INCHIOSTRO - Working on a different way




 University of Liverpool - Heating Infrastructure Project

Levitt Bernstein Associates



 INCHIOSTRO

Working on a Different Way

Marco Atzori - Originally published in C3 n°311 1007



The industry, infrastructure and the place of production itself are major topics that characterized the architecture of the 1900s. Their conception gave built forms to social and economical processes that were manifested during the previous century in centers of production where the new productive cycles and the new organizations of living and working overlapped.

Some of the most important works of the beginning of the nineteen hundreds, where the concept of the industry was materialized, established a language and a set of aesthetics of reference for the development of architecture in last two centuries. The expressive potentialities of energy production plants or mass-production industries had inspired the constructivist language, fascinating big names like Le Corbusier, as could be read into the works of Behrens, Gropius and Mendelsohn who achieved symbolic buildings for the next generations among which are the industry of turbines AEG, the Hermann & Co. hat factory in Luckenwald or the Power-house of the "Red Banner" Textile Factory, St. Petersburg.

In the course of time the mutation of productive processes, their continuous tendency towards automation mutated deeply the concept of the industry to the degree in which the industries of the first half of the nineteen hundreds are today seen as archeological sites, places to be recovered in which their simulacrums are celebrated, new functions are introduced and other rites are put to an end.

The change of productive and social paradigms of reference had consequently modified the language with which architects relate to this topic. If today the centers of production are places in which the human presence is reduced to its very minimum, and productions take place in clean, aesthetic, silent and comfortable places that are delocalized with respect to property, architecture needs to respond to other programs and materialize other values.

As the taylor-fordist period reached an end, the industries became similar commercial and retail centers: light, slim, minimal and reconfigurable with time.

They became containers that mask their own identity, the exact opposite of what Behrens manifested in the industry of turbines AEG. The 21^st century industry gives an image of itself that is totally far from the image of the machine place but is rather similar to any other working place. The “cathedrals of technicality” belong to the past, whereas today the architectural language privileges communication, seeks a symbolic image for the corporation, and constructs a unique recognition without representing the building’s functional programs.

In the last years a number of new projects defined, in a continuously stronger manner, this tendency of the Packing and distribution building for Ricola Europe by Herzog & de Meuron, the Brembo Technical Center “The Red Kilometer” in Bergamo (2001-2007) by Jean Nouvel in Italy or the projects for the Ferrari Campus in Maranello (Italy), with an undeniable parallelism and similitude with the Vitra Campus in Weil-am-Rhein.

As a result of their mutated relationship with society and places, the new industries started to acquire further attention in their relationship with the landscape and to carefully address the surrounding context by acquiring further sensibility to the existing fabric in which the projects are inserted. Furthermore, industries prove to be more aware of sustainability and pollution aspects, as they transform themselves into “invisible” entities, such as in the University of Liverpool Heating Infrastructure Project by Levitt Bernstein Associates in which the design concept interprets the historical context in order to construct an object that through the synthesis of forms, is able to dialogue with the past without losing its own functional identity or cede to linguistic compromise.

The HIP is construed as the sum of different geometries and an array of materials that recall signs in the immediate context: the design of the structure is defined by the rhythmic repetition of pitched roof cover that, represent an object of the archetypical form once read in their primary forms. On the main façade, the part touching the ground that is different from the rest of the building, raises the upper part of the façade structure to form a geometrical pattern generated by the repetition of squarish perforated grills. On the same facades, the building is identified through a three-dimensional pattern that is generated by constructive rhomboid elements, similar to a flaky skin. The side facades are distinguished from the ones that touch the ground and the main body through a recessed glass pane that displays the machinery in the inside, as if looking at the bowel of an animal.

Attention to the different landscape scales and to the relationship with the natural environment is revealed in the projects of Alric Galindez Arquitectos and GH + A (Guillermo Hevia Architects).

The former, through the rhythm and movement of the rooftop cover, reconstructs the relation with the natural environment. The building for the making of resin tubes and pipes, in relation to its scale and formal dryness, becomes an element that dialogues with the landscape contributing substantially to the definition of places. The attention given to the geographical lines, mountainous silhouettes, is translated into refined choices in terms of its compositional outlook and the rooftop cover, that repeats itself with continuous variations, is detached from the main building body through the use of colors, the reason for which the silhouette seems to be suspended, while the dark color of the facades dissolves among the shadows of the rooftop which becomes in turn the most visible element. The compositional choices are aimed at the valorization of volumes and of the main lines, nullifying any detailed approach, as the scale and nature of the object require. Only the public façade shows attention to the choice of noble material, characterized by the white stone cladding. Nevertheless, this is not the element that defines the thickness of the building that finds its own identity in metallic materials and in polycarbonate facades that are more coherent with the functional program.

