Artissima: Architecture, photo, decay

http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2011/01/architecture-photography.php

Tobias Zielony, Stairs, 2009-2010 If you've seen the movie Gomorrah, you won't have any difficulty recognizing the location of Tobias Zielony's photos: Le Vele (The Sails) in Naples. Denatured by modifications to the original plans, obstructed by management failures, excessive housing density and insufficient services facilities, the monumental buildings are to be demolished. Three of them have already been razed to the ground. The remaining four "sails" are in an advanced state of degradation. Only about a hundred families still live in buildings which have now been reduced to ghostlike ruins (via.) Zielony, whose images i discovered at the Artissima art fair 2 months ago, spent several weeks studying and documenting how adolescents "kill time" in Naples suburbia. Tobias Zielony, Vela azzurra, 2009-2010. Galeria Lia Rumma, Napoli Trailer of Gomorrah. Le Vele start appearing at 0:34. Btw, did the voice over need to be so tragico-ridiculous? Tobias Zielony, Mini-Bike, 2010 Tobias Zielony, Structure, 2010 Tobias Zielony, The group, 2010 Tobias Zielony, Vela Rossa, 2010 Tobias Zielony, Le vele di Scampia, 2009 Let's not move away from the 'deteriorating architectural heritage' chapter immediately, shall we? This morning i read in The Guardian that UK's largest surviving estate of postwar prefab houses is set to be bulldozed. Only six of the 187 bungalows, erected from factory-built panels by German and Italian prisoners of war in 1945 and 1946, will be saved. The remainder of the Excalibur estate in Catford, south-east London, will be demolished, along with its tin-roofed prefab church, St Mark's.* Lara Almarcegui, Relocated Houses, Brittons Yard, 2009. Courtesy Ellen de Bruijne Projects The story brought back to my mind another project i noticed at the Artissima art fair in November. Over a year ago, artists Lara Almarcegui came across a patchy assortment of cottages, classrooms and villas on the outskirts of Wellington, New Zealand. The houses are moved there from different places and remain on display until they are sold. The result is a ghost-town like street with empty buildings, some in state of disrepair, others in almost pristine condition. For the One Day Sculpture project, Almarcegui traced the roots and individual stories of each building and communicated it through a tour and a catalogue which was published as an insert in Wellington's daily newspaper, the Dominion Post. Caught between a distant history shared with an almost forgotten owner and their future reinstatement to another site, each house seems to be out of context. Lara Almarcegui, Relocated Houses, Brittons Yard, 2009. Courtesy Ellen de Bruijne Projects Lara Almarcegui, Relocated Houses, Brittons Yard, 2009. Courtesy Ellen de Bruijne Projects Lara Almarcegui, Relocated Houses, Brittons Yard, 2009 There might not have been as many photographic works as in the previous editions of Artissima, but the ones i saw certainly made it worth the trip. Hitoshi Nomura, Tardiology, 1968-1969 Thank you McCaffrey Fine Art for bringing Hitoshi Nomura to the art fair. Nomura gained fame in the late sixties with huge works created out of cardboard or dry ice, that he photographed to record their change in shape and aspect over time, thereby manifesting invisible concepts, such as 'gravity' or 'time'. For hisTardiology series (1969/2009), the artist constructed high cardboard towers that he then left to the mercy of gravity, time and weather. He photographed them as they started to sag, bend, and finally toppled. Simple and effective demonstration of the power of gravity over time. Hitoshi Nomura, Tardiology, 1968-1969 * Nothing to see here points to a lovely PDF about post-war prefabs in the UK.

Framing city through decay

Re-define

Ruin: Frames

The definition of decay is what happens to a building once standard maintenance stops taking place, or in other words once a building is abandoned. By development of technology and changes in lifestyle, social structure and industry, it is inevitable to change city due to the increasing demands for new infra structures and new systems. Due to the lack of maintenance and a cessation of day to day use, decay is perpetuates and in consequence the architectural ruin is born.It sounds negative but it would be concerned as a potential for the city in order to arouse ordinary surroundings. Though the framed structures of decayed building, we can put meanings to common city scape and we can peep inside of building through the gap of ruined walls, which is a different view that normally cannot be seen. Moreover, abandoned space itself would be transformed as a garden or communal space by community people. Thus, It plays as a filter to re-define urban area.

Essay_Meatpacking District

The Ancoats Peeps

http://ragpickinghistory.co.uk/category/ruins/

THE ANCOATS PEEPS

3102011

1. Peep 9, 'Clocking Off'

In 2002, the artist Dan Dubowitz was commissioned to contribute to the regeneration of Ancoats – an old and dilapidated industrial quarter of inner-city Manchester. Over the next eight years, he made a series of ‘Peeps’ – twelve brass peepholes in the walls of buildings viewed from the streets which revealed installations constructed in steel boxes embedded in the cavities behind. In addition, Dubowitz also helped create the area’s first public square – the Cutting Room – opened in 2010.

2. Peep 3, 'Mary's Room'

As documented in the 2011 book The Presence of Absence, the Ancoats Peeps offer ‘a fleeting glimpse of a walled-in space; a tunnel, a disused toilet, a spinning governor, a bell tower, a gauge.’ The worlds seen through the Peeps are intimately connected with Ancoats’ industrial past. It was once the first industrial suburb of the centre of the world’s cotton industry – that is, early Victorian Manchester – and the Peeps are saturated with nostalgic images of heavy industry: strange machines (2), dials, dirt and the toil of incessant work governed by the clock (1). Yet, despite being grounded in the history of the area, they are enigmatic images, strongly suggestive of former lives but ultimately mysterious in their meanings.

