The Echopera Halle by rjarchitecture

“If God permits poets and singers, he has also given us the warriors, and the master builders, who will ensure that the success of this battle will find a lasting form in great art. That’s why these edifices aren’t intended for the year 1940 or 2000. Like the buildings of the past, they are to last thousands of years.”

U NB U ILT B E RLIN : THE ECHOPERA HALLE The briefs will ask to engage with a ‘ghost’ of a structure embedded in the site’s history and imagination. The intent of this project is to pick apart and re-imagine an unbuilt Berlin precedent. The re-constituted building should extract the ultimate ‘essence’ of the unbuilt precedent, then heighten, exaggerate and reshape it. Careful attention should be paid to the medium chosen to represent the reconstituted project; drawing style, models and photographs should reflect the architect and their wider work. The thesis takes on whether we can reinterpret Albert Speer’s architecture by extracting only the monumentality, simple geometry and classical proportions. Could classical Nazi architecture, if the client and its function were to change and its fundamental duty as items of propaganda eradicated, inspire a 21st century project that only scratched the surface of its former principles?

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“As I once stated in 1936, my buildings were not solely intended to express the essence of the Nationalist-Socialist movement. They were an integral part of that very movement. The popes of the Renaissance and the rulers of the Baroque era considered buildings as a pastime. For Hitler, it was part of the political will of the Nationalist Socialist movement. Even while he was drawings his first sketches in the Twenties, he believed in his future triumph... Pericles, too, built the Parthenon to boost the self-confidence of the Greeks when they vanquished the Persians... a fascination for hugeness is expressed in the Tower or Babel, the Egyptian pyramids, the buildings of Olympia, the temples of Selinunt, the Colosseum in Rome...The Seven Wonders of the World were selected more for their size than for their aesthetic merit. That a monument’s value resides in its size is a belief basic to mankind...All my plans seem conventional when compared with those of the French revolutionary architects. The early endeavours of Soviet architects were similarly powerful, and Bruno Taut’s ‘City Crowns’ attempted to unify geometry and chaos within oversized dimensions. I am not sure that I agree with those critics who assign an ideological content to my architecture... they were inspired by the experience of the political struggle for power. When Hitler spoke of the effect of a building he had planned, he always referred to its power of suggestion. He would talk enthusiastically about the farmer who would travel all the way from the provinces to Berlin, enter the Great Hall, that gigantic area of 220 metres high and 250 metres diameter, and felt literally crushed by what he saw. Hitler believed the Cathedral of Light in Nuremberg had reached an apex in the art of influencing people. Goethe had already recognised this effect 200 years before. He said the mass of people inside a Roman amphitheatre, as they swayed backwards and forwards, would feel themselves to be a single unity with one spirit. The building was intended to impress people with their own power”. - Albert Speer, 9th May 1978

THE ARCHITECT The architect in question is Albert Speer: efficient, eager to please, and a war criminal. Through research on Speer’s profile and his wider work, the project asks to reinterpret his drawing styles, and methods of representation. Albert Speer studied architecture at the Technical University in Berlin at the insistence of his father, as Speer initially wanted to be a mathematician. After his graduation, he took a role at the university as a tutor as the German depression resulted in a lack of jobs. Speer was exposed to political rallies on an almost daily basis as two-thirds of the students were supporters of the German National Socialist party, or otherwise known as the Nazis. Upon listening to a speech at the university by none other than Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi party, Speer was instantly captivated by his strong voice, and understood his frustration at being a failed architect himself. Speer quit his role as a tutor and joined the Nazi party as an architect. Apart from minor works such as the interior of the Gauhaus on Voßstraße, Speer came into prominence and in Hitler’s eye after designing the parade ground at the Tempelhof rallies on 1st May 1933. Speer’s priority was to make the führer look impressive. Joseph Goebbels appoints Speer as ‘official director of artistic organisation for mass rallies’, but it was only until the death of Hitler’s chief architect Paul Ludwig Troost, that Speer completed his “phenomenal rise to power” becoming the Nazi’s main architect.

Speer would continue to help Hitler realise his dreams of his future reich, or his ‘castles in the air’. Speer’s first, and considered his only, major success was what is to be known as the Cathedral of Light; a visual illusion where hundreds of anti-aircraft search lights over the 1937 Nazi rallies would illuminate the sky; he was the showman to Hitler’s speeches. Numerous gargantuan designs such as the Nuremburg national stadium where Speer utilised a special construction process known as the ‘law of ruins’ - designed to look grand even in a state of decay, like a temple of antiquity. Buildings to last Hitler’s 1000 Year Reich. Albert Speer was in Hitler’s private circle by the time he was introduced to the “greatest commission of all time” where Berlin was to be the new capital of Europe: Germania. Next to the Brandenburg Gate was to be the new centre of the Reich: a great square in front of a great domed hall where 180,000 people could meet. Speer was described as a “great organiser” especially with time efficiency. He was eager to please Hitler at all costs searching only for appreciation perhaps missing from his father. He was later heard saying “if Hitler ever had a friend, it would have been me”. He also had a burgeoning interest in tanks and weapons, as he later demonstrated at the outbreak of the war by being appointed Minister of Armaments and War Production. Although he spent only 20 years in prison, and claimed ignorance, Speer is widely considered to have been responsible for many deaths.

