Yes, the people who own and live in this Barcelona property are stinking rich. Yes, the music for the video is horrible. But if you put those two things aside, you are left with something amazing: the renovation of the ruins of a cement factory.
The greatness of this project is that the decay of the factory (the way it deteriorated, the way nature adopted it) has been preserved. The best part of the project are were we see the unity of the old structure, nature’s intrusion, and human reoccupation.
It’s also meaningful that the old cement factory looks a lot like an old cathedral. Cement is the god/substance of the city. The city is all human. And a human is a god to a human (Spinoza put this way: Man is a god to man).
You should read Stewart Brand’s “How Buildings Learn”.
@1, have you seen that he posted up the six-part, three-hour video of the 1997 BBC documentary he did on it? With music by Brian Eno?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=…
@2, ack, I didn’t even know there WAS a series. Speaking of not being alert. Thenk yew, Gus!
In the early 1990s Thomas Sieverts oversaw the recovery of disused industrial landscapes in the Ruhr region of Germany, especially in Dortmund, Frankfurt, Bochum, and Essen. At a number of old steel factories he preserved the ruins while interlacing both new construction and natural overgrowth, so that plants and trees overtook the structures in rough equilibrium with the imposed “new” architecture and uses that also refigured the ruins. You probably remember Tom from your conversations with him in 2009, at NW Film Forum, or his work in Portland, Beaverton, Seattle, and Burien, in 2008 and 2009.
Very, very cool.
Charles, you need to know about the plan for an abandoned cement factory in St. Louis: blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2011/…; . Visionary, character, mysterious death – this story will intrigue you.
Maybe the link will be live now? blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2011/…