport. First, however, we must understand what falsehoods, what tendencies are latent within Berlin. How do we avoid the tropes and lies already latent in Berlin’s contemporary fabric?

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FICTIONS

JEWISH MUSEUM BERLIN DANIEL LIBESKIND

Lecture 10: Daniel Libeskind, Jewish Museum, 1989-1999

Libeskind, Line of Fire, 1988

“Line of Fire” Installation for Unité d’habitation, Marseille Explain the statement below using the image above.

“The zigzagging form of his installation denies the idea of an axis, both as a real pathway and as a concept of an axis of symmetry.”

S. Hambright

Drawing Canonical Ideas in Architecture

“Chamber Works: Architectural Meditations on Themes from Heraclitus”

“The elevations are literal inscriptions of the conceptual constructs running through the dimensions of fatality and hope.”

Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum is certainly a significant monument in the city fabric, but it is assembled from other unrelated projects and overlaid with rhetorical meaning. Lesson: avoid shallow metaphor.

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LIBESKIND JEWISH MUSEUM BERLIN

UofA

“I found this connection [between Jewish tradition and German culture] and plotted an irrational matrix in the form of a system of intertwining triangles that would yield some reference to the emblem of a compressed and distorted star.... I looked for the addresses at which these people had lived or worked.”

LIBESKIND JEWISH MUSEUM BERLIN 41

UofA

Drawing Canonical Ideas in Architecture

S. Hambright

“Line of Fire” vs. Museum as Built

“The zigzagging form of his installation denies the idea of an axis, both as a real pathway and as a concept of an axis of symmetry.”

Jewish Museum, Berlin

Explain the statement below using the image above.

Lecture 10: Daniel Libeskind, Jewish Museum, 1989-1999

Conceptual Diagrams in Creative Architectural Practice

Figur e 11

Figur e 12

(Initial Sketch, Getty Center)

Libeskind, Line of Fire, 1988

“Line of Fire,” Marseille

MEMORIAL TO THE MURDERED JEWS OF EUROPE PETER EISENMAN

Stelae: 0.95 x 2.38m

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Casket: 0.71 x 2.13m

SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of people say it looks like a cemetery.

Eisenman: I can't think about it. If one person says it looks like a graveyard and the next says it looks like a ruined city and then someone says it looks like it is from Mars -- everybody needs to make it look like something they know. There was an aerial shot in the paper on Saturday -- a beautiful photo. I have never seen a graveyard that looks like that. And when you walk in, it certainly doesn't feel like one. But if people see it like that, you can't stop them. It's fine.

PETER EISENMAN MEMORIAL TO THE MURDERED JEWS OF EUROPE 42

From Spiegel Interview, 2005: SPIEGEL ONLINE: Now that the monument is finished and open to the public, it probably won't be long before the first swastika is sprayed onto the monument.

films will be shot there. I can easily imagine some spy shoot 'em ups ending in the field.

What can I say? It's not a sacred place.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you have a favorite monument?

Eisenman: Would that be a bad thing? I was against the graffiti coating from the start. If a swastika is painted on it, it is a reflection of how people feel. And if it remains there, it is a reflection of how the German government feels about people painting swastikas on the monument. That is something I have no control over. When you turn a project over to clients, they do with it what they want -- it's theirs and they occupy your work. You can't tell them what to do with it. If they want to knock the stones over tomorrow, honestly, that's fine. People are going to picnic in the field. Children will play tag in the field. There will be fashion models modeling there and

Eisenman: Actually, I'm not that into monuments. Honestly, I don't think much about them. I think more about sports.

From Blurred Zones: Peter Eisenman Architects, 1988-1998, published 2003

From Blurred Zones: Peter Eisenman Architects, 1988-1998, published 2003

“In this monument there is no goal, no end, no working one’s way in or out. The duration of an individual’s experience of it grants no further understanding, since no understanding is possible.... In this context, there is no nostalgia, no memory of the past, only the living memory of the individual experience.”

“When such a project can overcome its seeming diagrammatic abstraction, in its excess, in the excess of a reason gone mad, then such work becomes a warning, a mahnmal, not to be judged on its meaning or its aesthetic but on the impossibility of its own success.”

.....

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there anything you don't like about the finished product?

Eisenman: I think it is a little too aesthetic. It's a little too good looking. It's not that I wanted something bad looking, but I didn't want it to seem designed. I wanted the ordinary, the banal. If you want to show a picture, just show it -- don't spend too much time arranging it.

And unfortunately it looks a bit too arranged.

Peter Eisenman, however, is PETER EISENMAN adroit at avoiding the typical to M E M O R I A L T O T H E M U R D E R E D J E W S O F tropes, E U but R OstillPmanages E overlay appliquéed meaning.

Lesson: a new, loosely associated logic and order has power to re-contextualize.

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X20 = ?

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? ?

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? ? ? ? = “M = “SYMBOL”!

ETAP HOR ”!

“Although the difference between the ground plane and the top plane of the pillars may appear to be random and arbitrary, a matter of pure expression, this is not the case. Each plane is determined by the intersections of the voids of the grid of pillars and the grid lines of the larger site context of Berlin.”

PETER EISENMAN MEMORIAL TO THE MURDERED JEWS OF EUROPE 44

Parc Andre Citroen

Cretto di Burri

+ + = “Although the difference between the ground plane and the top plane of the pillars may appear to be random and arbitrary, a matter of pure expression, this is not the case. Each plane is determined by the intersections of the voids of the grid of pillars and the grid lines of the larger site context of Berlin.�

PETER EISENMAN MEMORIAL TO THE MURDERED JEWS OF EUROPE 45

R E I C H S TA G F O S T E R S + PA R T N E R S

m por tant infor m ation ( please read before star ting the online booking process!): When r egister ing to visit onl ine, you can only subm it booking r equests for the various ser vices offer ed by the Visitors’ Ser vice; your visit has not been booked until you receive a booking confir m ation fr om the Visitors’ Ser vice by em ail, fax or post.

Please m ake sur e – befor e you begin the pr ocess of r egister ing onlin e for one of our ser vices for visitor s – that you have each visitor ’s last nam e, fir st name and date of bir th r eady, as you w ill need to create a list of visitor s and pr ovide this information during this pr ocess. O nly after you have submitted this infor m ation can your request be pr ocessed and confir m ed.

Requests for guided tours can only be subm itted for the cur r ent month and the follow ing tw o m onths.

Requests to visit the dome can only be subm itted for the cur r ent month and the follow ing m onth. Par liam entar y business, w eather conditions and the security situation all affect w hether visits to t he dome and the r oof ter r ace can go ahead. We are therefore unable to guar antee that you will be able to visit the dom e. It is som etimes necessar y to cancel a visit to the dom e at the last minute, even if the visit has been confirmed in advance. U nfor tunately, it is not possible for us to notify you of last-m inute cancellations by em ail, telephone or fax.

Tour ism businesses m ust register as com m er cial agencies. Subm i tting a request as an individual/ pr ivate group or an or ganisation/ com pany w ill result in the im m ediate cancellation of the request.

Booking r equests for the fo llowing year can only be subm itted fr om the start of November of the cur r ent year.

With r egar d to plenar y sittings, no interpreta tion into for eign languages is provided in the visitor s’ galler ies.m por tant information ( please r ead befor e star ting the online booking pr ocess!) : When r egister ing to visit onl ine, you can only subm it booking r equests for the various

*valid

*

t erm s and c o n ditions may apply

ser vices offered by the Visitors’ Ser vice; your visit has not been booked until you receive a booking confirmation from the Visitors’ Ser vice by email, fax or post.

Please make sure – before you begin the process of registering online for one of our ser vices for visitors – that you have each visitor’s last name, first name and date of birth ready, as you will need to create a list of visitors and provide this information during this process. Only after you have submitted this information can your request be processed and confirmed.

Requests for guided tours can only be submitted for the current month and the following two months.

Requests to visit the dome can only be submitted for the current month and the following month. Parliamentar y business, weather conditions and the security situation all affect whether visits to the dome and the roof terrace can go ahead. We are therefore unable to guarantee that you will be able to visit the dome. It is sometimes necessar y to cancel a visit to the dome at the last minute, even if the visit has been confirmed in advance. Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to notify you of last-minute cancellations by email, telephone or fax.

Tourism businesses must register as commercial agencies. Submitting a request as an individual/private group or an organisation/company will result in the immediate cancellation of the request.

Booking requests for the following year can only be submitted from the start of November of the current year.

With regard to plenar y sittings, no interpreta tion into foreign languages is provided in the visitors’ galleries.

only *no toursapduring with pointm

parliamentary sessions

ent

“Openness:” “...a commitment to making the parliament publicly accessible and its workings transparent...”

“...from the roof and from the press lobby you can look down into the chamber and watch proceedings unfolding below.” *

FOSTERS+PARTNERS REICHSTAG 46

*

*

RE AC STR CE IC SS TED

AU TH OR IZE D PE RS ON EL ON LY

ENTER HERE

“My starting point was the belief that a parliament building should be physically open and inviting to the society it serves.”

FOSTERS+PARTNERS REICHSTAG

The Reichstag is beset with little hypocrisies. Aside from the popularity of the building, it is ultimately so subservient to its context that it cannot adequately accomplish its larger ambitions. Lesson: do not be subservient to context.

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PRECEDENTS N AT I O N A L S O C I A L I S T A R C H I T E C T U R E

Architecture’s role under the National Socialist German Workers Party (NASDAP) is a distinctly uncomfortable topic. Leon Krier’s monograph on Hitler’s chief architect Albert Speer identifies this difficulty of critically engaging National Socialist architecture. Because Architecture under Speer was a scenery/stage for reconstructing thought and perception, unifying the former Weimar Republic under a shared cultural past and adding his neoclassical style as the next “natural” progression, it is extremely difficult to separate the form from its content. Robert A.M. Stern writes in his introduction: “[The] first lesson [in this monograph] is how stylistic, formal, and technological developments – within architecture and elsewhere – can be used to serve radically different political systems. The second lesson demonstrates how poorly later generations are able to distinguish between form and content, especially when the object of historical study elicits general condemnation.”

The Nazis’ extensive manipulation of space, design and city planning under Speer is simultaneously subtle and bombastic: subtle in its careful extension throughout all aspects of shaping cultural identity, particularly through adopting an established traditional symbolic-visual language, and bombastic through a brutal slab-like affectation of space instilling rule of authority.

This is narrative and a narrative problem. Speer and his ministry used narrative to spatialize Hitler’s ideals. All was built upon the belief that National Socialist architecture must be simultaneously theatric, symbolic and didactic. It’s neoclassical baseline arose from a combination of Hitler’s personal tastes as expressed in Mein Kampf, i.e. fixated upon his youthful experiences in Munich and Vienna with Baroque/neo-Baroque, particularly from Kaiser Wilhelm II, and a desire to unite the classical and modern worlds, their histories, and his ideals. Thus, the theatric was sourced from a Hellenistic tradition, invented as the most “Aryan” of 48

cultures, and massive staged events reinforced a community mind. The symbolic similarly identified with nostalgic tendencies of völkisch romanticism and affinity for classical decaying ruins of Rome and Greece, which should not however be grandiose, like the Reichstag. Decadence, as a reaction against 1920s Weimar, was not desired, instead strength, resilience, and power were instilled (thus the extensive use of granite and marble). Lastly, the didactic was the key to transmission of ideals, combining the theatrical and symbolic into an infrastructural ambition, directing community movements, views, and thereby perception toward the desired focus.

When scanning a list of the more visible projects constructed under the National Socialists, it becomes clear that this challenge of form versus content is constant. We are, in many ways, still being directed in that symbolic narrative because we are saturated by that history in media. As Keller Easterling has already clarified, the story/saga of good triumphing over evil is still tantalizing, particularly in boasting excellence in the American psyche. Germans, however, term their own personal difficulty engaging their National Socialist past “Geschichtsaufarbeitung,” translated as “coming to terms with the past” or more literally as “reappraising history.” The struggle happens on a spectrum. At one end, concentration camps are as cemeteries to murdered jews and society’s innocence, treated with reverence by visitors who have come either to understand or tourists to check off a box on a list.

The Parade Grounds in Nüremberg, a fully realized theatrical precedent for Speer and the stage for Hitler’s performances, is emphasized as a didactic monument, warning, reminder, and brand of crimes past. At the other end are the more subtle projects: banks, post offices, civic projects, even the Autobahn, which while they emerged out of the rhetoric symbology of National Socialism, are nevertheless transient functioning infrastructures.

MOTIFS

1 HEAVY NEOCLASSICISM colonnades severe porticoes speech making balconies specifically Greek (Doric), and Roman, occasionally Egyptian

2 RECTILINEAR APPEARANCE horizontal lines heavy cornices rows of thickly framed windows simplified column bases and capitals

3 NATURAL MATERIALITY stone stressed and expressed avant garde simplicity and stress on building’s texture local stone and brick

4 VÖLKISCH traditional rural or medieval styles sloping roofs Romanesque

5 ORNAMENT

PROGRAM

1 STATE, PROPAGANDA, PARTEI 2 LOCAL, COUNTRY RESIDENTIAL 3 URBAN RESIDENTIAL 4 INDUSTRIAL, MILITARY BARRACKS AND BUILDINGS 5 COMMUNITY CENTERS: STADIA, HALLS, THEATERS 6 TECHNOLOGY, INDUSTRY, FABRICATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

GESCHICHTSAUFARBEITUNG 1 UNAMBIGUOUS IDEOLOGICAL EXPRESSION 2 NEGATIVE HISTORY LESSON/REMINDER

hand carved fixtures eagle with wreathed swastika heroic friezes freestanding sculpture quotations from Hitler over doorways message conveyed in friezes (extolling, labor, motherland, and the agrarian life muscular nudes) hybridizations of swastika, eagle, nature patterns, oak leaf

4 IDENTIFIABLE MONUMENT WITHIN THE POPULATION

6 OLDER STRUCTURES PRESERVED

5 FUTURE AUTONOMOUS AESTHETIC

3 ALLEGORY OF UTOPIA WITH POSITIVE NOSTALGIA

49

Yet the typical neoclassical revival which today infuses all projects of that period with Nazi undertones was not really that specific to National Socialism. In many ways, the development of the NASDAP aesthetic was a reactionary modernism stealing/adapting Modern tendencies. For example, when looking at Speer’s plan for the Welthauptstadt Berlin, it is an assemblage of common classical, occasionally Modern forms, the boulevard, the monument, the dome, Corbusian utopianism, Bauhausian geometry assemblage, etc., re-purposed and overlaid with Nazi rhetoric. Consider this narrative translation. In the Modern and Bauhaus movements in the Weimar Republic, the architectural narrative was formally built around industry, around “gesamtkustwerk,” new materiality, the enlightened rational, the functional, the standardized and was a direct reaction to war and economic recession. It also strengthened the perception of the architect as a master craftsman, the ego architect. So while the Bauhaus is associated with cleanliness of form and concept, it could be argued that the familiar narrative of “simplify” or “reduce” was more specific in relation to, say, van der Rohe than the Modern movement in Germany as a whole. The National Socialists recognized that the threat of the Modern to their own program to shape cultural narrative was not Modern ambition itself, but the voice of the individual pushing towards heterogeneity of enlightenment thought. The overall ambitions were still compatible, and useful.

architect identifier was reserved for Speer (and Hitler) while the “community work” was to praised instead.

