On Wednesday, the Museum of Architecture hosted the presentation of the second issue of the architectural magazine SPEECH: Second Life, dedicated to the problems of reconstruction of old industrial buildings. The main event of the event was a lecture by a foreign guest and one of the heroes of the issue - Petra Kalfeldt, who, using the example of the work of her bureau Kahlfeldt Architekten, proposed an option of “invisible” reconstruction as the most organic in relation to the building being reconstructed.
SPEECH Magazine is a newcomer among periodicals about architecture, but despite this it has rightfully been highly appreciated both in Russian and foreign architectural circles. Each issue of the journal is a case study on a specific topic with illustrations from the history of architecture over the past 30 years. SPEECH is made in the form of a dialogue between different architectural cultures - European, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, in the context of which one big problem is considered, which becomes the main topic of the issue. In the first issue, which was published in the summer of 2008, the theme was “ornament”. In contrast, the problem of the second issue is not so unambiguous, it has many names and components, which ultimately boil down to the general result - the "second life" of old (and not so) buildings.
The work of the Berlin bureau "Kahlfeldt Architekten", headed by Paul and Petra Kalfeldt, fits very well into the theme of "second life", because the lion's share of their projects are renovations. The Kalfeldts shared their experience of “reanimating” architecture in an interview in the second issue of SPEECH, and were invited to Moscow for the presentation of the magazine to give a lecture on their vision of architecture and methods of “reanimating” existing buildings.
Petra Kalfeldt spoke on behalf of the bureau, her story was logical and short in German. Before talking about the work of the workshop, she raised the most important questions of the profession: - who is an architect? - what does a building mean for an architect? The answers to these questions are at the core of understanding the creativity of any architect or architectural bureau. Kahlfeldt Architekten is no exception. According to Petra, “an architect is not the one who builds, but the one who thinks,” and he thinks not only about architecture, but also about things associated with it: about the past, history, society, emotions, functions and, in the end ends, shell. Understanding of all these factors together leads to a holistic understanding of the architectural object. To make a reconstruction, to continue the history of a building, you need to know what happened to this building before, because changing its meaning is a big responsibility that falls on the shoulders of the architect. Knowledge of history and its preservation in the old building must always be in balance with the elements of new construction, which, in general, is not an easy task, and it is banal to approach it. “Renovation of existing buildings is a compositional action, akin to the work of a composer,” Petra Kalfeldt is quoted as saying by an architect rebuilding buildings in Italy. In her opinion, composition here means work with the inner life of form, which is subtly interpreted within the framework of a given building.
In addition to the building itself, Petra Kalfeldt considers the texture of the city to be another important factor in the reconstruction. understanding of the construction site on a city scale. Changing one building changes the texture, so you need to try to adapt projects to it. Of course, the changes still appear, but they are rather positive, like the correction of spelling errors in the dictation, but at the same time the main thing should always be in front of the architect's eyes, which cannot be corrected or removed.
Taking into account all the premises of the building, its history, its place in the city, reconstruction projects by the Kahlfeldt Architekten bureau were based, two of which were told by Petra Kalfeldt.
The first was the Meta-House project - the restructuring of the 1928 power plant building in West Berlin, which has been empty since 1980. At the first glance at this building, the discrepancy between its shell and function is striking: a power plant in the form of an Italian palazzo. In the surrounding residential buildings, it also looks strange, not quite matching it. By its construction, the building consisted of a frame, lined with brick on top, and was erected in just 4 months. The interiors had 16 different heights, differing in layout, which played into the hands of the architects - it is always easier to rebuild an industrial building with a floor division than without it. According to Petra Kalfeldt, it was important here to look beyond the lost function of the building and see exactly the architecture. As a result of this peering, an interesting external solution with a complex internal space was obtained. In the structure of the building, almost nothing has changed, the basis has remained the same, the contrast between the old and the new never appears in the interiors, this is not in the spirit of Kalfeldt's works. For them, the new always flows from the old, they work with the materials that were already in the building, play with them for a new function. The biggest changes were related to the installation of a heating system, which was not originally there, but, in any case, these changes do not disturb the general appearance of the former power plant building.
The story of the second work of Peter Kalfeldt's bureau also began with the long history of the building in the area of the railway station Botanical Garden, also in West Berlin, which in 2003, under their leadership, became the Helmut Newton Foundation. It was built in 1909 as the Prussian Army Officers' Club, then a theater was located there, after the Second World War - a warehouse. A heartbreaking story tells how Helmut Newton, leaving Nazi Germany, remembered this building, since it was located next to the train station, from where he had to leave his hometown and go to immigration. 70 years later, already a famous photographer, he returned here and decided to donate all his works to the city of Berlin and place them in the building of the former officers' club. Its restructuring is based on the idea of returning the building to the severity of Prussian classicism, covered with plasterboard and plaster. The challenge for Kahlfeldt Architekten was to release this austere style, the dryness of which was a great neutral backdrop for the work of Helmut Newton.
Paul and Petre Kalfeldt are often asked the question: "What have you done here?" Other architects would be offended, but for them it is a complement. All of their renovation projects are united by one idea - to be invisible, in the context of the building being reconstructed. This is the universal method that the Kalfeldts have developed over 20 years of building remodeling.
Oddly enough (or maybe not strange), the conversation about the reconstruction of buildings has ended, we mention the impending crisis, which has already hit the architecture powerfully. Although in this case, the crisis was mentioned as a positive moment that can contribute to a rethinking of social values and redirect architectural energy from new construction to the rebuilding of abandoned and empty buildings. In this interpretation, the crisis, as giving rise to a "second life", was assessed as very opportune.
I must say that the editors of the SPEECH magazine managed to find a really surprisingly suitable hero for the presentation of the second issue of the publication dedicated to the revival of old buildings. The assertion of one's own invisibility in our time is completely unpopular and therefore unexpected - such an unfashionable conviction is capable of striking no less than other formal experiments and tricks. Nowadays, restorers do not always strive for invisibility … And in reconstruction projects, an approach is much more popular in which new elements contrast with old ones. True, in all honesty, you can find other examples of such a position - in particular, similar values in relation to the urban environment and to old buildings are professed by the famous "paper architect" Ilya Utkin (whose non-appearance in the magazine should probably be explained by the fact that reconstruction Utkina still remain at the project level). But one way or another, the concept presented by Petra Kalfeldt is not mainstream - the more interesting the lecture. You have to understand that the world is not black and white. In addition - and indeed - you never know what "sprouts" will become relevant as a result of the global crisis.