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“He wanted to erect buildings more splendid, more larger than any that had been built before, but he hadn’t seen, as he later said, the blood on the hands of his Führer. He wanted to produce weapons more powerful, more deadly, more numerous than in any other war before, but he hadn’t seen, as he later said, the catastrophe his commander brought upon Germany and the whole world. He did it all for Adolf Hitler, who, so he later said, had but one friend, Albert Speer”

Section

Plan

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THE GHOS T The unbuilt ‘ghost’ is the Volkshalle designed by Speer. Envisoned by Adolf Hitler as the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’, the Volkshalle was to be a gigantic domed hall and function as the geographical and ideological centre of the Third Reich in Germania, the new Capital of Europe. The Volkshalle, echoing the Roman Pantheon but in far greater scale, would contain 180,000 spectators. It was here where the führer would stand to address the nation in a gigantic cave of echoes and reverberation.

CA N A WA R C RIMINAL BE A GREAT ARTIS T? The architectural theorist Léon Krier controversially questioned in 1985 why Albert Speer’s classical super-scaled monuments of propaganda is auto-condemned without rational criticism whilst other works of a different political agenda, and past regimes, were left freely without hindrance. Can a sword, that has killed unjustly, be called beautiful? Can a building, designed for a condemnable use, be good architecture? Could classical Nazi architecture, if the client and its function were to change and its fundamental duty as items of propaganda eradicated, inspire a 21st century project that only scratched the surface of its former principles? It so follows to this day that many people are more disturbed by the grandeur of Speer’s designs than by images of Auschwitz. There is a common belief that Nazism is a contagious disease and the slightest admiration would be sufficient proof of a critical infection. How dare we enjoy the powerful images of Speer?! As Hans Hollein said in 1978, “we are lucky that Adolf was not too fond of Wiener Schnitzel, otherwise they would also have been banished, along with classical architecture, from the German land.” Speer even later remarked that classical architecture would be doing very well had Hitler been a fanatic for modernist art. It is a legitimate question to ask why the industrial products and technology of the Third Reich, such as Hugo Boss and Volkswagen, can be applauded after 1945, when its cultural productions were universally condemned on moral grounds. Nazi architecture was never intelligently criticised or even looked at by the

theorists of modernist movements and judged guilty without extenuating circumstances and, alongside, the whole classical heritage was condemned. Le Corbusier’s proposed Plan Voisin suggested flattening large amounts of central Paris and Oscar Niemeyer was prepared to work for dictators yet their reputations remain untarnished. Krier argued that classical architecture cannot be used as a means to exert totalitarian terror; the more recent dictatorships have succeeded without it. Classical architecture, on the contrary, was the civilised and well mannered face of an empire of lies; an aesthetic and ethical façade. The grandeur, elegance and solidity by these monuments were not designed to frighten. Classical architecture was one of the most successful means of Nazi propaganda and defamatory criticism took little account of their profound effect on individuals and masses. Their purpose, on the contrary, was to raise enthusiasm and seduce, to impress and overwhelm the masses, to offer protection and ultimately to deceive the captivated souls as to the final intentions of the industrial-military system. They did not just win the hearts of the Germans; they were also commanding respect and jealous admiration of foreign nations. Speer’s strangely new and familiar works were to convince even the most incredulous and sceptical observers of the civilising intentions of the Nazi regime. Nazi propaganda was so successful that our understanding of this period is coloured by its images and slogans to this day, whether positively or negatively, and whether we like it or not.

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Plan Voisin

Volkswagen

0.618Φ

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T HE DE S IGN OF ALBERT SPEER Speer worked on an uncompleted university doctorate that windows and doors could be highly sophisticated on an artistic/technical level. They followed simple square proportions (such as 1:1, 1:2, 2:3, 2:5) and employ the use of the golden section; a feature in classical architecture. Speer was heavily influenced by his mentor Heinrich Tessenow, with his credo that “simple is not always the best, but the best is always simple”. Speer’s emphasis on classical proportions were applied to his later projects such as Hitler’s former chancellery where its architectural ornamentation, whole rooms, and even furniture designs would be proportioned with an emphasis on bulk and solidity.

a + b

a c + c d d

b a : b = b : a +b

c : d = d : c +d

Speerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s use of simple and golden proportions are clearly expressed when analysing the Volkshalle drawings.

