Polemik 12

Polemik 12

Det er lov at være passiv læser.

At læne sig tilbage, lade øjnene glide fra det ene ord til det andre.

Stillferdig, i en trygg og harmløs sfære.

Der nonchalant skumlæsning, danner beskyttende skjold, Mot den uforudsigbare tilstand af,

at blive engasjert.

REDAKTION, Jeanette Amby, Jens

Vium Skaarup, Johan

Eg Nørgaard, Kristoffer Codam, Mathias

Kruse Jacobsen, Niels

Eli Kjær Thomsen, Sara

Emilie Nilsson, Troels

Heiberg FrandsenJ Mathais Skafte Jens

Pedersen

2 BAGSIDE BILLEDE af Amalie Lykke

WWW.POLEMIKPOLEMIK.TUMBLR.COM TRYKT HOS

PLOTTERIET POLEMIK POLEMIK AARHUS UAFHÆNGIG UDGIVELSE OPLAG,

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#12 _2018

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APR(MAJ?)

POLEMIK POLEMIK@GMAIL.COM

_P 4 - 5 THIS PAGE _P 6 - 9 POLEMIK (INVITATION) (!)

THEORY DISCUSSION GROUP _P 10 - 11 THE DETAIL _P 12 - 15 SPECULATIVE DRAWING _P 16 - 19 ABSTRACT ON LIGHT _P 20 - 29 THE DEVIL LIES IN THE DETAIL _P 30 - 33 DU SKAL OVERLEVE

velkomm

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Welcome

back!

In this issue, light is shed upon detailing when Pelle discusses modern architecture and its approach to ornaments an expressive elements.

Ruth B. contributes with comments on book recommendations and theory in architecture in general. Nr. 12 also provides an indepth report from a refugeecamp and discusses how a sites character can have an impact on the state of homeliness.

All this and much more is to be found on the following pages, Best,

the

editors.

Velkommen

tilbage!

I denne udgivelse bliver der sat fokus på detaljer når Pelle melder ind med meninger og frustrationer omkring moderne arkitekturs tilgang til ornamentik og udtryk.

Ruth B. sørger for frisk indspark i teoriens tegn, og tager revanche i anbefalingssegmentet. Teori i arkitektur, og diskursen indenfor branchen generelt.

Nr. 12 rummer også en beretning fra en flygtningelejr og uddyber hvordan hjemlighed og et steds karakter kan have betydning.

Alt dette og mere er at finde på de følgende sider, god læselyst!

Kh,

men til Polemik 12

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redaktionen.

POLEMIK ???????? ? ??????

Ordstrid i pressen, ofte litterĂŚr eller videnskabelig, hvor de involverede parter bliver ved med at angribe eller forsvare en mening.

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Det er lov at være passiv læser.

At læne sig tilbage, lade øjnene glide fra det ene ord til det andre.

Stillferdig, i en trygg og harmløs sfære.

Der nonchalant skumlæsning, danner beskyttende skjold, Mot den uforudsigbare tilstand af, at blive engasjert.

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INVITATION Anne Sofie Ravnsbæk Geertsen

KÆRE POLEMISKE SJÆLE I INVITERES HERMED TIL AT KOMME OG DISKUTERE MED OS HVER ANDEN TORSDAG I LADEN NORD KL 17.00.

INTENTIONEN ER AT ÅBNE OP FOR ET FORUM, HVOR VI DELER VORES VISIONÆRE INDRE, EKSPERIMENTERER MED VORES RADIKALE HOLDNINGER OG DISKUTERER SAMMEN PÅ TVÆRS AF ALDER, UNIT, STIL OG VISIONER. VÆR MED TIL AT UDFORSKE DIN INDRE STEMME. DER VIL VÆRE VIN.

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10 MAJ

INVITATION Anne Sofie Ravnsbæk Geertsen

DEAR ALL POLEMICAL PEOPLE WE INVITE YOU TO COME AND DISCUSS WITH US EVERY SECOND THURSDAY IN LADEN NORD AT 17.00 PM. THE INTENTION IS TO CREATE A FORUM WHERE WE OPEN UP FOR OUR VISIONARY THOUGHTS, EXPERIMENTING OUR RADICAL OPINIONS AND DISCUSSING TOGETHER TO INSPIRE EACH OTHER ACROSS AGES, UNITS, STYLE AND VISIONS. JOIN US IN INVESTIGATING YOUR INNER VOICE. THERE WILL BE WINE.