Hitler saw himself as the uniting architect of the classical and traditional-modern. Other than his architectural objectives, he also embedded his agenda in technology. He stated, “The purpose of Nazi architecture and technology should be to create ruins that would last a thousand years and thereby overcome the transience of the market.” The Autobahn is one such example as well as the popularization of flight, a constant fascination of Hitler’s. Joseph Goebbels was instrumental in inundating the people with the virtue of technology, which had the added benefit of popularizing his radio mouthpiece. People were to see a constant comparison of technology and tradition with the goal that one would become synonymous with the other, “steely romanticism.”Technology should be given a soul of völkisch tradition, neither the “false and saccharine romanticism of the past” or the “exaggerated intellectualism” of the Modern and Weimar cultures.

And yet Albert Speer claimed that there was no such thing as “Nazi Architecture.” He claimed it was merely a set of appropriate, already-established genres overlaid with ideology and scaled up. Therefore this is the measure by which Nazi Architecture could be identified, first by the motifs of Neoclasicism, rectilinearity, natural materiality, völkisch, ornamented, and overlaid with a programmatic The Nazi ideal had to be simultaneously modern and hierarchy of either state, local, urban, industrial/military, or traditional, a natural progression for the German people. technological.

So, similarly to Degenerate Art and eugenics exhibitions, the NASDAP filtered what was already being seen as Modern and re-shaped it in their own language. The term gesamtkunstwerk, for example, was used by composer Richard Wagner in the context of “uniting” all works of art, but was abstracted through a shared memory of folk legend with a nationalistic undertone. In the same way, the master 50

MOTIFS

SFITOM

1 1 HEAVY NEOCLASSICISM MSICISSALCOEN YVAEH colonnades sedannoloc severe porticoes seocitrop ereves speech making balconiesseinoclab gnikam hceeps

2 2 RECTILINEAR E APPEARANCE CNARAEPPA RAENILITCER horizontal lines senil latnoziroh heavy cornices secinroc yvaeh rows of thickly framed swodwindows niw demarf ylkciht fo swor simplified column slatipabases c dnaand sesacapitals b nmuloc defiilpmis

3 3 NATURAL MATERIALITY YTILAIRETAM LARUTAN stone stressed and expressed desserpxe dna desserts enots avant s’ggarde nidliubsimplicity no ssertsand dnastress yticilpon misbuilding’s edrag tnava texture erutxet local stone and brick kcirb dna enots lacol

4 VÖLKISCH

4 HCSIKLÖV

traditional rural selyortsmedieval laveidemstyles ro larur lanoitidart sloping roofs sfoor gnipols Romanesque euqsenamoR

5 ORNAMENT

5 TNEMANRO

hand carved fixtures serutxfi devrac dnah eagle with wreathed akiswastika tsaws dehtaerw htiw elgae heroic friezes sezeirf cioreh freestanding sculpture erutplucs gnidnatseerf quotations from syawHitler rood rover evo rdoorways eltiH morf snoitatouq message conveyed insfriezes ezeirf ni deyevnoc egassem (extolling, nairarglabor, a eht motherland, dna ,dnalrehtand om the ,robagrarian al ,gnillotxe( life efil muscular nudes) )sedun ralucsum hybridizations erutan of ,elg swastika, ae ,akitsaeagle, ws fo nature snoitazidirbyh patterns, oak leaf fael kao ,snrettap

6 6 OLDER STRUCTURES DEVRESERP SPRESERVED ERUTCURTS REDLO

PROGRAM

MARGORP

1 1 STATE, PROPAGANDA, IETRAP ,ADN PARTEI AGAPORP ,ETATS 2

2 LOCAL, COUNTRY LAITNEDISRESIDENTIAL ER YRTNUOC ,LACOL

3

3 URBAN RESIDENTIAL LAITNEDISER NABRU

4

4 INDUSTRIAL, SKCARRAMILITARY B YRATILIBARRACKS M ,LAIRTSUDNI AND BUILDINGS SGNIDLIUB DNA

5

5 COMMUNITY ,SLLAH ,AIDACENTERS: TS :SRETNSTADIA, EC YTINU HALLS, MMOC THEATERS SRETAEHT

6

6 TECHNOLOGY,,YINDUSTRY, RTSUDNI ,YGOLONHCET FABRICATION ERUTCURTAND SARFINFRASTRUCTURE NI DNA NOITACIRBAF

GGENSUCTHI EI CBHRTASFAUUAFSATRHBCEI H I TCUSNEGG 1 1 UNAMBIGUOUS LACIDEOLOGICAL IGOLOEDI SUOUGIBMANU EXPRESSION NOISSERPXE 2 2 NEGATIVE REDNIMEHISTORY R/NOSSELESSON/REMINDER L YROTSIH EVITAGEN 3 3 ALLEGORY EVITISOOF P HUTOPIA TIW AIPWITH OTU FPOSITIVE O YROGELLA NOSTALGIA AIGLATSON 4 4 IDENTIFIABLE EHT NIHTIW TMONUMENT NEMUNOM EWITHIN LBAIFITTHE NEDI POPULATION NOITALUPOP 5 5 FUTURE CIAUTONOMOUS TEHTSEA SUOMAESTHETIC ONOTUA ERUTUF

51

REICH CHANCELLERY Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Vรถlkisch

Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Scale s

52

m

l

xl

xxl

NUREMBERG RALLY GROUNDS Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Vรถlkisch

Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Scale s

m

l

xl

xxl

53

REICH MINISTRY OF AVIATION Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Vรถlkisch

Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Scale s

54

m

l

xl

xxl

REICHSHAUPTSTADT GERMANIA, VOLKSHALLE

1 HEAVY NEOCLASSICISM colonnades severe porticoes speech making balconies specifically Greek (Doric), and Roman, occasionally Egyptian

2 RECTILINEAR APPEARANCE

State, Propaganda, Partei

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential STATE,

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Völkisch

Industrial, Military

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure Scale URBAN RESIDENTIAL

stone stressed and expressed avant garde simplicity and stress on building’s texture local stone and brick

4 VÖLKISCH traditional rural or medieval styles sloping roofs Romanesque

1 Negative History Lesson PROPAGANDA, PARTEI Positive Utopia

2 Personal Monument LOCAL, COUNTRY RESIDENTIAL Future Autonomous

3

s

horizontal lines heavy cornices rows of thickly framed windows simplified column bases and capitals

3 NATURAL MATERIALITY

Unambiguously Ideological

Neoclassicism

m

l

xl

xxl

Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Völkisch

Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Scale s

m

l

xl

xxl

4 INDUSTRIAL, MILITARY BARRACKS AND BUILDINGS 5

HAUPTMAGAZIN UND ÖLL AGER COMMUNITY CENTERS: Neoclassicism

STADIA, HALLS, State, Propaganda, Partei Unambiguously Ideological THEATERS

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

APARTMENTS, NUREMBERG Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Völkisch

6 TECHNOLOGY, Urban Residential Positive Utopia INDUSTRY, FABRICATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE Industrial, Military Personal Monument

Völkisch

Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Scale

Natural Materiality

Negative History Lesson

Future Autonomous

1 Scale s m l xl UNAMBIGUOUS IDEOLOGICAL EXPRESSION

5 ORNAMENT

xxl

s

m

l

xl

xxl

2

hand carved fixtures NEGATIVE HISTORY eagle with wreathed swastika LESSON/REMINDER OLYMPIASTADION heroic friezes State, Propaganda, Partei Neoclassicism freestanding sculpture 3 Unambiguously Ideological ALLEGORY OF UTOPIA quotations from Hitler over Negative History Lesson Local, Country Residential Rectilinear doorways WITH POSITIVE NOSTALGIA message conveyed in friezes Positive Utopia Urban Residential Natural Materiality (extolling, labor, motherland, and the agrarian life 4 muscular nudes) Personal Monument Industrial, Military Völkisch IDENTIFIABLE hybridizations of swastika, eagle, MONUMENT WITHIN THE nature patterns, oak leaf Future Autonomous Community Theaters/Forums Ornament POPULATION

6 OLDER STRUCTURES PRESERVED

ALBRECHT DÜRER HOUSE

Preservation

5 Scale s m l xl xxl FUTURE AUTONOMOUS AESTHETIC

Technology And Infrastructure

GAS STATIONS Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Rectilinear

State, Propaganda, Partei Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Natural Materiality

Local, Country Residential Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Völkisch

Urban Residential Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Ornament

Industrial, Military Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Preservation

Community Theaters/Forums Technology And Infrastructure

Scale s

Technology And Infrastructure

m

l

xl

xxl

TEMPELHOF AIRPORT

BUNKER, HAMBURG Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Völkisch

Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Völkisch

Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Scale

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Scale

s

m

l

xl

s

xxl

m

l

xl

xxl

THINGSPIEL

BERLIN FEHRBERLINER PLATZ Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Völkisch

Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Scale s

m

l

xl

Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Völkisch

Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Scale s

xxl

m

l

xl

xxl

BARRACKS & RETREAT AT VOGELSANG

KONGRESSHALLE, NUREMBERG Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Neoclassicism

State, Propaganda, Partei

Unambiguously Ideological

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Rectilinear

Local, Country Residential

Negative History Lesson

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Natural Materiality

Urban Residential

Positive Utopia

Völkisch

Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Völkisch

Industrial, Military

Personal Monument

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Ornament

Community Theaters/Forums

Future Autonomous

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Scale

Preservation

Technology And Infrastructure

Scale

s

m

l

xl

xxl

s

m

l

xl

xxl

55

PRECEDENTS REFUGEE HOUSING

The general tactics for housing refugees in Germany can be broken down into the following categories: camps made up of tents or containers, gyms and community centers, container “cities” or modular housing, retrofitted vacant properties, volunteer housing, or specific (rare) building initiatives.

In most instances, the housing is intended to be for no longer than three or four weeks, and is planned as such with cots and temporary partitions. Yet this is rarely the case, as most refugees stay at their first camps for six weeks or longer.

Even volunteer housing is extremely cyclical. Building and house-share initiatives are the most ideal solutions. New buildings can be modularly constructed as part of a strategy of integration, incorporating a larger design intent to mix students, German families, and refugees in the same structure. House-share is an adaptation of the common “Wohngemeinschaft” co-op housing system popular among young adults and students. The most cost effective solutions are container cities, which are moular housing units like those found on construction sites.

In Berlin specifically, however, many refugees choose to find their own accommodations and many establish informal communities in public parks, such as Oranienplatz.

56

CAMPS/TENTS

GYMS/HALLS/ SCHOOLS/CHURCHES

CONTAINER CITIES

EMPTY CITY-OWNED PROPERTIES

VOLUNTEER HOUSING

BUILDING INITIATIVES

C

GENERIC

ay

Duration of Stay

ngevity

Durability/Longevity Security Accessibility

ip

Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

NPLATZ

ORANIENPLATZ

ay

Duration of Stay

ngevity

Durability/Longevity

ip

Security Accessibility Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

57

GENERIC Duration of Stay Durability/Longevity Security Accessibility Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

CONDEMNED BUILDINGS Duration of Stay Durability/Longevity Security Accessibility Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

58

ERDÖRFER

evity

CONTAINERDÖRFER Duration of Stay Durability/Longevity Security Accessibility Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

59

C&A Duration of Stay Durability/Longevity Security Accessibility Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

GERHARD HAUPTMANN SCHULE Duration of Stay Durability/Longevity Security Accessibility Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

60

HOF

ay

gevity

p

TEMPELHOF Duration of Stay Durability/Longevity Security Accessibility Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

61

WOHNGEMEINSCHAFTEN Duration of Stay Durability/Longevity Security Accessibility Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

GUTLEUTKIRCHE FRANKFURT Duration of Stay Durability/Longevity Security Accessibility Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

62

STANDARD

ARD

Duration of Stay

ay

Durability/Longevity

gevity

p

TIATIVES

ay

gevity

p

Security

Ber

Berlin-Britz Accessibility Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

IBA INITIATIVES Duration of Stay Durability/Longevity Security Accessibility Self-Ownership Adaptaility Capacity

63

GENERAL STRATEGIES

UNAMBIGUOUS IDEOLOGICAL EXPRESSION

PRECEDENTS

1 DEMOLISH COMPLETELY

NS & DDR INTERVENTIONS

2 INSTALL STRONG CONTRASTING FOREIGN OBJECT

2 NEGATIVE HISTORY LESSON/REMINDER

3 ALLEGORY OF UTOPIA WITH POSITIVE NOSTALGIA 4 IDENTIFIABLE MONUMENT WITHIN POPULATION

5 FUTURE AUTONOMOUS AESTHETIC

GESCHICHTSAUFARBEITUNG 1 UNAMBIGUOUS IDEOLOGICAL EXPRESSION 2 NEGATIVE HISTORY LESSON/REMINDER 3 ALLEGORY OF UTOPIA WITH POSITIVE NOSTALGIA 4 IDENTIFIABLE MONUMENT WITHIN POPULATION 5 FUTURE AUTONOMOUS AESTHETIC

GENERAL STRATEGIES

3 SUPERFICIAL OR FUNCTIONAL UPDATES 4 REMOVE SYMBOLS AND LEAVE AS-IS / DENAIL

”INOFFENSIVE” ”APPROVED”

PROGRAM TRENDS

MUSEUM

1 DEMOLISH COMPLETELY

MEMORIAL

2 INSTALL STRONG CONTRASTING FOREIGN OBJECT

THEATER

3 SUPERFICIAL OR FUNCTIONAL UPDATES 4 REMOVE SYMBOLS AND LEAVE AS-IS / DENAIL

GALLERY ARTELIER

CULTURAL

NIGHTCLUB

RESTAURANT BAR RECREATION PARK HOUSING COMMERCIAL RENTED OFFICE

PROSAIC

GOVERNMENT AS-IS EMPTY / GENERIC

RESIDUE

”INOFFENSIVE” ”APPROVED”

PROGRAM TRENDS

MUSEUM 4. as an identifiable monument within the population: Geschichtsaufarbeitung and Vergangenheitsbewältigung are words which define coming to terms with one’s past. There is a case for retaining some GDR architecture because MEMORIAL Tactics and strategies in architecture for mitigating a Nazi or some sections of the former GDR population identify with GALLERY East German past are very straightforward. Generally they it as part of their lived experience, despite their rejection of THEATER the ideology which produced it. determine if something is: ARTELIER

CULTURAL

1. as an unambiguous ideological expression:NIGHTCLUB Nazi/GDR 5. as a future autonomous aesthetic: That, which more architecture represents an unambiguous expression of distance in time from the ideology which created it, it should RESTAURANT the ideology of the regime. There is therefore no case for be possible to judge GDR or Nazi buildings primarily on BAR retaining it. aesthetic merit, as is the case with buildings in Western RECREATION PARK cities, rather than primarily as expressions of ideology.