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8a 1:3 2a

Radius = a

10a b

3a 2a

½a

These rules follow at both the large and the small scale; one of the few surviving relics of Speer’s designs are Berlin’s pedestalled cast-iron street lamps that can be seen today on the East-West axis through the Tiergarten from the Brandenburg gate.

T HE C ATHEDRAL OF LIGHT On the 11th September 1937 at the Nazi rally parade at Nuremberg, gigantic beams of light from 130 anti-aircraft flak searchlights separated at 12 metre intervals were fired 7.6km into the night-sky like meteors. High up on the cloud cover, the light pillars unite into a glowing square. In the background Speer, the master of ceremonies, would play Richard Wagner’s overture to Rienzi; Hitler’s favourite opera and composer. It was the largest single shape ever created from electrical light; an item of surrealistic unreality. It was widely considered a summit of art to manipulate people ‘enmasse’. Transcending the limits of mass propaganda, Speer had created an authentic spatial masterpiece. He would later say, upon reminiscing on his masterpiece that could possibly make Speer one of the most important light architects of the 20th century, that “this theatre will one day be the only design I’ll be remembered for”.

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The British ambassador, clearly over-powered by emotion at this sight, wrote â&#x20AC;&#x153;the effect was both solemn and beautiful, it was like being in a cathedral of iceâ&#x20AC;?.

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Since the First World War, flak searchlights were common instruments of anti-aircraft defence, and contributed to a recognisable wartime aesthetic. To be used for dramatic effect as the powerful light beams scanned the sky generated an atmosphere of the sublime. The function of the light cathedral as Nazi propaganda upon the masses have received much attention. However, its iconography has been relatively unexplored as a paradigm of light artwork. As arguably Speerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest work, an interpretation of the Cathedral of Light as an influence on the Volkshalle could perhaps be explored.

Layered

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The Cathedral of Light utilised light beams pointing vertically upon a square perimeter of 12 metre separations and generated a volumetric form as a light cube. The verticality of the light beams at the Nazi rally symbolised power and hierarchy. As an exploration by using the same separations but with the light beams pointing horizontally, symbolising equality and neutrality as a contrast, there is a potential to materialise light not as a linear volume, but as a curved volume through layering. A hemisphere to echo the Volkshalle dome yet juxtaposing the solid quality of granite with a weightless, ephemeral skin of light that could be switched on or off.

L IGHT EX PERIMENTATION To experiment how volumetric light forms can work, adjustable spotlights with cones to focus the light are spaced equally around a frame. This is placed in a closed unlit room and is filled with smoke. The light reflects on the smoke particles and a visible light beam is materialised.

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Room Plan

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R ICHA R D WAGNER ( 1813-1883) Richard Wagner was Hitler’s favourite opera composer who saw his work compliment the principles of the Nazi regime; it was Wagner’s work that was played at the Cathedral of Light. Continuing with the theme of drama, the epic operas of Wagner naturally possesses a strong connection. A noted anti-semitic, Wagner is still considered one of the most significant figures in the world of opera. Wagner is seen as the first ‘Regisseur’ or director, as German operatic performances in the 19th century often lacked direction and central creativity with disorganised and unrehearsed productions. He revolutionised opera performances where his works were “deeds of music made visible” and was a master at getting the most from his singers and musicians. Wagner’s most notable work is the four opera epic ‘Ring of the Nibelung’ where the Festspielhaus theatre was specially constructed to perform this cycle over four nights at the Bayreuth Festival in 1876. As an innovator, Wagner devised custom instruments such as the Wagner tuba and also the concept of the sunken ‘invisible’ orchestra - to remove the barrier between the audience and the performers.

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Flight of the Valkyries

Modern adaptations of ‘the Ring of the Nibelung’