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MAY 10

THE DETAIL Pelle Juul Carlsen

I have never understood at least half of the solutions that I feel are being used increasingly often in today’s architecture. Specifically, with regard to the crucial details where the detail itself is overlooked often resulting in excess. Detailing in architecture has been abused in recent decades.

The implementation of cursory solutions has had a powerful influence on technological development. I often feel that this is reflected in the contrast between the entirety of a building and its components.

In many cases, the detailing of a building has the power to destroy it. To me, a detail should support the whole, reveal it, explain it. A contrast is not a contrast if it does not contain a diametric opposition.

There are two particular individuals who I feel have contributed to this principle of thought; Richard Rogers and Aldo Rossi. While maintaining contrasting styles, both display an enormous understanding of detailing, a fact that ultimately defines each of their individual approaches.

Both display similarities in their understanding of elements and composition. Aldo Rossi was a social modernist theorist, modernism being a period in which

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the construction detail became the most prevalent one Richard Rogers, one the initial founders of the High Tech period along with Renzo Piano designed the Pompidou Centre, a building that breaks a homogenous cityscape in which Haussmann buildings, showcasing common detailing and structure are the predominant type. The Pompidou Centre disrupts this typology like the High Tech archetype it is. Details are visible in an exaggerated and honest way. The cultural centre is in my eyes, a beautiful example of how a detail has the potential to create autonomy in a building.

I think it is paramount that we consider to a greater extent the importance of detailing in the development of new districts. In this regard, I believe that detailing has the capacity to help create a consensus in an urban area, a link that might allow for diversity in a building as a whole.

Moment, Phenomenon and Formation

Detail as an individually experienced “moment� characterises an architectural phenomenon. A moment in which an interaction is created between user and area. A moment in which the area is integrated with itself.

Phenomenon; Actively using phenomena and visualising them as actors within the site:

A building should not be seen as a freestanding object but always located within the context of its surroundings.

The architecture must adapt to the nature of the place and be founded within the existing space. In architecture, the inspiration drawn from phenomenology has led to the development of a greater interest in surroundings and awareness of place.

We have become increasingly interested in the physical feel of a building. The architecture must be linked to everyday life and contribute to allowing people to feel more familiar with a space.

However, the modern technological culture has demanded that things be seen in order to be understood and appreciated.

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Formation of a building and of an area, combined entities creating a whole:

Details/ Ornamentation are instrumental in defining a type and a typology and therefore a historical period. Adversely, an autonomous space without too many details does not relate to a specific period.

Because we are uncertain as to what the current architectural style is, the magnitude of details we use is unimaginably vast. I think that creating an urban space in which details are not overwhelmingly used creates a space that is timeless, enduring and resilient. Understanding a detail in its entirety is crucial in understanding the power of a cityscape. The composition of a detail in an urban space defines and forms the area.

I am not convinced that as architects we are proficient enough to produce high quality detailing at low budgets.

Instead, we aim to provide a quantitive detailing method in order to conserve the limited budgets available to us. My theory is that we should focus on providing fewer details that are visible and honest as opposed to a desperate attempt at giving our buildings iconic and exaggerated dĂŠcor.

SPECULATIVE DRAWING Mathias Kruse Jacobsen

Discussion and reflection on diagrammatic approaches to architectural representation. Speculative drawing as a place for thinking, acting as a physical progression of thoughts and conceptual diagrams.

Discussing the discourse of analogue_digital tools, on conversations and the associations controlling our thought-program. The anatomy of modern drawing. Relational mechanisms in speculative lines. Referencing Perry Kulper and Anthony Vidler.

On seeing architectural typologies as cultural memories and precedents of past works ability. A mechanism of retrieval.

Utilising views and intuition based on exactly the same concepts as memories and reflective comparisons of past experiences. Retrieval of atmospheric feelings and moods.

We account for less than we express, and the structures in which we live in, reflects what we account for, thus leaving us with the intention of associating the existing with the missing. Generating the impression of an aesthetic, acting as a foundation for the meeting with the physical. An exchange in expectations, enhancing our perception. Building a drawing of a building.