HOUSING 2. as a negative history lesson/reminder: There is a case (Robert Halsall “Geschichtsaufarbeitung”) COMMERCIAL for retaining at least some Nazi/GDR architecture as a PROSAIC RENTED OFFICE This equates to either demolition, a contrasting foreign reminder/warning of the dangers of totalitarianism.

GOVERNMENT intervention, superficial changes, or simple symbol removal.

AS-IS 3. as an allegory of utopia with positive nostalgia: There EMPTY / GENERIC There RESIDUE are also programmatic trends. Memorials are most is a case for retaining some Nazi/GDR architecture as obvious sites of installation or intervention and government an allegory for utopian thought which, although people icons are almost demolished outright. There is, nevertheless, no longer believe in the ideology which produced the constant ambiguity on a case-by-case basis. architecture, still has some positive value.

64

REMOVE SYMBOL

ADD SYMBOL

roadded ad vorfield flooded REMOVE SYMBOL

Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Personal Monument Future Autonomous

Demolish

ADD SYMBOL

Foreign Object Superficial Updates Leave / Denial

Cultural Recreational Prosaic R esi dual

REICHSPARTEIGELÄNDE, NÜRNBERG B:1933-38 [NS-Speer] R:2001

65

Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Personal Monument Future Autonomous

Demolish Foreign Object Superficial Updates Leave / Denial

Cultural Re cre ational Prosaic Residual

OLYMPIASTADION

new ro of

THESEUS’ SHIP

w ne ting a se

ere low d l fi e

B:1936 [NS, Speer] R:2006 monument status Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Personal Monument Future Autonomous

Demolish Foreign Object Superficial Updates Leave / Denial

Cu ltu r al Recreational Prosaic Residual

NAZI DOCUMENTATION CENTER B:1919-38 [NS adaptation] R:2015 66

d

replace d lower tier

ed lac e rep cret con

3/4 of stadium replaced

Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Personal Monument Future Autonomous

Demolish Foreign Object Superficial Updates Leave / Denial

Cultural Rec reational - Cl ub P rosaic - Power P l a nt R esi dual

BERGHAIN CLUB B:1954 [DDR] R:2004

Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Personal Monument Future Autonomous

Demolish Foreign Object Superficial Updates Leave / Denial

Cultural (artelier) Recreational Prosaic (ddr lingerie factory) Residual

ANTIVILLA

BRANDLHUBER

B:1950s [DDR] R:2014 67

Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Personal Monument Future Autonomous

Demolish Foreign Object Superficial Updates Leave / Denial

Cu ltu r al Recreational Prosaic Residual

no ec cr * ru st on ti

BERLIN WALL MEMORIAL B:1950– [DDR] R:2013

Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Personal Monument Future Autonomous

Demolish Foreign Object Superficial Updates Leave / Denial

Cu ltu r al Recreational Prosaic Residual

REICHSBAHNBUNKER, GALLERY B:1943 [NS] R:2007 68

*ree n actm ent

Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Personal Monument Future Autonomous

Demolish Foreign Object Superficial Updates Leave / Denial

Cultural Recreational Prosaic Residual

KINO INTERNATIONAL B:1963 [DDR] R:

Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Personal Monument

MU

S

M EU

!

Future Autonomous

Demolish Foreign Object Superficial Updates Leave / Denial

Cultural Recreational Prosaic R esi dual

MINISTERIUM FÃœR STAATSSICHERHEIT, STASI HEADQUARTERS B:1961 [DDR] R: 69

9 r 1 a ye

r yea

Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Personal Monument Future Autonomous

Demolish Foreign Object Superficial Updates Leave / Denial

Cultural Recreational Prosaic Residual

ALEXANDERPLATZ B:1960s– [DDR] R:1990– [2004–] 70

ORIGINAL NEW RENOVATED NEW CLAD PLANNED

60

X?

Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Personal Monument Future Autonomous

Demolish Foreign Object Superficial Updates Leave / Denial

Cultural Recreational Prosaic Residual

PLATTENBAUTEN 71

B:1961 [DDR] R:

““ C CO OL MD PP RR MS SII E EA D ”” OO LM DP PR R IIU UM S IIS SS AD

““ C CA OS MB ME US NTT II O SS M”” AO SM BM EU SN OS SM

Unambiguously Ideological Unambiguously Ideological Negative History Lesson Negative History Lesson Positive Utopia Positive Utopia Personal Monument Personal Monument Future Autonomous Future Autonomous

Demolish Demolish Foreign Object Foreign Object Superficial Updates Superficial Updates Leave / Denial Leave / Denial Cultural Cultural Recreational Recreational Prosaic Prosaic Residual Residual

““ N NE OW S TT B AE LR GL AN NN EO WS BA EL RG L II II A N ””

(

PALAST DER REPUBLIK PALAST DER REPUBLIK

B:1976 [DDR] R: B:1976 [DDR] R: 72

)

PA L A S T D E R R E P U B L I K : A T I M E L I N E

The Palast der Republik, Palace of the Republic, built under the GDR in 1976, is an interesting case of Vergangenheitsbewältigung. It was built, initially, to replace the former city palace demolished officially, because of “war damage.” In reality, it was to re-establish a symbolic seat of government at the city’s cultural center. Clad in bronze glass, it became that symbol during its brief life.

The parlimentary formalities were less important within the planning of the building as its community and public programming. The Palast contained various restaurants and bars, a bolwing alley, a disco, galleries, theaters, and assorted halls.

Because of its highly central location, after reunification the Palast vacated and closed, formally, because of aesbestos contamination. It was subsequently demolished between 2004 and 2010. Steel from the Palast was used in the construction of the Burj Khalifa.

73

R AT I O N A L I Z AT I O N S & COMPETITIONS The Palast’s closure and demolition was controvertial on many levels. East Germans both identified with the building, seeking its renovation as a part of their shared history, and sought its demolition, as a symbol of a dead regime.

Architects, artists and designers took part in several competitions to figure out what exactly could be done to the old Palast. Most also sought to retain the Palast in some way.

74

75

COMPETITIONS AS PROPOGANDA

The investors, senators, and parliamentary members in favor of demolition and the reconstruction of the city’s original Palace leveraged more funding and control than their opponents. The barrage of competitions, in their own way, propagandized the proceedings.

“The palace wasn’t in Berlin, Berlin was the palace” became the rallying cry of newspapers and those who sought to rebuild the old prussian monument.

T H E PA L AC E WA S N ’ T I N B E R L I N – B E R L I N WA S T H E PA L AC E ”

At right is a rendering of a recreation (reenactment) to be re-installed in the new Stadtschloss.

76

DEMOLITION INTERVENTIONS

Despite major outcry, the building’s demolition proceeded uninhibited. The Palast retained life once its asbestos was abated, however, playing host to design and art interventions and events.

Almost all of these were commentary on the erasure of a portion of German history which is neither as straightforward nor clearly evaluated as National Socialist history.

The “People’s Palace” became the opposing motto of those who wished to re-write the narrative of the Palast through other means.

77

A N A LY S I S

“Ression”/ “Pession”

REFUGEE INTERVENTIONS in BERLIN

“You Su...”

GERHART HAUPTMANN park, near Oranienplatz, became a recreational Germany’s history in its treatment of refugees and Gölitzer SCHULE immigrants is not particularly threaded with benevolence. space for most refugees, for others it became a place to deal Most migrants in the past have arrived in Germany and marijuana through other dealers. Refugees who could not Berlin with an intimidating infrastructure and seek, instead, find employment would act as re-sellers between buyers their own agency through other means. The precedents and dealers to make a cut of profit The park quickly became analyzed on the following pages represent specific examples divided between various groups of dealers, mostly based of refugee interventions upon Berlin. upon nationality and ethnicity, and was constantly swept by police. Any refugee within the vicinity was suspect, Oranienplats, Gölitzer Park, and the Gerhard Hauptmann regardless of complicity.

Schule are some of the most important sites in Berliner Refugee history, all spaces of resistance.

After Oranienplatz was demolished and vandalized through arson, refugees began to occupy the Gerhard Hauptmann Oranienplatz began as an informal settlement of refugees, Schule. Up to nearly 400 refugees occupied the school mostly Somali, who had fled the mass camps outside the peacefully until a single incident opened the door to city. Most sought employment and freedom to move freely eviction. The ensuing fiasco over the course of a week cost through the city. Over the course of several years, the camp the city 8 million euros and resulted in a group of refugees was routinely expanded and then demolished by police, barricading themselves on the roof of the school until an punctuated by protests of Germans and refugees alike. agreement for amnesty was signed by the city government.

78

Karte

mal dot

GERHART HAUPTMANN SCHULE

GERHART HAUPTMANN SCHULE

“A.C.A.B.” All Cops Are Bastards

Karte von Berlin 1:5000 (K5)

Mash The Potatoes Smash The State

“Res... ....”

“A.C.A.B.” All Cops Are Bastards

“Soul”

RHART HAUPTMANN SCHULE

com

GERHART HAUPTMANN SCHULE

G

“You Su...”

“Ression”/ “Pession” Karte von Berlin 1:5000 (K5)

mal mal com com dot dot

Stop Ilegal Stop Deporation Ilegal

We Don’t Steal Your Roadbike.

Deporation Tell Lies!

“Be Free” “Be Honest”WeDon’t Don’t Steal Your Demonstrate...

[anarcy] Tell Lies!

“Be Free” “Be Honest” Don’t Demonstrate...

Help By [Lucky]” Speach And Care!

“Be Happy [anarcy] “Be Happy [Lucky]” Help By Roadbike.

Speach And Care!

B B A’’ A’’

A

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1’

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1’ 4 2

4

2

A

8-10 unknown artists

3

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3

1 1

GERHART HAUPTMANN SCHULE

GERHART HAUPTMANN SCHULE

GERHART HAUPTMANN SCHULE

79

Karte Ka vo

80

arte von Berlin 1:5000 (K5) You can’t

“Murdered by Police,

evict a

concealed by the state.”

movement

“Oury Jalloh”

without

Hands off

It was murder!

paper/passport

refugees school

07.01.2005

freedom

GERHART HAUPTMANN SCHULE 81

82

83

Karte von Berlin 1:5000 (K5) Karte von Berlin 1:5000 (K5) Karte von Berlin 1:5000 (K5) Karte von Berlin 1:5000 (K5)

Oranienplatz and its ad hoc housing. After an eviction, Napuli Langa protested by occupying one of the platz’s trees. The demonstration was against the criminalization of refugees by the German government.

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85

Remove residency requirement!

Remove camp requirements!

Stop deportation!

We need to work in every were in Germany

Deportation is murder no deportation, no prisons, no camps

No Human Being is illegal

Refugees Hunger Strike Our Demands: - Infopoint and meeting tent for our political demands: no camps, no residency obligation, no deportation - Refugees Occupied school as our (refugees) political, economical, and social/cultural center - Acceptance of asylum seekers in Germany striking at Oranienplatz, Berlin

We are the afflicted We also have the right to no legal obligation no borders no deportation we are here to stay.

86

Refugee path through the city.

87

88

03. SITE: TEMPELHOF A N A LY S I S

89

EXISTING INTERVENTIONS

Tempelhof Airport is, in many ways, a Theseus’ Paradox: large portions of the building have been altered or replaced such that it is no longer purely the “nazi” building it once was. For this reason, it is valuable to examine the latent conditions of the building and site. The refugees inhabiting the hangars have already re-oriented the space purely through occupation and use, however temporary. They claim territories through various stratagem, graffiti and fabrics being the most simple.

The strategies examined here later played a large role in choices in how to adapt the building. What is appropriate?

How invasive can you be without destroying the building outright? What are the patterns emergent in the context and how can you exploit existing ideas as points of departure?

These precedents also share much in common with those of the refugees at Oranienplats and Gerhart Hauptmann Schule.

90

Existing, latent and former grids of the site. Clockwise from top left: existing grid, Tempelhof axes and gridlines from Sagebiel, extension of the city grids, and the historical grids before NS restructuring.

91

SURVEI LL A N C E (USAF ) R AC K E T B A LL C O U RT (USAF) ENTRANCE ALT E R AT I O N ( DAM AGE , U S A F )

B A SKETB A LL CO URT (USA F)

GAT ENTR A NCE 1950S

TYPICAL H A N G A R B AY

SKYLIGHTS 2000s

92 92

CO NTR O L DECK (USA F)

B U R L E S QU E

Most of the major interventions undertaken on Tempelhof were purely practical changes. But even within practical adaptations, there are moments of subversive behavior, as is the case with the Ehrenhalle, the entry hall. They range in date, scale, and invasiveness. Some, like the skylights in Hangar 5, were undertaken on top of changes and repairs which had already compromised the originality of that portion of the building.