3. The Beach Club in Ancoats

4. The patina of decay on a wall in Ancoats

As an integral part in the planned regeneration of Ancoats, the Peeps are also much more than isolated visual reminders of the area’s industrial past; rather, they’re very much part of a projected image of a future for this now run-down and virtually silent part of the city. Walking around Ancoats on a grey Sunday afternoon with my wife and daughter, searching for the Peeps was bound up with experiencing the city in a new way. Ancoats is not an area of Manchester one would visit for any reason: it’s a forbidding place, almost devoid of people, its buildings seemingly in an interminable state of decay apart from a few pockets of gentrification. In the courtyard of one former warehouse, now converted into apartments, a makeshift nightclub is walled-in by images of the sea, its floor covered in sand (3); the wholesale decay of other buildings offering strange patterns that are sometimes mirrored in the forms of the peeps themselves (4); while a single tile on a wall is stencilled with the word ‘DEFECT’ (5). Are these also artists’ interventions, bits of history, or simply the result of natural processes of decay?

5. Defective tile or artist's intervention?

In one sense, the creation of the Peeps and the activity of looking for them makes you see urban space in a different way, one that makes everyday things suddenly seem like art (and vice versa). This re-enchantment of urban space has a long history, often bound up with densely theoretical texts and practices, but the way it happens here is disarmingly simple and bound up with an experience that is open to all (6).

6. Peeping in Ancoats

http://www.hkstories.net/fall2011backup/2011/12/01/the-last-ones-standing-walled-villages-in-hong-kong/

The Last Ones Standing-Walled Villages in Hong Kong

Kat Hing Wai Hong Kong’s Traditional Walled Village Washed Away in Time
Kat Hing Wai – Traditions Lost in History
Featured in Lonely Planet as the city’s most visited of the remaining traditional sites, Kat Hing Wai used to be foreign tourists’ favorite historic spots to visit. Once exclusive to the Tang clan,the village has changed its facade immensely over the years, and it now welcomes outsiders from other parts of town, or even expatriates. Some of the heritages that the village once boasted of have faded away in time, and many tourists no longer find themselves in too much excitement for its remaining traditions. As a family property, Kat Hing Wai has protected the Tangs against bandits, pirates and wild animals through the centuries. In its early planning, Kat Hing Wai’s walls were surrounded by a moat, but as families expand, the village rebuilt most houses and converted the moat to a sports filed and a parking lot.	Early Planning of Kat Hing Wai by SamWingKit for Wikipedia	Kat Hing Wai in the 1920s (Public File)
Kat Hing Wai’s Past and Present
		“It’s my first stop in Hong Kong…but it was not quite as I expected.” Albert, a Taiwanese American who lives in Shanghai, found Hat King Wai to be different from what he had expected. Albert talking about his impression of Kat Hing Wai / Interview by Xinyan Yu
		“There are very few (tourists) nowadays..There is nothing for people to see. People go back to the mainland.” Madam Lo, a senior resident of Hat King Wai,wife to one of the descendants of Tang family, said that a lot had changed at in her village. Madam Lo talking about her village
History	A Glimpse into Kat Hing Wai’s Remaining Heritage	People and Culture
Walled villages, or wais, are one of the oldest heritages in Hong Kong.Once common in southern China, walled villages were created by early immigrants to Hong Kong, the Punti and Hakka people, to fight againts pirates duringMing and Qing dynasties(approximately from the 13th to the 20th century). Kat Hing Wai is one of the most famous walled villages in Hong Kong with cultural heritages protected by law. According to government files, Kat Hing Wai was established by Tang Chue-yin and Tang Chik-kin in the early years of theKangxi reign(1661–1722) of the Qing Dynasty. Its original residents, the Tang Clan, are one of the “Five Great Clans” in the territory. The village is surrounded by other three, Wing Lung Wai, Tai Hong Wai, and Kam Hing Wai, which were built around the same time.		People who have lived in Kat Hing Wai through centuries call themselves “Punti” who come from the Guangdong province in southern China. Punti people used to be one of the two largestHan Chinese along with the Hakka.Located far away along coasts and on mountains, walled villages were once secluded and guarded with big dogs. In fact, they are usually thought of as hostile to outsiders. For example, although Kat Hing Wai was successfully developed into a heritage tourist spot protected by law, official documents show that the government’s proposal to do so was initially met with great resistance.
Location	Map
Walled villages in Hong Kong are mostly located in Yuen Long, Sha Tin,Tai Po, Tuen Mun, and North districts. The most famous ones include Kat Hing Wai, Tsang Tai Uk, Sheung Shui Wai, Fan Ling Wai, and Nga Tsin Wai Tsuen spreading across remote places in New Territories. These locations are mostly winding shores, hilly lands and islands that are particularly vulnerable to pirates’ attacks, so local residents build walls to protect themselves. Some villages are even equipped with cannons.	View The Walled Villages in Hong Kong in a larger map.
Kat Hing Wai Street Sign by Xinyan Yu