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The ability and strength of illustrating the aesthetic and atmospheric simultaneously. Lines can differentiate in meaning by changing their aesthetic accordingly, thus indicating a different aspect to the architecture it represents. The generative process of drawing without knowing the end result, can be, and is an immersive practice.

Representation is considered to be the exit of process, while the process of manifesting, said representation, is to be considered the mechanism of speculation.

The works of, in quotation, “architects” such as Perry Kulper, are not drawn to be constructed, rather they illustrate the diagrammatic coalitions of separate processes. Seeking an understanding of the development in the expressive tools available to the modern architect, this discussion will be directed in a personal manner, reflecting on specific works, carried out as so called “speculative drawings”.

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case studies paris 2017

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ABSTRACT ON LIGHT Rasmus Fjeldheim Dale and Folke Sverdrup Nygren

Asger Jorns’ commissioned mural for the Aarhus Statsgymnasium is 20 tons of clay installed on the vest-wall of the foyer.

Covering some 30 meters, the piece is split in three by two entrances to the main auditorium. It’s a work of abstraction that has been interpreted as both a portrayal of the artists own family, as well as depicting a plethora of animal life. Seahorses, Chameleons etc.

During the day the mural is lit through a row of windows at the end of a sloped roof.

The soft daylight accentuates the sculpture-like wall in all its depth and complexity of form. Some parts of the mural are untreated, resembling crackled dirt under an unrelenting sun. Most parts are liberally painted in playful color, and some are later given a coating of glaze, giving these parts of the mural prominence.

“Architecture is the play of forms under the light, the play of forms correct, wise and magnificent.”1

In this case, such is true for the Jorns’ artwork as well; in the way it engages the room through its volume, some places reaching as much as one meter into the room.

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One doesn’t engage the piece as a mere painting, but as a sculpture that reaches out into the room. This sculptural quality is accentuated by the ceilings spotlight, painting the crevices in darkness, and the surfaces in light.

“Architects, painters and sculptors must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building, both as an entity and in its separate parts. Only then will their work be imbued with the architectonic spirit which it has lost as ‘salon art.”2

The composite character of Jorns’ artwork, the space it inhabits and the light gives the space a unity of expression (gesamtkunstwerk) which occupies and define the space.

SEE IMAGE ON NEXT PAGE SEE IMAGE ON NEXT PAGE SEE IMAGE ON NEXT PAGE SEE IMAGE ON NEXT PAGE

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Philip Johnson quoting Le Corbusier, The Seven crutches of Modern Architecture, page 192 Walter Gropius, ‘Work Council for Art’: Under the wing of a great architecture, page 49

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THE DEVIL LIES IN THE DETAIL Prof. mso Ruth Baumeister, Ministry of History and Theory

Did you ever get the feeling that a task that appears to be compelling and simple on a conceptual stage becomes highly difficult and complex the more you proceed in the design process? What seemed to be obvious and easy at first sight all of a sudden reveals itself to be almost irresolvable when you get to the stage of realization, where all the different aspects which contribute to the creation of a bigger whole must be taken into account.

The proverb which warns us that the devil lies in the detail is certainly true for architecture, because when it comes to transforming visions and ideas into reality, it is very often in the detail you can see a master shine or fail.

In the process of building, the detail can be understood as an indicator of the architect´s intention, not only from a purely technical point of view, which informs us about the material aspects of the building and how it is put together, but also from an aesthetic aspect, which tells us something about its formal expression.

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Marko Pogacnik, associate professor in architecture history at IUAV Venice, who visited Aarhus School of Architecture to give a guest lecture on the German architect and painter Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Tirsdagsrækken, has a special interest in the history of construction.

At IUAV, Marko is leader of the research department ´Arte e Construire´ (Art and Constructing), which gave rise to various teaching activities, publications and a travelling exhibition focusing on detailing in the history of architecture as well as in contemporary practice. The exhibition ´Details.