The air control tower was re-built and clad entirely by the US Air Force, the top floor retrofitted for leisure including a basketball court and bowling alley. The basketball court was deliberately placed where the grand dining hall was to have been. The GAT Entrance was predominantly used due to the damage in the main entry and still serves as the tour entrance. Under the main entrance are two important adaptations: one is a small surveillance room for the USAF, placed directly under the feet of those entering and exiting Berlin, and a racketball court built in cedar and nestled into a corner.

SI LV E R W I NG S CLUB

BOW L I N G (USAF)

CLO SED TR A I N G ATES (WA R DA MAG E)

AW NI NG (USAF)

93 93

The “Ehrenhalle” or literally “Honor Hall” was heavily damaged during the war. Thus, the US military created a new ceiling to reduce repairs.

However that new ceiling was a nearly 1m/3 foot thick slab of concrete, resoundingly and permanently reducing the impact and awe value of the ridiculously over-scaled “Ehrenhalle”.

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1:200

95

The racket ball court built for USAF service members.

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REINFORCED, STEPPED TOP FIN

S TA I R C O R E

BASIC MODULES

Even though THF is nearly 300,000 square meters, it is made up of relatively simple modules.

This exploded isonometric of a typical hangar bay breaks down those modules.

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98

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99

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102

04.TESTING INTERVENTIONS

103

STUDIES

The previous page demonstrates an urban idea which eventually began to direct the project. Before the Reichstag was renovated in the late 1990s, artists Christo and Jean Claude literally wrapped the building in fabric. Anesthetizing yet accentuating the presence of the building, it was an incredibly effective installation and a seminal moment in the history of Reunification in Germany. Wrapping became a metaphorical parallel at the urban scale. Most explorations grappled with scale, the scale of the airport, of its massing and its meaning.

A series of charettes served as ways to generate strategies to deal with breaking down the scale, with making it small. “Sovereignty/architecture is fiction.” “Integrate subversive narratives.” “Integrate extraterritoriality.”

“Geschichtsaufarbeitung in dem Alltag.” These mottoes were initial ideas on what the project was and what it was doing.

Throughout the following sketches, it became clear that interventions must occur at multiple scales simultaneously in order to be effective.

If integration is a “MacGuffin,” an ideal sought yet completely undefined, I would have to be specific in what “integration” actually meant at the building scale. What is the program?

How to programs interact? How do you re-contextualize the building spatially? How much or how little do you have to do? What is facade?

It was clear from the beginning that Tempelhof could no longer be precious, resisting change. It must blur boundaries, celebrate yet intermingle difference. Be about bigness made up of smallness. And above all the intervention could not be subservient, could not submit to hegemonic colonization.

104

Bernard Tschumi, “Eastern Blocks” 1991

105

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e Ira ? n? )

106

Christo and Jean Claude’s technique of wrapping, most famously used at the Reichstag, became a conceptual device when paired with the sketch at left. This sketch sought to integrate Tempelhof into the existing city fabric, an urban wrapping.

107

108

Alternatively, a new logic could be overlaid upon the airport’s figure. A boolean intersection or in tandem with a shared logic, it could re-establish connections to the larger context. This recontextualization could apply all the way down to the facade level.

109

Ultra-Nazified: based upon the irony that, due to its status as a Nazi icon, Neo-Nazis who routinely vandalize refugee centers would not damage Tempelhof.

110

Wrapping models: searching for an appropriate method for the physical wrapping of Tempelhof.

Facing page, left to right: E L E M E N TA L - l i k e interventions, punctured roof.

111

The airport is always an in-between place between sovereign nations. Refugees are not the only individuals deprived of rights upon entry into an airport.

Facing page: exchange between facades and monuments.

112

113

This painting depicts the Berlin Air Lift, the LuftbrĂźcke, and the American Candy Bomber who dropped small hankerchief-parachute-bound candy to West German children from his plane. It sits directly adjacent to the main entry hall at THF and is a common stop on tours.

It espouses the exceptionalism of that moment. If we are to merge histories, then this mural could better reflect the nature of new moments happening today at Tempelhof.

114

FLÜCHTLINGE

IN BERLIN

AT TEMPELHOF

8,000 MAX 43,000 (2,500 TO DATE) CURRENTLY REGISTERED

(79,000 TOTAL)

68.5%

31.5%

15.9%

EXAMPLE: 78% OF SYRIANS ARE LIKELY TO COME FROM EDUCATED BACKGROUNDS, BUT CHILDREN’S EDUCATION HAS BEEN DISRUPTED. BASED UPON PRE-WAR STATISTICS, 23% OF 18 – 25 YEAR OLDS ARE CURRENTLY ELIBIGLE TO ATTEND UNIVERSITY.

115

CHARETTES

/ Y G B IT IN A IN N L S / M U U M D M O O /A H M O O R OP /C S C S H E A S R L K C OR W E N TE R TA IN M E N T

C O U R TY A R D

The first charettes for design sought to play out these ideas of wrapping and intervention. Programmatically, if integration is the focus, an educational and community hybridized plan must be developed to act as a mixer. On the left is an attempt at slicing, altering invasively the building. At right is an urban strategy which aims to play out an urban re-wrapping.

116

YE

AR

1

YE

AR

X

117

UNIVERSITY URBANISM IN BERLIN

118

These represent an analysis of the urbanism, scale, and size of schools and universities in Berlin. Below is a diagram representing the highly structured education system used in Germany.

YEAR

AG E

4 5

KINDERGARTEN

6 7

1 2

GRUNDSCHULE

8

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

9

ASSESSMENT

3 4

O SCHO M A S I U ICAL HIGH G Y M N TECHN E M IC AC A D HULE M T S C SCHOOL G E SPRAEHENSIVE COM LE S C H U NAL R E ANLICAL VOCATIO TECH LE

VO

U TSCH H ACAUTIOPNAL

10 5 11 6 12

L

13

7

8

14 9 15 VO

CH U FASL S B ECR N AT IO

10

17 D IP L

TUR A R BOMI A

LE SCHU O B E R NAL FA CNHICAL VOCATIO TECH ULE

16

18

11

12

19 13 + UNIVERSITÄT VOLKSHOCHSCHULE

ADULT EDUCATION

119

Comparatively, Cornell University has three times the usable square footage as Tempelhof currently maintains.

Therefore, to meet a similar programmatic ambition, Tempelhof could be trippled in size.

CORNELL

TEMPELHOF

STUDENTS

21,904

[8,000]

LAND BUILT

3.56mil. m 2 840,000m 2

3.65mil. m 2 300,000 m 2

1:162 1:38

1:456 1:38

The smaller universities in Berlin are already about the same size as Tempelhof, but they only encompass the university itself. Housing, administrative, lower education, and recreation must considered.

FREIE UNIVERSITÄT

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT

34,500

32,750

620,000m 2 412,000m 2

604,000m 2 383,000m 2

HUMBOLDT 33,300 128,000m 2 (326,000m 2)

109,000m 2 (297,000m 2)

1:18 1:12

120

1:18 1:11

1:10 1:9

The ambition would be to re-engage with other schools throughout the city so that an exchange of knowledge could occur. This is not a place to educate refugees, it is a space for us to educate one another.

121

The park is unique in its vastness. There is enough space for every person in Berlin to occupy a single square meter.

Be

rli n 1m 2 po p :1 . 3. pe 48m rs on il

All of the universities and schools analyzed on the previous page can easily fit within the boundaries of the park proper.

122

The wrapping must be part appendage, part exchange, part city fabric, part new logic.

123

These studies sought to recreate what the city grid would have been like before the NS regime re-wrote the narrative of Tempelhof. The airport was originally bounded in the lower right portion of the site, the upper and lower bounds being public parks and allotment gardens.

124

If we suggest that the original airport was maintained and it became the public park, this is potentially an alternative present for how the urban grid could have developed into Tempelhof. This is based upon historical grids latent in the site.

125

126

127

128

In model, how can tempelhof be re-wrapped, concealed, revealed, bisected?

129

The most successful variations became those which reestablished a porosity through the building. Above are examples of how allotment gardens, “schräbergarten,” interact with the block and how the East German planning method overlaid a new system of order onto a landscape.

130

131

Above is pictured an intervention which seeks a new logic to intersect the old.

Below is a full, engulfed massing where Tempelhof is completely consumed by a new fabric.

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133

134

05.PROPOSAL

135

136

As the dominant operation for subversion emerged out of Jean Claude and Christo’s wrapping technique, it calibrated as urban wrapping as synthesis. If Tempelhof is an opportunity to be critical of “integration,” its reprogramming should accommodate agency, thus I propose a school at all levels of education, from kindergarten to university, as well as vocational, including a mixture of work-live-play at different densities and scales sited in order to create new centers.

Reengage porosity through the mass of the airport’s edifice while activating an exchange of information and patrons, students and professors, and residents across the city.

exercise, this enables program to traverse across and through, actuating adjacencies of contact between disparate actors in the vein of Tschumi’s cross programming and montage.

Program can move through the building and while various porosities are more suited to some programs than others, the use of space is not specific to the user. For example, an event space incorporated in the university could later in the day become an event space for a neighborhood’s use. Like Vattimo’s “überlieferung” or handing down/over between communities which have found voice, and “conscious multiplicity”.

The colonizing figure of THF is, then, subverted through an intersection with a new system and obliterated by the consumption of a new urban fabric wrapping. It anesthetizes Tempelhof ’s edifice, while not destroying its presence. To do this, addition to the structure becomes subtractive and joints between architectures seek to emphasize incorporation and embedded-ness, rather than overt contrast and difference.

Realistically, if we are to compare scales, Tempelhof could be tripled in size in order to accommodate the same usable floor space as Cornell.

In integrating Tempelhof airport and its refugees, megastructure meets typological design. I am arguing for a method which rejects the notion that preservation must either restore/keep or install contrasting interventions.

Subversion must be much more integrative and multi-scalar, it must identify falsehoods and address overt sovereignties.

Thus we as architects must constantly subvert hegemony, that of our own narratives and of the lies latent in context.

The figure is overlaid with another nervous system of avenues and atria, aligned to exploit the existing stair towers, which service the new hybridized city and begin to break the mass in to constituencies. An almost gerrymandering 137

This final sketch model hybridized the two previous schemes. Circulation armatures are anchored to Tempelhof ’s existing stair towers while new centers of program are established. The building disintegrates as it transitions into the park, re-enacting the old airport’s massing and boundary.

138

139

1:70,000

140

1:15,000

141

1:35,000

142

1:7000

143

Tempelhof ’s existing porosity should be exploited. Currently, you must circulate around it to enter the park.

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Circulation Armature

Agglomeration

145

FIGURES F I GF U I GFRUIEGRSUE RS E S

SINGLE CENTER

TO

M U LT I - C E N T E R

SIN SG I NSLG IENL C GE ELCN EETCNEETRN E TR E R

T OT O T O

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ORK MAKER

O R KW O R K

A DA M I NR M A K E R KER M KE

AU RD Y MIN MIN A DX MIILNI A A

I L I AARUYX I L I A A RU Y XILIARY

PROGRAM AS OF SP16

C I R C U L AT I O N A R M AT U R E

P R O GPRRAOMGPRARASOMGORAFASSMO P FA 1 6SS PO 1F6 S P 1 6

C I R C CU ILRACTU CI O L I RA NCT U A I OL RN A MTAAI TO RUN MRAA ETRUMRAET U R E

FIGUR

Establishing new centers decentralizes the existing axis.

The new programs are sited around different centers and transition between one another, fragmenting based upon porosity.

STUDY

P L AY

LIVE

WORK

UNI

SPORT

DORM

MAKER

HIGH SCHOOL

DINING

S I N G L E F A M I LY

ADMIN

COMPREHENSIVE

E N T E R TA I N M E N T

M U LT I - F A M I LY

AUXILIARY

TRADE

CONTINUING E D U C AT I O N

146

PROGRAM

The new circulation armature.

Taking cues from airport infrastructure and wayfinding, the new circulation avenues are anchored at the stair towers on the Tempelhof arc, but only ever N-S oriented. Anchored along avenues are all auxiliary programs and shared amenities.

147

148

149

150

Program is placed based upon necessities of porosity of the program. For example, dense housing requires more facade and thinner massing whereas libraries can be largely dark program.

The program as a mixer transitions from day to night, where entities of one constituency can occupy another during other hours.

Mechanical/Supporting Community Recreation/Sport Housing, Low Dense Housing, High Dense Library Kindergarten Elementary High School Vocational/College University Administration

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155

156

157

In wrapping the facade, the boundaries could be blurred by a ratio between balconies, inset and extended, attaching across both new and old facades.

Circulation avenues remain largely transparent.

158

159

160

161

Because program is so diversely interspersed through the plan, routes become moments of encounter with a wide array of spaces. Most must pass through the hangars, which now serve as the main circulation and public community space.

162

163

Where the circulation path intersects the stair, it must contend with connections to the facade and split level stair. It must mitigate new levels and openings.

Avenues are themselves diverse atria, with stairs, bathrooms, platforms and gathering spaces.

Sectionally, program is just as diversified. What maybe vocational education on one floor may be elementary school on the next, with apartments on top.

164

165

166

The stair towers are split level between floors. In order to attach effectively to the streetface as threshold, an additional set of stairs must be added to keep floor plates throughout the building traversable.

167

168

169

Mass timber emerged as an appropriate structural system critical of and contrasting with the concrete, limestone, and steel. One system must be embedded with the other in order to be structurally sound.

Wood also references the existing interventions made by the USAF .

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172

173

174

175

The grand entry hall becomes the new library for the entire complex/city.

176

177

178

The hangars are now the central mixing space, a public street of its own, where the various communities intersect and intermingle.