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T HE RING OF THE NIBELUNG The Ring of the Nibelung is a work of extraordinary scale: a full performance of the four opera cycle takes place over four nights, with a total playing time of about 15 hours. The cycle is modelled after ancient Greek dramas. The scale and scope of the story is epic and the music of the cycle is thick and richly textured, and grows in complexity as the cycle proceeds. Wagner wrote for an orchestra of gargantuan proportions. The four operas of the Ring of the Nibelung are: Prequel: The Rhinegold Opera One : The Valkyries Opera Two : Siegfried Opera Three : Twilight of the Gods The use of light would suggest fire, clouds and water. A central lit space in a dark environment would form the stage where joining actors would step in from the dark. The plot revolves around a magic ring that grants the power to rule the world. Forged by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich from gold he stole from the Rhinemaidens in the river Rhine. With the assistance of the god Loge, Wotan - the Chief of the Gods - steals the ring from Alberich, but is forced to hand it over to the giants Fafner and Fasolt in payment for building the home of the Gods, Valhalla, or they will take Freia, who provides the Gods with the golden apples that keep them young. Wotan’s schemes to regain the ring, spanning generations, drive much of the action in the story. His grandson, the mortal Siegfried, wins the ring by slaying Fafner (who slew Fasolt for the ring) - as Wotan intended - but is eventually betrayed and slain as a result of the intrigues of Alberich’s son Hagen, who wants the ring. Finally, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde - Siegfried’s lover and Wotan’s daughter who lost her immortality for defying her father in an attempt to save Siegfried’s father Sigmund - returns the ring to the Rhinemaidens as she commits suicide on Siegfried’s funeral pyre. Hagen is drowned as he attempts to recover the ring. In the process, the Gods and Valhalla are destroyed. It is interesting to note that despite Wagner being an advocate of the stage representing epic realism and romantic naturalism, his work’s later interpretations in modern theatre become vaguely suggestive and abstract which would change with the music.

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OP ERA OF LIGHT The use of colour as a means of expression is seen in abstract modern adaptations of the opera. Various settings and emotions as a stage setting are symbolised with light experimentation for the 14 different scenes throughout the entire opera. Coloured filters over the lamp express the light beams in different ways. They can be merged or reinforced in specific layouts.

Using ‘Garageband™’ software, musical excerpts of ‘the Ring of the Nibelung’ are digitally enhanced.

E xperiencing THE ECHOPERA The project is a paradigm of atmospheric architecture that must be experienced to be understood. An observer can sit inside a 1:1 rig with the light forms above. The room is filled with smoke to materialise the beams. Four short musical extracts of the scenes of ‘the Ring of the Nibelung’ are digitally enhanced with increased reverberation as if the opera is being played in a super-scale opera hall.

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T HE ECHOP ERA HALLE The thesis takes on whether we can reinterpret Albert Speer’s architecture by extracting only the monumentality, simple geometry and classical proportions of the Volkshalle. The Cathedral of Light, considered Speer’s most successful work and a significant paradigm of light architecture, is a major influence on the project. The main program is an ephemeral open-air opera hall located in Berlin’s city centre. As a musical accompaniment to the Cathedral of Light, Richard Wagner’s colossal epic operas, in particular ‘The Ring of the Nibelung’, have inspired the lighting and orchestral design. Light exists as an unrealised weightless skin yet retains architectural form as a horizontally layered light dome to contain the opera, whilst establishing the ethereal atmosphere of the sublime that Wagner’s operas suggest. The river Spree spreads beyond its peripheries around the site as a reflective base for this open-air bowl to ‘float’ upon. The river water is sourced and treated in the internal lake to pervade the hall in an eerie mist combining with Berlin’s drizzly climate. Four seating tiers revolve slowly around the central stage where one cycle is the length of one of the ‘Rings’ four operas; one ascending tier for each opera that perpetually repeats the full fifteen hour opera cycle. Reflective acoustic surfaces of cast glass and steel construction is a deliberate opposition to Speer’s use of granite. The high reverberation time permits the observer to experience an experimental visual and sonic atmosphere that no other opera hall matches.

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Central Berlin

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Axonometric

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Balcony

2:3

Quadratic Residue Reflector enables uniform scattering from incidental sound waves Profile

Seating Tier Construction Detail

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Seating Tiers

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Gallery

1:1 A 20X

A : B = B: A +B

1:2 X

1:1

2X 1:4 4X

Cast Borosilicate Glass Wall Construction Detail

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8mm dia. stainless steel threaded rod 70/65/275mm cast borosilicate glass block with depressions for metal Operatic ornamental motifs cast into glass blocks Primary structural framework cladded with glazed backlit panels Glass-block Wall Axonometric

Staggered blocks echo Speer’s ‘cut and paste’ technique on his drawings

Interior

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Section

Prequel : The Rhinegold

Opera One : The Valkyries

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Opera Two : Siegfried

Opera Three : Twilight of the Gods

Acoustic and Sight Lines

Balcony Undulations

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Rotating seating tiers

Original Volkshalle proportions

Ecotect Analysis™ software illustrates the acoustic performance of Wagner’s original Festspielhaus orchestra pit profile

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Geometric acoustic rays as a dot animation or line diagram to determine areas of high reverberation and amplitude gain

Orchestra Pit (modelled on Wagner’s Festspielhaus)

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Acoustic Diagram

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