Architecture Seen in Section´, collaboratively created as a research-based teaching project by Marko, his colleagues and a group of students, was first presented at the 2014 Venice Biennale ´Elements of Architecture´, curated by Rem Koolhaas, who is a self-acclaimed crusader in architect´s obsession with details.1

1 “My entire life I have dedicated to a war of architect´s feticism with details…”

(Koolhaas, Zürich, 25.04.2014)

The exhibition presents a series of case studies that investigate the notion of detail in order to unfold its double significance, which is both time constructive and expressive/formal. The cases that were investigated reach from historical examples by 20th century masters, e.g. Mies van der Rohe, Carlo Scarpa, Jørn Utzon, to selected examples of contemporary architecture, where offices such as Gigon-Guyer, Kengo Kuma, Wiel Arets, a.o. were asked to provide a specific detail of one of their buildings and comment on its significance.

A vivid conversation about this collaborative, research-based exhibition project over dinner and a common visit to Arne Jacobsen´s Aarhus city hall prompted me to do the following interview with Marko about the detail.

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RB:

Within contemporary architectural production, we witness a shift in emphasis from purely visual concerns towards an understanding of architecture which is justified by its performance. This manifests itself by theories of a New Materialism, coined by Manuel DeLanda a.o., claiming that what we see on the surface is the result of a deeper, much more complex underlying process. What relevance does the detail have in this respect and how do you see it in relation to the bigger whole of an increasingly complex building process?

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MP:

The New Materialism supported

by DeLanda can be a great contribution to the awareness that there is a reality beyond the screen of the computer and that this reality is stronger than every digital manipulation. Nevertheless, the digital computation is questioning today’s even more fundamental aspects of our discipline: authorship, form-finding processes, computer-controlled production. These questions force us to every day rethink and re-interpret the meaning of architecture and how architecture can reach the targets established by a globalised process of production.

How can we confront these challenges?

Our problems today are radically new, but nevertheless they require an historical understanding of the processes we are confronted with. This is the reason why Mario Carpo has for two decades worked on an “archaeology of the digital” and why Manuel DeLanda introduced the concept of “non-linear history”. It is an attempt to conceptualise today’s questions within a wide-spread historical frame.

Since the XIX century there have been no sciences that have been able to neglect the component of time and history as part of any analysed process. Every branch of science is becoming historical, and it is a fact that over the last years, history has infiltrated chemistry, biology and physics even more. I’m not a fetishist of detail. The object of my interest is why and how detailing is changing. From this point of view we can assert that modernity began when the antique ornament was transformed into the modern detail.

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We can start the beginning of modern history with the introduction of the expansion joint, when the massive wall exploded into a multiplicity of layers of different matter that have to be assembled together.

Tectonics is another concept introduced in the XIX century. It means “assembly”, in German “Zusammenfügung”.

The result of non-linear history is the co-existence of different levels that increased at every historical stage or bifurcation. The alternatives (feudalism-modernity, for example) didn’t disappear suddenly at their bifurcation, but they coexisted for a long time and that forces us to interpret history as the coexistence of different eras that are intertwined. The modern detail emerged, but the antique ornament didn’t disappear and both transformed each other, leading us to an ornamental detail or to an ornament as a surrogate of the detail.

The interest in the detail is for me an output of the interest in a longue durée history. The more our historical analysis becomes a large-scale view over centuries, the more every fact and document acquires a surprising energy.

Not detail as such, but the tension between different scales, the tension between detail and the whole is what I’m interested in.

RB:

Past decades of celebrating iconic architecture and star architects resulted in the fact that the representation of buildings and their creators in the media became more important than the actual work itself. At the same time, it fused the ever-growing need for authenticity. Can a renewed interest in the study of the detail, which requires a look from close distance, an investigation of a building in situ, rather than remotely on the screen, bring us back or at least get us closer to the authentic experience of our built environment? If so, how?

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MP:

The concept of authenticity accompanies modernity from the beginning. I remember Ruskin and the Stones of Venice. My concern, however, is not his pladoyer for authenticity to preserve the original materiality of San Marco’s church, but his battle against industrially produced products. In the XIX century an object that had been manufactured industrially appeared impoverished compared to the same object produced by handicraft. Ruskin complained that the edges of the industrially produced glass was sharply cut by machines and injured the lips, instead of those made by hand, whose edge was rounded and invited our lips to enjoy the drink (again a detail ...). Authenticity means that the material, its texture, its grain, its aura can enhance the enjoyment of the formal.

What’s happened during the socalled star system era is that our experience of what is an industrial product changed radically. Due to digitally controlled production, every part of the building can be customised to possess handicraft quality. The so-called star architects were the first to benefit from this novelty: thanks to the dimensions of their offices and globalised networking they have had the opportunity to grasp the possibilities offered by the new technologies first. The access today to technology and knowledge has increased enormously and every little office can be part of a wide-spread network.