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F I N A L P R E S E N TAT I O N

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P O S T- M O R T E M

Over the course of 13 weeks, this thesis developed out of a response to falsehoods in architecture. I’ve been frustrated by spectacle and semi-science. Where is the investigative journalist architect to battle the editorial architect? Caroline O’Donnell has pushed me to seek an answer since I took my very first studio at Cornell with her and in her theory and analysis ccourse, a course which formed the basis for what has become this thesis.

The project originally began as a way to be critical of the verbal narrative, the sales jargon, in architecture. Tempelhof and refugees were actually only a portion of that original outline from Spring of 2015. When the refugee crisis escalated and Tempelhof assumed its new role, I immediately became entangled in the thesis-made-real, exacerbated by my proximity to the crisis while interning in Berlin at the time. It was a shock for sure, and almost immediately became sole focus of the thesis. Here was a “Wrong Story,” here was a “subversive narrative,” everything I had been trying to articulate.

It became a question of sovereignties, of hegemonies.

There was a connection between the way that Tempelhof ’s architectural narrative was hegemonic and how states exercised their sovereignty over refugees. Tempelhof was a colonizing figure and represented power and control, not exclusively National Socialist, but its form still held the ability to intimidate. Germany and Tempelhof were quite similar, then, yet just as equally contested and uncertain.

Refugees will re-write and subvert that narrative collectively, both onto Tempelhof and within Germany as a whole.

There, they become resource as a way to overcome barriers in Geschichtsaufarbeitung, in Vergangenheitsbewältigung, and as a way to move forward an agenda of human rights.

On the whole, Germany has played a very effective role in the crisis in the EU. Angela Merkel has uncharacteristically wielded/sacrificed her political power, instating such change, such an upheaval that the entire western world may swing fearfully to the nationalist right. Tempelhof is only one specific instance of struggle, but important because of how it is metaphorically encapsulating the German psyche.

Each review throughout the semester sought to hone the argument. Okay, it’s a strong thesis, but how do you evaluate it effectively? What is it that you actually do? The university emerged as a way to intermingle peoples and programs, an admittedly hyper-liberal ideal, yet still effective. The figural nature of the building became incredibly important as a symbol to re-make, and design took place across multiple Upon beginning to work on the thesis proper when returning scales simultaneously. to Cornell in Spring of 2016, my advisors Esra and Caroline immediately began to prod for conclusions from the data I’d I struggled with the thesis constantly, but Making amassed. Esra was integral, as her background and research helped overcome uncertainty. Each review brought new was hugely valuable to the thesis. She was very good at telling enlightening associations: the airport is always a purgatory me what I didn’t know, and how I could read to catch up. between sovereign nations, both-and and not either-or when The thesis constantly struggled to intertwine effectively the overlaying a new system is more effective; Lily Chi brought two narratives in dialogue: Tempelhof and the Flüchtlinge. up the crucial reference to Vattimo, about überlieferung and What did they share? How were they connected? How new centers, and de Certeau, where “writing a love letter on company time” is subversive action. weren’t they appropriately being questioned?

My time in Berlin was spent researching and engaging with the airport, volunteering at Tempelhof, attending language exchange courses, and generally trying to understand. As a white, American, middle class, privileged male in my mid20s, I am constantly aware of my lack of perspective. So I sought perspective.

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Consensus at the final review was something to the effect it was neo-collonialist, where “we are educating them” and of “excellent, we buy it, here’s what we want to see more of ethnocentrism is an issue. I’ve sought at all times to avoid this, and you can decide weather or not I’ve been successful. now.”

Once people understand that the project isn’t a “university Pep Avilés brought up an interesting association with the for refugees” and that it is a place for the intermingling of cathedral at Cordoba, where two contrasting systems people at all levels of education and ambition, regardless of intersect to create a spatial relationship more complex nationality, it is somehow less controversial. It’s important and integrated than they would have been as separate that the building isn’t considered as a “refugee university” entities. What I sought with intersecting and integrating but a university which accommodates the needs of the two disparate bodies at Tempelhof could be even more refugee as merely another programmatic consideration. interconnected. Jason Long also expressed interest in the way the buildings touch physically. This was, admittedly, the It is also interesting to note that one of our professors, who is least and last developed part of the project and where the German, while running a design studio on Memory in Berlin focus shifts now in continuing the project. The sole example and East Germany, exclaimed upon seeing the final project, developed at the stair towers needs to be further explored. “You’ve destroyed Tempelhof !” I responded that, no, Also expressed was the desire to see, in greater detail, routes Tempelhof is still there. “Ah, you’ve destroyed Nazism then,” and interchanges made by discrete parties throughout the he responded sardonically. “You should have completed the building. How does the interaction actually happen at the arc!” he says. I respond that that is too subservient to the personal level? How does the central circulation avenue existing design; it must be something different. It’s also what every student project, every competition does to Tempelhof, within the hangars actually function? aside from the naïvely erroneous assumption that they can Many comments also responded to my claim that I’m attach whole houses onto the hangar’s cantilevered end. not being traditionally preservationist in my design, that the building is not precious. This is my response to the You may find it ironic that the project became urban typical behaviors of German officials and designers in their and that I actually don’t particularly enjoy urban design, Vergangenheitsbewältigung, as discussed in the analysis. personally, but it was what the thesis needed to become, The critics agreed that my response was appropriate, but therefore I enjoyed the project because it intuitively felt the suggested to be more precise where I “preserve,” where I appropriate response. “adapt,” and where I “alter” the existing structure. As my intervention intends to only remove fenestration or cladding, This process has broadened my perspective immeasurably perhaps widening existing openings for accessibility, I have and I am extremely indebted to my advisors Esra and Caroline for their outstanding partnership in pushing considered this question but have yet to develop it fully. me forward, and their encouragement to take risks, be The project is difficult to conceptualize as a whole. It is a political, and, as Caroline loves to say, “be radical.” I hope city. At 2.2 million square meters, as a building it is easily to continue in exploring those moments of tension where the largest in the world. It maintains, incidentally, similar lies in architecture are not specific to design, but symptoms ambitions as Free University by Candilis Josic Woods. of larger social conflict to which we can spatially respond.

Most who asked me about the project were concerned that 190

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FIELD NOTES 27 August

Encounter with Wolfgang: “If you’re planning something, plan to make Tempelhof an airport again” says the owner of Der Fliegerei shop across from Tempelhof Airport.

I had entered the shop looking for hard-to-find books on Tempelhof.

Being the only one in the store perusing books, he asked if he could help. I mentioned that my research topic was the airport, purchased the book he suggested, and begin to pack it.

“It’s such a shame they closed it,” he says. “Know the difference between three main types of aircraft? The first is hobbyist or without retractable landing gear, the second are small passenger planes with propellers, the third are large with engines. There used to be a radio tower blocking the take-off for the third type, but the second was always usable. They say that Tempelhof couldn’t be used for modern flight travel, but that tower isn’t there anymore! Small jets could land here so easily! Look at London and Paris; everyone wants a city airport, particularly for businessmen and politicians. It was a very poor decision to close this airport. But it’s all for political reasons, you know.”

good turn out. “My wife is East German, and she has so many good memories in the Palast. Tempelhof is just another problem politicans want to get rid of somehow.” “There is this huge separation, between what the politicians do here and what the citizens actually want.”

8. September 2015

Berliner Brücke, language start-up, language exchange. Under Bellevue S-Bahn in an exhibition-education space focused on immigration. I watch as one of the main volunteers begins to teach Maher. He’s been here before and he is working on nouns. The volunteer eventually hands me a pen and asks me to join.

I get to take over while he’s starting on verbs and conjugation. We start with “sehen” (to see), moving through “machen”, “haben”, and “sein” (to make/do, to have, and to be). “Sein” is difficult as it’s an irregular verb, which I explain as something he will simply have to memorize. We get a new worksheet of more nouns. We complete three more, and in all honesty, a few words I wasn’t sure of myself.

I’ve never needed to use the word “antenna,” which is incidentally the same in German, or hairdryer. I am also unsure about 60% of the time about the articles, but hopefully that’s okay. We finish, we He continues to explain that he finds the current politics surrounding the review a couple times, and then we both agree to “pausen”. Time airport pointless. “It should be productive.” He is a firm believer that the airport for a break. is still viable. “It was meant to be an airport.” The airport is an extremely good airport, he says. Well designed and an icon to flyers everywhere. Comparing I ask him about himself, actually I didn’t even yet know his name.

Tempelhof to other city-airports, he says it’s a huge attraction for people flying He asks me if I know a news anchor on CNN. Their names are spelled the same, but said differently, he says. He can speak a into Berlin. “You’re within 2, 3, 5km from the city center!” reasonable amount of English, the language in which I explain The current usage is also pointless, he explains. It isn’t generating income, things, but is here to learn German. He studied English Literature while as an airport it always had customers. “The Bread and Butter [fashion at university in Damascus, where he also eventually wound up design expo] has been held here every year since 2008. Every time it does teaching for five years before the war. I tell him my name is Jordan, worse.” “I mean, what do we have this building for, anyway? To open it twice a and he brightens, telling me he’s from Daraa, on the border to year for big festivals?!”

Jordan and very near the river which is my namesake.

I ask what he thinks of the conservation of the airfield as a park. It’s very popular, and the motion to keep the field intact was overwhelmingly supported by Berliners. “Well, it does cool the city, that’s for sure.” He is referring to a study done by the Free University of Berlin where, due to its size and proximity, the green space actually impacts the urban heat island effect on the entire city. “But of course everyone is going to want to have a place where they can jog or party or whatever.” He is less interested in the park itself, and finds the current trendiness of Tempelhof ’s design or music festivals frivolous.

“Of course everyone loves to party in Tempelhof.”

It’s so huge, he says, that it needn’t just be an airport either. “There are too many little museums in Berlin. They want to move the Allied Museum here, which won’t work. But they could definitely make it an Airtime museum. From the French, English, German and American militaries, they could display and hang old airplanes in just one of the hangars. There’s no where else they have to display it.”

Wolfgang believes the politics surrounding the airport are simply too overwhelming for anyone to really be able to do anything with it. It’s huge, too, so it’s a shame that legislators are only committed to trendy design culture inhabiting the structure, a theme for all of Berlin. “You have this history from 1933 to 1946 which you just can’t talk about. You can’t deal with it. And then, you have this as a military base, which you also can’t talk about.” The German Airforce could never use the building, he says. But they could, and it would actually be a great base for them, but it would never happen because of the building’s implications. The referendum to keep the airport open in 2008 was never even meant to be binding, either. Klaus Worweit never intended to keep the building open. But the decision to tear down the Palast der Republik upset people, which is why the vote to maintain the airfield as a park had a 192

He arrived in Germany three months ago after ten months in Turkey, hoping for a new life. He mentions he spent time teaching in Aleppo, but he just couldn’t stay any longer. It’s terrible, he tells me, and he worries constantly about family. Most of his direct family has escaped Syria, but he is alone here in Germany. He has two sisters and a mother, but they are not with him. He doesn’t tell me where.

But, yet, Syria is still home. He just wants things to resolve somehow. He reiterates that he cannot believe the generosity of Europeans in this time, and is humbly thankful for it. For that reason, he feels he should attempt to learn German. We Syrians, he says, are extremely thankful, but feel responsible to somehow “give something back” for this generosity. He feels indebted and yet cannot work or contribute, and that is frustrating. He sincerely wants to contribute somehow to his foster country. His hope is that the conflict will end and he can return home, bringing what he’s learned from Germany back with him.

He does like it in Germany and Berlin, though, he says, particularly the parks. I attempt to ask him about his likes, does he like movies?

TV? What does he do for fun? He says he likes George Clooney very much, and thinks he’s a great actor. I ask him if he’s seen Gravity, to which he responds that there hasn’t really been an opportunity to see it and that he really just watches the news. To what he does for fun, he responds that he walks and really enjoys going swimming, but cannot swim for very long as he had a chest injury and surgery of some sort. He does not elaborate on this.

The evening ends and we’re both ready to be done with german lessons. He asks me to remind him of my name. I ask him what it would be in Arabic. “Nahr al-urdunn” he writes for me, “river” and “jordan”. “Shukran” he says, “thank you.” I write that down too, telling him that’s a word I have to remember.

Thoughts: There were only a few migrants this evening. It’s a young program and they’re trying to somehow get more people to attend. It’s not for lack of help. The question is how do you get people here, to show that this isn’t a government program or anything ominous. It’s just language, meeting people, and snacks.

The program’s relative newness means it’s unorganized, but they’re trying to figure it out as they go, solving problems as they appear.

I also get the impression that Maher, while not atypical, is more self-motivated than most. Being educated, he seeks more education and understands the agency he gains thereby. I also saw that there were one or two migrants who, while obviously trying to learn the language, were also hoping for more. Take, for example, that the snacks provided were bread with cheese and herbs, a very German assemblage, and these were hardly touched. Admittedly, I also would not have eaten them. There was a funny cognitive dissonance there. But the Leibniz chocolate cookies, those were attempted.

The volunteers were also a mixture, in fact only two were native Germans. The organizer of the program is French, by day a Techno DJ, by night, an activist. Or perhaps the other way around. He mentions his motivation for this program was, ironically, because in his sessions, so many of the dancers were immigrants. They have nothing to do, he says, but music and dancing are free.

Another volunteer was there as part of his elective service year, a volunteer position young German students may complete before starting University or employment. A Berliner, he was motivated by his frustration with racism he sees in his home borough.

Germans, while not necessarily as openly racist as demonstrators in Dresden and the like, still struggle with racism. They may not use slurs, but they’re perhaps more closed off to people obviously of Eastern origin. They may be less inclined to help or engage that person in any way, if at all. They tolerate the existence of these people; out of sight and mind, in a way. Or, perhaps they agree with, even monetarily support, the morality of what the government is attempting to organize, but they would never contribute personally or directly to the solution.

they remained outsiders, strangers. With migrants, the tendency is to fall back upon this well-ingrained mindset, that they are not here to stay, they are strangers, but they should attempt to integrate. But this is an open-ended conflict with no signs of resolution anytime in the near future. You cannot hold these people at a distance forever and “just integrate them” is a grossly oversimplified solution.

The argument with my roommates was such that, even they admitted that if they had had children, they could not have said with confidence that they would have avoided sending their children to school with large minorities. They want the best education for their children and when a school is stretched by language barriers and integrating, acclimating students, where does that leave the child already prepared to succeed by the culture which gives them his or her privilege?