But, as I said, history is not linear. Today a star architect can be a big office like SOM as well as an architect like Peter Zumthor, who designs every building as an individually tailored suit.

This is possible because, in our globalised

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world, constructive traditions, the social position of the architect and the buildings standards fixed by the law remain very different from one country to the other.

For our DETAILS project we prepared a panel about Sanaa, and the topic was the way the corniche was adapted to the context where the different buildings were built. The panel contains the facade sections of the Louvre in Lens, the Rolex in Lausanne, the Kanazawa Museum and the Novartis Building in Basel.

All the buildings illustrate the same design process, but with different results. The position of the bearing structure referred to the glass envelope, the dimensions of the roof ’s thermic insulation, the presence of the heating system, the position of curtains, all these elements influence the final product providing evidence that Sanaa was always interested in preserving the same architecture, even though in different climats and countries. They are not interested in taking the opportunity to develop new formal solutions that cannot be judged a priori to be good or bad.

We are only interested in visualising how an artistic will (Kunstwollen) takes shape, translating into a material configuration. In the end, a good architect has to master the matter to express his concepts.

What an architect has to express, is not what he writes or explains, but what he builds.

RB:

Parallel to the interest in the detail, the ornament – which has been exorcised by modern architects – has experienced a recent renaissance. Where do you see the border between detail and ornament?

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MP:

Modernity has a contradictory relationship to ornament. Every art knows the use of ornamentation or embellishment. This practice is codified in the music as well as the grammatical rules of the language. When Schönberg introduced the dodecaphonic music he didn’t reject the technique of ornamentation and the ornament was not a problem in painting either.

Only architecture experienced a dramatic discussion about the ornament, mixing ethic with aesthetic.

In modernity architecture became even more of a spatial art. What an architect has to master is space, as Richard Serra does. Space is an abstract notion. It is not concerned with material objects, but with abstract relationships. This is the reason why historians and critics like Anthony Vidler assert that modern architecture has to struggle between two poles: the tectonic interest in the plastic composition of the body and, on the other hand, the abstract configuration of space.

The more our interest in space increases, the more the prominence of the tectonic organisation of the architectural body decreases. The complex spatial experience in the work of Serra is obtained using steel plates that are completely smooth and without any moulding. The narrative of Vidler is very pregnant, but not completely convincing. The monolithic, architectural body doesn’t exist anymore.

When we section a modern wall, the interior is a sequence of void spaces, interstices, alveoli, a foam full of pores and ventricles intended to be filled with cables and pipes or to be used as a thermal barrier.

The interior of the wall is a landscape.

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Nevertheless, the ornament is part of the body, not an articulation of the space. The ornament derives from the antique columnatio, the classical system constituted by: base, column, entablature, intercolumnation, module and so on. Alberti proclaimed the column as the highest ornament of the wall.

At the end of the XVIII century, the old columnatio began to dissolve and a new order emerged. The detail is the ornament in the age of the primacy of space and technique. Surely, we see a lot of ornaments like the metallic textures of Dominique Perrault, the screen printing on glass of Herzog&De Meuron, the footprints on concrete of Valerio Olgiati. To the same group of ornaments belong the with grain and vein ornamented stone slabs or the wooden surfaces of Loos and Mies.

Otherwise, the detail has to do with the tectonic elements of the building: how the wall meets the ceiling, how the window pierces the wall, how a surface can be articulated.

This aspects of the architect’s work has to do with his metier, the practical profession (the corniche impedes the rain from washing the facade; the correctly built window is an appropriate barrier against water and wind; etc.). However, the same elements also have a visual dimension. The detail is a point that focuses our attention and the architect can orient and lead our eyes when exploring the building. The ornament/detail makes visible a formal hierarchy between different parts of the building and enhances the tension between the view from afar and the close-up view of the building.

The detail is an ornament whose essence is both technical and formal. Daniel Arasse, the art historian, developed this idea by writing about painting. I think we need to make the same attempt about architecture.

RB:

At Aarhus School of Architecture, it is our goal to build up a history in practice programme, in which we investigate how new formats of studying and researching architectural history and theory can inform contemporary practice. Do you see any potentials of “Details.