Another point raised was that at this point, the general public approves in principle with the current ideology at play here. They support it, but even if they were to actively try and contribute, that wouldn’t be as helpful as “out-of-sight” monetary support.

Germany is attempting to build and infrastructure around migrancy and they don’t necessarily need more hands in the process.

The whole dilemma was put into a metaphor: you and a few partners have laboriously built a project and now must deal with an incoming partner who could potentially destabilize it. Are you willing to accept this partner by in turn fortifying your project to adapt to his incoming influence?

15. Sept In the time between last week and this week, the influx of Syrian refugees has exploded. The EU continues to be strained, particularly in Hungary, to come to some resolution on how each country appropriately collaborates on this issue. Astonishingly, my plans for Tempelhof took on an entirely literal meaning: the government is indeed seriously considering, if not outright planning, to fortify the airport’s hangars as a winter shelter for incoming immigrants. This should help you understand how very intense the influx of refugees is.

Natheer: I went back to the language exchange this evening. It was better attended this time. I was placed with Natheer, who was very 9. September 2015 adamant that his name be pronounced correctly with a “TH,” like in English, he said. He spoke elementary english, enough to act as a bridge into German. I also had a partner this time in Katrin, whom My roommates, both native Berliners, had an interesting response I saw last week and was very very prepared with her own copies of when discussing the struggles of racism in Germany. They language exercise sheets specifically for refugees learning German. disagreed with the observation that “out of sight out of mind” Natheer was also very specifically focused on learning how to is outright racism, rather a middle and upper-class response pronounce the alphabet, numbers, days of the week, months, etc. toward strangeness. They, perhaps more than most Germans, have It was a whirlwind of words and sounds, many of which he found witnessed how Turkish immigrants integrated in the 80s and 90s, frustrating. But he was also determined and, within the two hours with Turkish being the largest minority in the Hauptstadt. The we had covered the alphabet, first-person pronouns, numbers, attitude then is not the attitude now, but it bears similar burdens. months, days of the week, very basic conjugation, and greetings.

Immigrants were invited for employment, therefore hospitality More often than not, we would divert upon a tangent and learn was something earned; here, migrants are invited to secure their words that way. For example, to help him with sounds, we’d often basic survival, demanding a patience and longsuffering as host to a find an appropriate U-Bahn stop with, say the U umlaut sound, mass of often unemployable individuals. Racism towards Turkish with which he could then associate. We had the train map with us immigrants was, at that time, based upon the rationale that these on the table to use. “outsiders” would return home at the end of their license, which many did. The investment in these people, then, was very low; This evening was unlike the last in that Natheer was both expressive 193

and intensely focused on being precise. He made it obvious when he was either frustrated, most often just with himself, or didn’t understand, but yet found many moments of levity, like when he found out that, like Arabic, German inverts their number system “one and twenty” instead of “twenty-one”. To this I responded in exaggerated frustration, saying well there’s something you can share, but I think it’s annoying; he laughed and agreed. It was both enjoyable and exhausting having an insatiable student.

an almost laughably commonplaceness to it. In the floors above, in neighboring hangars, there were business, studios, offices, classes still wrapping up their day. Dark, slick uniforms with neon piping marked security, men with suspicious, alert, yet somehow also glazed expressions. Phillip met us just as we arrived, obviously exhausted from work, obviously in a hurry to finish what was left for him to do. His boss needed to give us the OK, who was smoking a cigarette beside us.

I still return to this idea of agency, which is, annoyingly, the current buzzword of the day in Architecture. Yet it’s very true. The people I’ve met are seeking their own niche of control, some way to increase their mobility and access to their environment. Natheer was here because he was frustrated by his inability to communicate in any way, so his motivation was very strong. He was also alone and mentioned that his parents are both dead; perhaps his ultimate motivation is then integration here, unlike Meher, who’s search for agency is more of an addition to his skillset.

Bernd was quickly introduced, and quickly asked if we could see “what was happening.” Bernd’s jovial laugh was surprising in its warmth. “Ah, a little refugee tourism, is it? Yeah , yeah of course, it’s no problem!” His happy approval sped us past the cloud of smoking men and security.

30. Sept Visited Tempelhof again Sunday. There was a refugee fundraising/ info concert/benefit. There were booths on language courses, tandem partners, and other basic information. There were also specific tents for legal assistance and healthcare. The event was general information, but also to spark involvement and invite volunteers. There was one announcer saying they had secured funding for a rescue ship on the mediterranean and need volunteers to help organize this initiative. It was a relatively large crowd, perhaps 300? And it was the end of the day, so I’m sure there had been more earlier.

The first room was filled with Bierbanke, the typical, cheap foldable wood and painted-green steel benches that every German owns. A fixture of every Biergarten, festival, summer terrace. Men, women, children, families were still finishing up eating in one corner. Were they eating waffles? It looked like waffles. Maybe with something green on it? Chips, paper plates, detritus marked the end of the meal. The room itself was small, dim, almost a foyer, flanked by similarly-sized rooms in continuous en filade. To the left was the buffet, in the process of being cleared away. There was a kitchen, or at least some sort of wet facility, on one side of the long buffet table.

The room was far too small for how many people must be here. They must eat in shifts.

Double doors directly opposite the entry opened into the Hangar. Florescent lights make the entire place feel somehow tense; I imagine they will remain on at all times. Hundreds of white tents stand side by side, filled each with bunk beds. I don’t know how many beds are in each, but I imagine four. The tents are numbered, marked with neon orange spray paint. Suddenly, the size of the hangar seems simultaneously massive and inadequate. It’s such a tall space; the space between the ground and the ceiling seems like a yawning mouth with Tempelhof itself was interesting in observing that space is, say, white teeth. owned by the people who visit far more than normal parks. It’s Phillip says there are restrooms beside this exit and free German lessons being constantly low-dense, so you could have a radius of 20m all around offered in another room adjacent to the Hangar. you and there’d be little problem. The issue with sun shading is again apparent in the Fall once again. People simply cannot visit Children run by. Playing with a balloon. Where did they get it? when it’s hot and sunny. In the autumn though, the weather is cool Most of the refugees seem, honestly, bored, otherwise. They all have cell and sun is desired. phones. There are more men visible then women, but everyone is dressed like any other European I’ve seen. They’re just waiting. For something to happen.

30. October

Are they allowed to leave? Are they stuck here?

The air is thick, warm. The collection of so much body heat in one area. There are supposedly another 400 coming tomorrow. I think there are already at My roommates had known about my thesis as we’ve discussed least 1000 people here. Capacity is 4000, I believe, at this point. Hangars 2 it many times over dinner or breakfast. Paula was gone for two through 4 are being prepared. But they say they need to install showers. There weeks volunteering in Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia at a couple aren’t enough of them right now. camps there. When it was publicized that Tempelhof was being seriously considered as a camp facility, which then, because of a Rella seems slightly disturbed by the atmosphere, if not impressed by the spike in influx, actually became temporary housing, it was both efficiency and organization. “But,” I say, “think how, were this still a military a surprise and completely logical. Shortly after, Rella’s boyfriend hangar, soldiers would have lived in similar conditions.” Somehow that makes got a job with a catering company which was serving Hangar 1 it feel both better and also worse. It makes this war palpable, present, here. breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They told me I could come by one We can’t stay any longer. We exit back through the dining area, drawing a few evening, briefly. looks, but not many. The crowd of smoking men is convivial, making way for Rella and I rode our bikes down into the sub-level street running us to leave. “Thank you,” I say. “Bitte,” responds a young man. Is he a refugee of along the hangars. Hangar 1 is at the very end, and as we rode just someone working? around, behind the windows we could see the other hangars As we leave, Rella remarks, “There are so many children. Can you imagine being prepared, followed by rooms with bunk beds and an being a child and going through this? Are you even aware of it for what it is? entry with a small crowd of men smoking, both volunteers and And there are so many people. Each one has their own specific story.” refugees alike. It seemed they’d just finished eating dinner. The atmosphere jarred weirdly with the edifice out of which it poured, I don’t know if I ever truly believed that Tempelhof would actually become a 194

refugee center. But things have changed. Dramatically; to the point where it enough to be able to translate for us when necessary. But only Arabic, which is necessary, critical even. Winter will require all outdoor camps to adjust, of was mostly okay, but there were a few families who spoke only Farsi or another course it makes perfect sense to house people inside an old, underused, yet language. perfectly functional hangar.

We were originally told to work in pairs, one would stay at the table and the I don’t really even know how to talk about my project, now, in some ways. I other would run clothes. Men should generally serve men and women to did not predict or foresee this, both in terms of my project and in terms of women. That had the benefit of, one, each knowing what the other would Tempelhof and them uniting. Up until now, any project I’ve ever undertaken wear and in what size, and it made the refugees more comfortable. Well. has been calculatedly distanced. But now, I’m somehow involved in this story, That didn’t work. The volunteers seemed to have a sense of panic; when they the reality of it. I’m connected to it. They’re not separate things, now, and I were asked for something, they’d run to get it themselves immediately; the can no longer look on as though I’m telling a story of something happening refugee they’d been helping would then turn to another volunteer and ask for to someone else, I’m much closer to it somehow. I know people involved. I something else. It was kind of chaos, but it got better as the time wore on. We would have to bring several sizes to see what a) fit and b) they liked. Refugees am involved. came in groups of perhaps ten to fifteen, families or groups of friends. Most The question which boggles my mind is that there are now thousands of were quite polite and patient, but still, some were… picky. people living in a place to which they have no real association other than that it is/was, for however brief a time, a place to live. What does Tempelhof There wasn’t enough men’s clothing, and a paltry assortment of shoes which mean to these people? Do they know its history? In ten years, the children were quickly scooped up. And no men’s belts, which were surprisingly who are living at Tempelhof now, will they see that building as their personal popular. Not so surprising when you think that a belt can actually broaden refuge, their first home of safety? The narrative is being subverted , it’s being the potential pants selection. Things you wouldn’t expect, and which we didn’t have, were asked for, like backpacks and flip flops. The children were experienced and re-written simultaneously. funny, though, because if they thought it looked cool, they didn’t care if it didn’t fit. This may have been slightly problematic, but gave some levity to the morning. Particularly when we found a pair of soccer cleats. That was a hit.

3. November Still. Sometimes we didn’t have anything, particularly for pre-teens and young teens, and/or would have to just stop giving people things because they had At BL, the office is even contributing to the cause. The government has asked already taken what was deemed their share. The refugee translators were quick us to re-examine our ultra-light concrete proposal, but in terms of modular to scold those they believed were being greedy or demanding. housing. They want it simplified and have said that, while it has to cost basically From this experience, I gather a few things. First, a good volunteer is one who nothing, they don’t want to build cells; they want to maintain a design quality doesn’t panic. You have to feel urgency, but not give into the urge to panic. somehow. Of course, everyone says this for every project. This is the trick.

Almost like a doctor, you must maintain logic and rational thinking even The project we proposed was based upon a standard unit, poured in a concrete when faced with screaming babies or a mass of people demanding things in a developed to be extremely light. I believe it’s filled with polystyrene pellets, language you don’t understand. This is, for me, a very valuable lesson in general. but it’s basically a do-it-all precast module. In the two projects we’d proposed Secondly, every person was different: quiet, demanding, polite, obsequious, using this material, it can be either load bearing or merely insulated wall panel. irritated, frustrated, friendly, etc. In some weird way, this was reminiscent of In this instance, I think they’re working to really streamline the entire process, when I worked at American Eagle: ever customer was a new challenge, similar, as well as the design. It can’t cost anything. but new. Even the visual sizing exercise and “going to the back” to fetch them This is interesting in context of problems popping up all over Germany in their size was eerily similar. You cannot generalize these people and their terms of refugee housing. Conditions in some places are unacceptable, no wants or needs to the degree we often do. They’re neither leeches nor poor better than the chaos-ridden border countries. There are also murmurs of souls; some may be, but those people cannot sour you to what are just the blame being shuffled about, in that the government should have anticipated needs of regular people. the pre-winter spike in incoming refugees, and built housing accordingly.

Thirdly, style is a way to hold onto agency and identity. Some of the people Tempelhof ’s other hangars are, in the span of a few weeks, almost already we helped were difficult to distinguish as needing particularly anything. retrofitted, true, but that’s not a permanent solution. It’s paper and cloth walls Only when you saw, perhaps, that they had slightly the wrong shoes, that within a steel and concrete container. Safe, but ephemeral. was when you began to notice that they were doing the best to make it work.

And, honestly, doing a good job with what they’d been given. A lot of the clothes we had were not contemporary, retired German’s clothes made of 14.Nov unforgiving material perhaps. It was at this point that I asked myself if I would even wear what I was giving out. When my answer was no, so were theirs and they wouldn’t take it, generally. And not because it wasn’t necessarily stylish, I volunteered today at Tempelhof, helping distribute clothing and supplies. which, yes, maybe, but also because it was impractical. Some shoes were Two hangars are now occupied, and we received people from Hangar 3. The indecipherably strange. Ski clothes? In some way, I think critical thinking, room in Hangar 1 we occupied contained clothing, the majority women’s, even at the level of what you put on your body, is a way to hold on to your among other necessities. There were about 10 of us who volunteered alongside sense of humanity. I think humans make more out of survival. I think I could the two organizers. Beds were being used as shelves for clothes and around the appreciate that desire. door were stationed tables emblazoned with pictographs of clothing types for people to indicate what they needed.

Among us was a German man who spoke Arabic since, as he explained, his parents were Syrian and had immigrated about forty years ago. He was essential, that day, as mostly, the people who came were trying to get as much from us in the time allotted them there. There were also two young men who were refugees themselves, living in the hangar, whose English was good 195

from mere information. We seek truth in lies, where the fuzziness of fiction enables perceived potential, whereas truths, which are specific, establish boundaries and limits. There is power in a simple In her documentary on the nature of storytelling Stories We Tell, story to clarify crisis, one that aids the formulation of policies to director Sarah Polley is concerned with the transmutability of better understand and animate the physical environment.4 story: “People tend to declare themselves in terms of what they heard, what they felt felt, what they remembered, and in terms of their loyalties. The same set of circumstances will affect different The narrative is thus a seductive tool for architects, who are attracted people in different ways. Not that there are different Truths. There by metaphor, irony, denouement, process, etc. all components of are different reactions to particular events. The crucial function of narratives which they already use to make decisions. Narrative can art is to tell the truth. Find the truth in the situation. That’s what establish a project’s foundation and begins from the moment of conception, easily distilled through plot devices. it’s about.”

On Narrative

“In our design narratives, projects and buildings often become characters of their own stories because, in its ideal state, Obviously, we like to tell stories. Narratives, by their nature, are architecture is, let us not forget, the result of fiction. We as fluid, vague, and mutable while being simultaneously fixed around architects, need to create – from the outlining of the program to a shared understanding. The terms “narrative” and “story” are used the shaping processes – fictions: narratives that guide our designs, interchangeably in definition but are not synonyms. Narrative tell us what our buildings are and aren’t and help us outline the is the means by which you assemble stories, a series of events, itinerary the shaping process has to follow.”5 sequentially and structurally, and can be factual or imaginary, communicated through any sort of media.1 Daniel Schwarz Think of narrative in terms of any designer: explains in The Case for Human-Poetics: – Le Corbusier, like Loos, popularized write-make associative “Narrative is both the representation of external events and the narrative scenery, making a cinematic spectacle out of the spatial telling of those events. …. interest in narrative derives from [a] procession, a mantle assumed in many ways by Peter Eisenman but belief that we make sense of our life by ordering it and giving it meta-exegetically shape. The stories we tell ourselves provide continuity among the – Mies was the skilled coiner of catchphrases, the media byte, as a concentration of diverse episodes in our lives, even if our stories narrative in short form inevitably distort and falsify. Each of us is continually writing and rewriting the text of our life, revising out memories and – Team 10, Yona Friedman, and Constant sought narrative tools hopes, proposing plans, filtering disappointments through our to turn ideology against itself as a way to break from modernist defenses and rationalizations, making adjustments in the way we discourse, et cetera. present ourselves to ourselves and others. To the degree that we – Superstudio and Archigram critiques inflate satire in their are self-conscious, we live in our narratives–our discourse–about cinematic imagery our actions, thoughts, and feelings…. To omit narrative is to deemphasize the kind of ordering on which we depend to convey – Bernard Tschumi embraced the sequential, non-hierarchical meaning.” 2 narrative through montage Narrative is much more effective than enumeration of facts as a way to transmit abstract concepts because it builds a contextual atmosphere around the message. It requires communication and anticipation cyclically of both narrator and receiver in order to build a convincing oration. Hayden White goes so far as to claim that narrative is potentially the solution to the problem of how to “translate knowing into telling, the problem of fashioning human experience into a form assimilable to structures of meaning that are generally human rather than culture-specific.”3 We construct narratives to transmit convincingly abstract didactic concepts within an accessible context. Audiences crave editing, assemblage, and cohesiveness of story and interpretation. We are thereby accustomed to expecting and demanding some sort of consistent story of the hero/anti-hero binary constructed from one of these standard narrative formats, especially enjoyed in media byte form.

There must be an accessible plot.

– Daniel Libeskind exploits allegorical metaphor – Rem Koolhaas and his OMA offspring, particularly Bjarke Ingels, identify with the editorial method of narrative, versions of the slide projection pioneered by Kevin Roche elevated to journalistic editorials.

How, then, can an architect use the narrative to engage design challenges? Eisenman, ever a ubiquitous figure in any architectural theological conundrum, popularizes that architects are not problem-solvers but those who formulate the questions. By formulating The Questions, this gives architects control of the course of the topic’s narrative and allows them to interrogate it through their own media. Alternatively, if architects are considered those who take on the problem or question, they are seeking more to adapt themselves to the demands of the issue. This is a struggle with what is controlling Narrative, and the design thereby. Do we A “narrative,” though, remains the more generic tool, an write the narrative? Does it write itself ? Do we adapt or absorb assemblage of events into cohesive rhythm and sequence. This a narrative? Do we reshape it or represent it factually? If you builds meaning. We, the audience, believe a story because of its formulate contemporary questions based upon a problem, you persuasiveness, charisma, charm, in the end really because the act are likely to edit a structured, compelling narrative based upon of listening implies a desire to inhabit another mind. We seek your own authorship, peppered with good observations. If you out moments to live the potent semi-fictional imagination as an take on a problem, you are likely to respond to multiple factual extension of fact and information, which are not as palatable when sources and form a narrative which is well researched and more a taken as raw data. It is the interpretive task which separates story scientific exercise. Most narratives could be said to fall somewhere 196

in this spectrum. Think of, say, OMA versus Elemental: Koolhaas is any dialogue’s editor and would whole heartedly agree with Eisenman, as evidenced by the water-tight ideological strength and compelling iconography of their products; Alejandro Alavena, however, attempts a step-by-step methodological approaching specific socioeconomic byproducts, the narrative being based in pragmatism.

how buildings shape new connections among disparate actors.

Taken not in holistic terms but within their won conditions and with the pluralities of specific concrete spaces, buildings render explicit communication and segregation. They map the location of different types of actors, guide their movements and distribute their actions; they assist the transactions between actors and facilitate different practices.”

While designers seek to coalesce in their own minds some sort of narrative during design and production, in some ways the narrative is important only when trying to establish the reality of the project, regardless of realization. “Postrationalized” has become an identifier for where narrative has been attempted. When you’re in the middle of making a narrative, it isn’t so much a story as it is confusion and chaos; it’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all, when you’re telling it to yourself of someone else and you begin to see frameworks.6 Stories are told in architecture through imagery, the process revealing the designer’s imagined future ideal. Media has varied, from section and plan to 3D visualization. Upon the invention of perspective projection, architecture was allowed to become pictoral and perfect images with one gaze that mimicked seeing. The axonometric which followed joined the atmosphere of space and the line drawing. The computer enabled constant renegotiation of narrative potential, where design principles are no longer based in geometry and can affect point and trajectories. It was Bachelard that summarized that the ultimate goal of representation has been to enable the reader to visualize his own narrative in a room of the writer’s making.7

Narratives are familiar and comfortable in this way. They have an easily built pattern and jargon which enable them to embody the journalistically editorial and scientifically factual. We use them constantly to tell and sell our ideas.

While imagery’s role in narrative has always been crucial, increasingly the architect’s words matter just as much as the design itself, a voice in the sense of both visual representation and from a podium. The building comes to be presented as part of the life-story of the architect. 8 In this way the highly accessible narrative tool is consistently and consciously appropriated by architectural designers, as well as their PR machines, and critics to sell the impression of their ideas. Right or wrong, true or false, persuasiveness of narratives does not rest in truths but on the inhabitability of the story. They are used as a way to invent legitimacy of intent, embedding, often ironically, within the representation a semi-cultural, somewhat factual, and vaguely fictional artifact. Archis 2009 issue 9 of Volume even proposes that “while the truth is important, so is the ability of fiction to elevate fact. Perhaps the best way to understand our era is through narratives that distort, pervert and animate reality?”9

But they do not necessarily tell the right stories.

On Refugees

Universal human rights are linked to Europe and its history. They were one of the founding motives of the EU. If we fail on refugees then the connection to those rights is destroyed and it won’t be the Europe that we wished for.

2015

- Angela Merkel, summer press conference 31. August

In a video for the Christian Democrat Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, what was meant to be another PR stop on Chancellor Merkel’s “listening campaign” called Gut Leben in Deustschland has turned into a quite clear expression of Europe’s current struggle with asylum seekers and immigration. These are relatively informal interviews with a small audience, moderators, filmed and broadcast; in this instance, the audience is almost exclusively teens and pre-teen students.

The conversation turns towards minorities, particularly in regards to, say, Turkish Germans who are discriminated against based upon the name they place on their resume. Merkel, in telling the story of this problem, closes by saying it’s just a very difficult Kim Dovey gives a succinct account of how to consider narrative situation and suggests perhaps applying anonymously, but evades in architecture: “architecture is a multiple ‘framing’ wherein decision making. The reporter responds by saying that a solution is representations are framed by spatial structures that are in turn needed now in our lightning-quick youtube generation, to which infused with narrative interpretations.”10 Architecture is the set. Merkel quips a joke that of course if they knew what to do they’d Narrative is the plot and imagining life in a space gives architecture have done it yesterday. It receives polite chuckles. Merkel answers its story.11 The extent to which architects actually manage to that, yes, obviously, but we have to be sure the the business sector situate projects within a given identity discourse is a part of a economy can handle this sort of change. wider social production whose ‘broader frames’ include political contexts in which architecture becomes meaningful. Designers “negotiate contentious symbolic ground” positioning the narrative The next comment about integration came from a young girl, a framing within and without the profession.

Palestinian refugee named Reem. Later, media outlets edited the video, picking out the passages where Reem expresses her ambitions and struggles, skipping to Merkel responding that, “By experiencing a building or witnessing its design, we follow despite all, not everyone can be allowed to stay in Germany; this 197

then immediately cuts to Reem’s tears and Merkel’s “streichen,” literally “to stroke” or “pat,” her apparent shallow attempt at comforting the girl. This became a brief viral video throughout Germany, the EU, the US. Comical memes were photoshopped with images of Merkel “stroking” at immigrants in boats, with #merkelsteichelt becoming a trending topic. With memes like “Merkel streichelt auch die Flücktlingskrise im Mittelmeer weg” translated as “Merkel strokes away the refugee problem in the mediterranean.”

considering immigration.14 The current crisis, unprecedented and only gaining momentum, is a problem of labels, responsibility, and cold-hearted numbers.

In legal terms, a “migrant” is anyone who has moved or fled from their home country to another. “Irregular migration” is a synonym for illegal immigration. To be more specific about the status of a migrant, they are only termed asylum seekers when they have applied for a decision to stay in a country after fleeing their own.

A refugee has been permitted residency officially. The permit allows the now-refugee to take up employment, applies to their family, lasts for five years, and, if rejected, can still be appealed twice. Assessing the refugees becomes a comparison of war-torn homelands, religious persecution, ethnic cleansing, etc. on a chart of most- to least-serious. Should the asylum seeker be an “economic migrant,” however, they are immigrating to advance economic and professional prospects, across various competency levels, and not directly because they are under duress. An “expatriate” is a skilled immigrant comparable with an average citizen of the country they are entering. An economic migrant is ineligible for asylum and one of most European nations’ main concerns when dealing with applications.15

Op-ed pieces written about this encounter vary drastically, leftists chastising Merkel’s heartlessness, conservatives supporting her caution, and others expressing concern for dwindling capacity for refugees. The left maintains the sentiment that, due to its Nazi past, Germany has a responsibility to welcome immigrants.

The Confederation of German Employers’ Associations has said that immigration is even necessary for the labor market to allow a social system to function. Others still criticize foreign policy for exacerbating deteriorating conditions in the Middle East, specifically focused on the absence of German strictures on its aid to Israel. Others mention post-colonialist hegemonic actions in the Middle East, another way of saying the the West has meddled and the East is therefore now unstable. Germany has, they say, had a hand in creating this refugee crisis and is self-righteously trying to welcome refugees.13 Legally, the European Union has set forth an agenda stating that migrants are to be first evaluated in the country in which they arrive.

The Dublin Agenda states that the application must be processed Aside from being a case of media inflation, this video and its where fingerprints are first taken before determining where backlash are very succinct representations of the struggle with migrants will be settled in Europe. The aim is to avoid multiple immigration and the accelerating refugee crisis in Germany and and/or orbiting asylum claims. Heavy criticism had been levied the European Union. While the general populace may have found at this plan as it burdens border countries, particularly Greece, the edited footage distasteful, Merkel handled the situation more Italy, and any countries near the Turkish border. Additionally, or less as would be expected. She is still generally popular as a inefficiencies hinder quick decisions with some delays lasting years, cautious, yet decisive, Chancellor, with citizens even commenting should claims be heard at all. Now, Greek islands are overrun, that she, herself, is the figure they elected and not her party. Croatia, Serbia and Hungary are not cooperating, Austria plays Her general unpopularity within the rest of the EU because of host to a bevy of smugglers, and Calais’ Eurotunnel is swarmed struggling economies in the southern countries, most specifically daily. Due to the overwhelming crisis, Germany briefly suspended Greece and border countries, only compounds the pressure the Agenda on August 24th of 2015 in regards to Syrian asylum building within and against Germany. seekers choosing to process those applications itself.

In opposition, extreme conservatives in Germany reiterate isolationist tendencies, xenophobia re-surfacing worryingly. The group Pegida, Patriotic Europeans Against Islamification of the West, is one of the largest voices against the influx of refugees, regularly protesting in Eastern strongholds in Dresden. The East is traditionally more reticent to engage immigrants, having been almost completely ethnically German under the GDR. Isolationist politicians have also won new seats in local elections and in the May for the European Parliament. Trepidation towards foreigners, especially muslims, lies in a perceived threat to national and regional identities. Even moderate conservatives are deeply concerned about conflict between European freedoms by perceived ultra-conservative Muslim law, specifically as it engages women’s rights and tolerance. And the most ugly assumption is that extremists are being smuggled right alongside with legitimate immigrants.

The Nazi-past argument has worn thin. Merkel and her middleconservative party of Christian Democrats have decried this prejudice, calling for an open and hospitable mind when 198

There has been a migrant quota system in place to ascertain the allocation and distribution of migrants across the EU, generally reflected by that country’s population and GDP. Of all the countries in the EU, Germany hosts the largest number of asylum applications, with a record revised as of August 2015 to more than 800,000 to arrive this year in 2015. Italy and southern bordering countries receive the brunt of the influx while struggling intensely with the state of their own suffering economies. Germany permits far more applications than other European nation, particularly the wealthy UK, and even Gulf states.