Architecture seen in section� in this respect?

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MP:

The project “Details. Architecture seen in section� was initiated as an educational programme. The purpose was to react to the fragmented learning method that is actually prevalent in most of the architecture schools of Italy, trying to promote a synthetic knowledge of the building. History, technology, structural engineering, philosophy, semiology - all these disciplines are necessary to interpret correctly a section of a building in 1:10.

The section is one of the most abstract representations of the building, but at the same time it makes visible the physiognomy of the building, its silhouette. The section illustrates how the building grounds on the soil, how the different floors are connected with the facade, the spatial sequence of the inner spaces, the profile of the crowning elements against the sky. The section has a technical dimension and presents how the different materials are connected together, but at the same time declares how a specific formal result is obtained. There are still today offices (like Livio Vacchini) that do not make public sections and details of buildings. The section reveals the secrets of the profession. In contrast with other artworks (a painting, a sculpture, or a stage design) in architecture the question of construction is much more urgent. Whether a steel frame or a prefabricated concrete system, whether sandstone or travertine, whether the surface is a cladded or a bearing wall, all these questions are relevant elements for decoding the programme conceived by the architect.

My teaching programme allows students to study a building, read historical and theoretical documents, visit it in situ, and re-draw it in an appro-

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priate scale. The students have to copy a section, reproducing them not mechanically, but interpreting them and enriching them with all the information collected.

The final drawing is a new document obtained as a musician interprets a staff.

Entering a music school and walking along its corridors, one is fascinated to hear the obsessive practice of young students required to rehearse a difficult score or the full range of musical scales.

When we asked our students to redraw construction details of significant contemporary buildings, we imagined them exercising like music students: performing scales and variations, obsessively repeating a passage until they found the right notes without looking at the instrument.

In the last three years the students operated as a community, producing many drawings spanning from the XIX to the XXI century.

Part of this material was placed online on our website and was also used to compose a large number of panels for our temporary exhibition that was already shown at many architecture schools in Milan, Paris, Luzern and other places. At any stage of the tour our archive also increases thanks to the contribution of the university partner.

Thanks to this experience the students learnt to be part of a community and to master questions of different scales - from the materially and technically oriented detail to abstracts concepts.

DU SKAL OVERLEVE Aske Jonatan Kreilgaard

Det er en sætning, et mantra og en udfordring der har skubbet menneskeheden til nye højder og nye lavpunkter i vores fælles historie. Det er en ting der er i os alle sammen, nogen vil endda mene det er en del af vores DNA.

Du kommer ikke til at gå igennem livet uden at skulle igennem svære perioder i livet, udfordringer hvor en del af dig selv, enten overlever eller ikke.

Jeg har selv haft store huller af lavpunkter i mit liv. Tidspunkter hvor alt var sort. Da jeg var teenager betød det at jeg var tæt på at slå mig selv ihjel. Der hjalp sætningen ”du” skal overleve ikke. For i mit hoved var jeg intet værd. Så min overlevelse var ligegyldig. Hvad der reddede mig var en ændring i den sætning. Den ændring kom igennem, en for mig, spirituel oplevelse.

Sætningen blev til Du skal overleve; fordi du har noget du skal gøre. Forstået på en anden måde så var min egen overlevelse sat op på noget der var større end mig selv.

Jeg har sidenhen set det mange forskellige steder i verden, men et sted oplevede jeg den mest rå overlevelse jeg nogensinde har set.

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Et sted hvor jeg virkelig opdagede de forskellige niveauer af hvordan vi mennesker bærer os af med at overleve.

Stedet var THE JUNGLE der var en af Europas største flygtningelejre placeret i det nordligste af Frankrig.

Jeg kom til dette sted i 2015. Det år havde jeg igen haft en nedtur og besluttet mig for at ændre mine fysiske omgivelser for at ændre mine psykiske. Bare tage ud i en verden af ubestemmelige oplevelser. Jeg besluttede mig for at droppe ud af min uddannelse, sige mine 2 jobs op, forlade den pige jeg datede, give alle mine materialistiske ting væk, pakkede en backpack og rejste ud i verdenen uden nogen byrder.

En rejse der forgik på tomlen og som tog mig igennem Europa og bragte mig helt ind til de personer og familier der lever her.

En af de familier var en fransk familie i nordmandiget som boede i den gamle industriby Calais.

En by der aldrig havde kommet sig over de store fabrikker var lukket og den fattigdom som fulgte derefter der gjorde den til en af Frankrigs fattigste byer… En håbløshed havde taget over, og folk havde ingen fremtidsudsigter. 6 kilometer uden for byen lå der ved siden af motorvejen en hede. En hede hvor der boede flere tusind mennesker i telte.

De havde ingen toiletter og ingen rindende vand. Ikke fordi der ikke var noget vand. Vand var der nok af for når det regnede dannede der sig små søer der oversvømmede de telte som folk sov i. Et sted hvor rotter mængede sig gladligt med mennesker og sygdommen trivedes. Men også et sted hvor håbet havde forplantet sig i ideen om en lys fremtid.

Om at kunne overleve og stadig være et menneske. Om en fremtid de endnu ikke kendte, men som de drømte om hver nat.

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Calais var dermed blevet et klart eksempel på Europas dybe kontrast og problemer i mødet mellem underklassen og dem uden nogen klasse. Mellem håbet og fortabelsen.

Jeg besluttede mig at blive i byen og flyttede til sidst ind i flygtningelejren. Hvad der skulle have været et ophold på 3 dage blev til et år.

Det år endte jeg med at bo sammen med flygtningene i lejren, byggede et kvindecenter og et ungdomscenter for drenge der udmundede sig organisationen Refugee Yóuth Service der til sidst havde med over tusinde uledsagede børn at gøre. De børn lærte mig alt om overlevelse. De lærte mig hvordan håb er helt nødvendig for at kunne overleve og hvordan når kaos og håbløshed besætter os at vi allerede er i gang med at dø.

Men også at livet føles stærkest på kanten.

De lærte mig hvordan det at have venner er livsnødvendigt, Alene er du i de andres hænder. De lærte mig hvordan man selv i de værste situationer som individ og samfund prøver at opretholde former for værdighed, menneskelighed og orden. Hvis vi kun overlever fysisk er vi så i live? En af de vigtigste ting jeg lærte var også hvordan vores miljø og omgivelser sætter rammerne for hvordan og hvorledes vi overlever og agerer. Hvordan vi kan skabe negative og positive rammer for det. Ekstreme situationer kræver ekstreme overlevelses-metoder.

I Calais havde man den overbevisning at byen ville få nyt liv og overleve når ødelæggelsen af flygtningelejren og fjernelsen af de mennesker der boede der blev en realitet. Man havde brugt millioner på at bygge hegn og mure og var blevet betalt fyrsteligt af England for et massivt politiopbud.

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Et politiopbud der sammen med frivillige og flygtninge betød at alle byens hoteller og restauranter var fyldte og de lokale byggemarkeder havde sat prisen op.

I slutningen af 2016 blev lejren endeligt ryddet og de personer der boede der blev forflyttet til andre steder i Frankrig. De der kom tilbage, kom tilbage til en ny virkelighed hvor bogmesteren forbød dem at sætte telte op og organisationer at give dem mad.

Calais var blevet tømt for flygtninge, frivillige og politi også hotellerne og restauranterne. Byens nye håb var at bygge en ny havn Så der kunne sejle endnu større både mellem Calais og Dover. I Dover byggede man ikke nogen ting større.

Da jeg kom hjem til Danmark var jeg en ændret person. Perspektiverne havde ændret sig. I superbrugsen brokkede folk sig over køen. I The Jungle havde folk smilet når de delte deres eneste måltid med dig. Jeg var gået fra ekstremer til gråtoner. Jeg blev senere spurgt i Go aften Danmark hvad jeg havde lært af mine oplevelser. Jeg svarede at det jeg havde lært var at jeg ikke blev nervøs når jeg skulle tale i live tv med hende, for det var i det store billede helt ligegyldigt.

NÅR MAN SKÆRER ALT FRA, ER DET KUN OVERLEVELSEN DER GÆLDER. DET ER I OS ALLE, NOGEN STEDER ER DER BARE LÆNGERE IND TIL BENET. SPØRGSMÅLET ER HVORDAN VI GØR DET OG HVILKEN INDFLYDELSE VORES OVERLEVELSE HAR PÅ ANDRE.

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