Germany received 250,000 applications in the last twelve months, followed by Sweden at 81,000. This is largely due to Germany’s size, economic strength and leading position in the EU, particularly while England continues to move away from the union. Per inhabitant, Sweden hosts the largest percentage at one refugee per 118 inhabitants, with Germany eighth at one to 326. Syria, Russia (specifically Chechnya), Palestine and Afghanistan make up the largest number of refugees to Europe.16 17 Worldwide it should be noted that there are an estimated 13.9 million individuals newly

displaced in 2014, 59.9 million forcibly displaced worldwide. This is roughly the population of Italy or the UK. Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees worldwide, while Lebanon and Jordan host the largest ratio of inhabitant-to-refugee at between 1:4 to 1:11. Sweden is 9th on that list.18 The tension in the EU building around, lately against, Germany, is an argument over consistent policies over an inconsistent political climate. For example, there is a growing criticism of the Saudi and other Gulf states that they, of all countries, are most capable of helping resolve the crisis. Gulf state muslims are also confounded by the hypocrisy of their governments, with one observing the irony that non-muslim countries in Europe typically described as infidels are yet the ones welcoming their muslim brethren. Yet this situation is unlikely to change as rich gulf countries source their unskilled immigrant labor from Southeast Asia and India and deny most asylum requests from Syrians and other refugees.19 England has also been heavily criticized, particularly by Germany, for a similar mentality. Suffering isolationist tendencies like the Gulf states, the 64 million size nation has committed to accepting 2,200 refugees, 0.003% of its population. Though this number is continually revised a bit higher every month, recently to 20,000, (particularly after Berlin issues veiled threats) the ratio still places England nearly at the very bottom of the ranking scale.20 Prime Minister David Cameron claims that the solution is not in harboring refugees, but in stabilizing their war torn countries. He states that by opening the doors to these immigrants, it becomes almost impossible to distinguish those who are economic refugees or “legitimate asylum seekers”.21

focus of media attention and governmental aid, all refugees claim to be Syrian or are trying to be included in this mass by taking advantage of its momentum. Syrian passports or identification cards are now in high demand.25 Media saturation increases constantly with images of fleeing dirty immigrants in death-trap dinghies, through nefarious and unscrupulous smugglers, but yet still surviving. 26 Yet the majority of migrants are not “unwashed” or “impoverished” but regular, middle-class people; they are not uneducated, poor or helpless as is often popularly portrayed. This is a 21st century migration where the internet and technology have provided some sort of agency and the needs of a migrant are generally misunderstood.

A smartphone is the upmost necessity upon crossing the border (in Syria, smartphones indicate disloyalty and therefore death at IS checkpoints). WhatsApp is popular as it facilitates international communication. Immigrants scour Facebook and Google Maps, planning their own escapes. Traffickers are easily accessed through Facebook at the low price of 1700€ from Istanbul to Thessolaniki.

Also on Facebook, mortar rounds were being updated real-time as they were falling on Damascus. But just as often people plan their own routes through GPS route markers constantly updated by fleeing migrants. 27 Many migrants do, in fact, have money and are not seeking the well-meaning charitable donations of clothes or food, but the larger needs of shelter and employment. In many cases, because they are traveling so quickly, they simply discard old and purchase new clothing along their route.28

Immigrants, particularly Syrians, are often not deterred by the prospects of death. They reason that they are, in a way, already dead.

Germany has committed to issuing permits to 12,500, 20% of the So what do they have to loose? They see the slightest potential for 60,000 all EU nations have committed to proportionally resettle hope in Europe. They hear of Germany. over the next two years. And the 800,000 immigrants will make up 1% of Germany’s population. Because of these recent policy changes in Germany, Hungary and other Baltic countries are As the young man spoke, a chant broke out calling for German also furious, impacted by Syrians now trying to make their way Chancellor Angela Merkel -- who called Monday for “a fair directly to Germany, not to mention the recent Greek crisis where distribution of refugees” among EU countries to help ease the crisis Germany was cast as another kind of villain.

-- to come to their aid.

“Let’s not pretend that what the EU and its member states are doing is working. Migration is here to stay,” said Fancois Crepeau, UN reporter. “Building fences, using tear gas and other forms of violence against migrants and asylum seekers, detention, withholding access to basics such as shelter, food or water and using threatening language or hateful speech will not stop migrants from coming, or trying to come, to Europe.”22

“Merkel, Merkel, Merkel, help us,” the crowd called in English.29

Merkel’s recent and surprisingly decisive response has been polarizing and she, personally, has been given yet another moniker.

She is the the Bundeskanzler, Queen of Europe, the Greek debt villain, the de facto leader of the EU, and now the Mother of Outcasts. She has become the “Compassionate Mother” to many Syrians after Germany’s decision to make use of the “sovereignty Immigrants, particularly fleeing Syrians, are only becoming clause” of the Dublin convention, allowing Syrian refugees to apply more desperate. According to the United Nations Office for the directly to Germany for asylum.30 Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, out of a population of nearly 25.5 million, 4.1 million have fled the country, 7.6 million are displaced internally by the violence. As of September 2015, While right-wing protesters denounce Merkel as a betrayer of the 240,000 mostly civilians have been killed in the conflict.23 24 The people and the left accuses her of slow and incompetent action, acceleration of fleeing Syrians comes as President Bashar al-Assad general German opinion seems to agree, in spirit, with Merkel. stated he faced manpower shortages, the Islamic State gaining In her position, she has the influence, power, and credibility to more footholds and attacking cities across the country, and rebels stronghold the EU into engaging the current crisis. While her fortifying resolve. These people fear conscription for another’s position may be eroding around her, she is resolute on Germany’s war, fear atrocities and ethnic cleansing, fear for their children and role and capability in this crisis. This is an intense test of the futures. Ironically, because the Syrian conflict has been the largest principles of the European Union’s internal and foreign policies 199

and as the crisis evolves, Europe begins to realize that this flow can no longer be staunched, they are no longer idle in continental isolation, and they will play a part in this conflict, feeling personally its effects far into the foreseeable future.

an obligation to “strangers” who might have disagreeably different values from “ours”, as espoused by Kwame Anthony Appiah? In Appiah’s case, it is a commitment to pluralism but not necessarily to universality. Or perhaps is it cosmopolitanism from below that remains continually a work in progress, where ordinary citizens and civic organizations perform solidarity without borders, as examined by Fuyuki Kurasawa?32

Thoughts “If it can be pursued without impterialist intentions, translation is the process through which each place is opened up to and enriched by its outside; and if it can occur in multiple directions, rather than only from Europe and the United States to the rest of the world, translation is the prerequisite of cosmopolitan ethics. Things do not get lost in translation, but they get multiplied through displacement and replacement. And based on the specific story of this transfer in each particular case, the places of departure and arrival of each transportation–which are both already constantly changing with the continuing translation process are connected to each other in a unique way.”31 Your opinion on immigrants, asylum seekers, migrants, either legal or illegal likely has to do with your understanding of your role in relation to these people’s lives. What part do you play in that struggle, if you consider that you should play any part at all? When considering your opinion immigration and migrancy, you have to engage things like cultural integrity, national stability, ethics, nation-state jurisdiction, sovereignty, hegemony, foreign policy, etc, far from a binary system of protagonists and antagonists.

For example, you may believe in the cultural integrity of a nation state while also believing in the sovereignty of individual agency.

Perhaps you consider that you must necessitate overall basic rights for all individuals and therefore believe in actions for community benefit, distancing oneself from isolationist tendencies. What does the right to personal security entail? Is it when that person can live in relative comfort or merely the opportunity to make their own choices within a stable environment? Or is it when that person is provided equal privileges identical to the nation state citizen? Is this person entitled to personal security everywhere or predominantly in their home state under its specific legislation?

How do you facilitate personal security: by taking an overt role in the reshaping of that home state, by diverting economic support to drive sectors of your choosing, by providing asylum, by enforcing regulations and strictures, etc?

The West struggles with this cosmopolitan ethics ideal, which has never truly happened. It was a German August Wilmelm Schlegel who, in the late 19th century, assumed Germany would lead the charge in unifying “all the best qualities of all nationalities to enter fully into their thoughts and feelings, and thus bind a cosmopolitan center for all humanity.”33 In Europe, these crisis-of-self are faced by small, wealthy nations whose entire populations could even be only equal in size to single metropolitan areas in the Americas or in Asia. Migrants settle in these countries because the wealth of their citizens can support the tax revenue required to house them. The extremely high standards of living in these nations are attractive, but precariously balanced upon the assumption of maintaining nation-wide cultural consistency.

Because of this current crisis, this massive looming question of a national and cultural integrity is played out daily in the media. If you allow immigrants to take root, will they change fundamentally your culture? Is this a good or a bad thing? Does this diversify or is it a slow homogenization of global culture? Are you willing to accept that your culture will, can, and should change because of these outside agents?

This is the very reason today’s crisis challenges the flaws in multicultural idealism, which is merely the makeup of hybridization, and shiny cosmopolitan ideals. While these commitments to solidarity and value of the components of hybridization, i.e. their agency, Europe as a whole fears its obsolescence, feeling threatened by the bombardment of cultures potent in their integrity. Latent colonialism still gets in the way.

Integration is not an outright adoption of European ideals, but an exchange. On every scale of encounter with migrancy, this is the struggle every native must reconcile: that the western world is the minority and it is changing.

Embroiled with the moral debates, however ethnocentric, migrancy is much like any other flow of objects from one place to another. It is an infrastructure of translation and similar to flows of goods, products, services, cultures, values, everything from the physical to the transient. Bluntly, the largest obstacle in accurately engaging migrancy is, frankly, equity. Eventually you are faced with the question in a post-capitalist world of who foots the bill.

Those people need to be convinced why they should do so, because they will ask you: how does it benefit them? Cultural and ethical debates are key to shaping discourse and public opinion, but in Kant asked if there were universal equal rights, who decides them the EU there is already a strained economic imbalance. It is often and there do they come from? Are they an attachment to a universal argued by anti-immigration proponents across the union that human solidarity, detaching from any type of morally arbitrary the economic problem in the south should be the first at-home boundaries, as defined by Martha Nussbaum? Or is it achieved priority and is only compounded by open-immigration policy. through attachment to the past through transformation from Therefore a symptom of these two large fears, cultural change and within communities themselves rather than a top-down injection economic upheaval, are the main reason migrants are generally not of universals, as defined by Sheldon Pollock? Or is it admitting permitted to work and, even when given a work permit, struggle to When religion becomes entangled within the debate, questions only become more compounded because of a general western idea of religious freedom. As we see with why people are attracted by the idea of Pegida, what about when religious tenants conflict with your notion of personal freedom, particularly in cases where personal or religious beliefs are directly at odds with a country’s laws? Can you perceive of a different definition of freedom and can it be defined by the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

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find any sort of employment. It speaks to the cracks in European ideals that even established minorities, at this point perhaps several generations of european citizens, also face this problem.

Yet integration is still seen as the most appropriate aim in resettling immigrants. In Sweden, the country in which are issued the most refugee permits per citizen, as well as Germany, integration is a way to supplement declining birthrates. The refugee crisis is, for Germany, almost akin to adoption; educated, civilized, and most importantly taxpaying residents must be nurtured.

It is for these reasons that the refugee crisis narrative is sensational, but vastly misunderstood. The story people want to hear is about benevolent Europeans welcoming poor, unwashed helpless refugees, all of some vaguely middle-eastern descent. German radio and news is littered with these op-ed anecdotes with impassioned debates among white germans about what to do with all of these foreigners. Germans like to believe that this time, in comparison to how Germans have traditionally responded to nonGerman cultures, they’re going to respond correctly. But what is it actually going to require to play the role of benevolent host, as Germany and other European nations have cast themselves as?

The wrong story is that everything must change and current motivations are not based upon human rights, but human currency. The wrong story is a fight against ethnocentrism, platitudes, inherent colonialism, well-practiced isolationism and latent fear. Refugees don’t need condescending platitudes or really even well-meaning care packages. A great many desperately want to be able to decide for themselves what their future will be. I argue that the wrong story needing to be told is about the refugee’s agency, not just their well-being or safety, but beyond that, and what roles we must play in order to accomplish that ideal. I want to know how you can facilitate mobility, competency and freedom of choice. Not how do you give them agency, because this suggests that you should hold control over that future, but how can agency be facilitated?

1 http://www.robertmills.me/narrative-story/ 2 In Narrative and Culture, Daniel Schwarz 3 In Narrative and Culture, Hayden White 4 Inaba, Volume, pp3 5 MAS Context 20: Narrative, p19 6 Sarah Polley, Stories We Tell 7 Building Stories – the architectural design process as narrative 8 Justine Yan, “In the Architects Words”, Volume: Ways to Be Critical 9 Archis 2009, issue 9 10 Kim Dovey, in The Sociology of Architecture by Paul Jones 11 Cristina Ampatzidou, “Building Stories – The Architectural Design Process As Narrative” 12 Albena Yaneya: The Architectural as a Type of Connector, in Prospecta 42 13 http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/20/merkel-and-the-palestinian-refugee-girl-why-everyone-missed-the-point/ 14 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/world/europe/pegida-rallydresden-germany.html 15 http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/26/opinions/asylums-seekersrefugees-explainer/index.html 16 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics EUROSTAT 17 http://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2015/may/11/whicheu-countries-receive-the-most-asylum-seekers 18 UNHCR 19 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34132308 20 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-twocharts-which-shame-britain-when-it-comes-to-europes-refugee-crisis-10483278.html 21 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/david-cameronmigration-crisis-will-not-be-solved-by-uk-taking-in-more-refugees 22 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34049512 23 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-syria-refugeecrisis-in-context-data-analysis-20150903-htmlstory.html 24 http://www.unocha.org/syria 25 http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1916-we-met-syriaswar-refugees-7-awful-things-they-told-us_p2.html 26 http://www.buzzfeed.com/borzoudaragahi/this-is-why-the-refugeecrisis-is-hitting-europe-now#.gkQLXb6r1 27 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/world/europe/a-21st-century-migrants-checklist-water-shelter-smartphone.html?_r=0 28 http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1916-we-met-syriaswar-refugees-7-awful-things-they-told-us_p2.html 29 http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/01/europe/europe-migrant-crisis/ index.html 30 http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2015/sep/01/mamamerkel-the-compassionate-mother-of-syrian-refugees 31 Akcan, Esra. Architecture in Translation. p.25-26 32 Ibid. p24 33 Ibid. p23

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