In the Olisur Olive Oil Factory and Offices project of GH + A (Guillermo Hevia Architects) an architectural language is developed characterized by landscape textures and their modifications where the wood used in the façade materializes the patterns in a cultivated field. It is an “emphatic” architecture, as defined by the architects, intended to represent in an unambiguous manner the elements with which one decides to have a dialogue to the degree that the partitions seem to be a fold in the terrain, where the simplicity of the volumetric composition diverts attention to the texture on the façade and hides solutions such as the pitched roof that radically modify the perception of the building. The building in its simple overall is balanced compositionally with the design of the facades that are divided into vertical dark strips that continue horizontally in continuity with the bedrock. Generally, the work could be described as façade stratifications that continue the stratifications on ground: the pattern of cultivated fields where the confines and penetrations of walking paths overlap.

In the Warehouse Building for Writer Coporation in Mumbay by Khanna Schultz Architects goes back to the theme of the geometrical composition of the façade, as well as the reinterpretations of the use of materials. The elevation level turns into a three dimensional entity through the aware use of an element that recomposes the façade according to a rhythmical repetition and becomes a regulating element of light and internal climate. The reconfiguration of the surface recalls the Brutalist tradition of late modernism of architects such as Marcel Breuer, Paulo Mendes Da Rocha, Paul Rudolph or even Le Corbusier in the development of Chandigarh in which the early explorations of the expressive possibility of reinforced concrete took place. The capturing of light through the façade elements makes the inside similar to the architecture manifested in Louis Khan’s Yale University Art Gallery or the Exeter Library in which the structure of the internal space, the relation among surfaces and the rhythm of the bearing structure acquire a metaphysical aura. As Kahn reckoned “Architecture cannot relinquish its own natural monumentality, its irreducible individuality,” so as the program was supposed to be considered as a departure point that refers to quantity and never to quality. These concepts could also be found in the project of Khanna Schultz Architects that reinterpret, in contemporary terms, the concepts of the American maestro.

The Skive CHP Station by C. F. Møller Architects can be interpreted as a bridge between heroism of the early nineteen hundreds architecture and the current conception of the infrastructure of production; this is not the masking of the industrial identity and not the search for attracting design that minimizes its scale or hides its function. On the contrary, through a composition derived from an intelligent interpretation of the functional program and dimensions, an “interplay of volumes under sun light” with a fascinating hardness is generated. The progressive modifications to façade metal cladding show the changes in time and stress on the industrial identity and its recognition in the collective memory. At the same time the conception of the building occur according to the contemporary interpretation of the functional program and its relation to the architectural concept.

In the Chemical Laboratory Building inside the Campus of the University of Alcalà, Madrid by Hector Fernandez Elorza the functional nullifying process is taken to an extreme where the object is iconic and there is no reference to the program; the object purposely presents declares its unwillingness to have a dialogue with the outside, and hence prevails an enigmatic but symbolic image, far from any explicit expression of the place for work, production or research, as in this case. Attention is moved towards the minimalism of details, to the choice of materials, and to the emotional effect and communication of a sophisticated and recognizable image, as it occurs in the Water Recycling Plant by Peter Elliott Pty Ltd Architecture + Urban Design. The scale of intervention and the architectural object are reduced to their minimum and become a translucent-box-like object that is laid on a metal base and that exposes the inside of the water treatment system: an elementary and effective structure.

In conclusion, contemporary architecture of work places and production does not represent anymore these contrasts that had characterized the social, economic, cultural principles of the last century. Furthermore, it does not express a language that emphasizes its function and role in the territory or in the urban context. However, it becomes a field of formal experimentations in which the multiplicity of meanings and styles are synthesized where research moves towards the singularity of the object rather than the coherency among functional programs and constructive and expressive systems.

Will this tendency be further modified as a consequence of the global economic crisis? Are we about to witness a reduction in the spectacularisation of formal choices and a return to a more functionalist language, or the evolution of economical systems and the continuously increasing attention to environmental sustainability will formulate a third direction?

The displayed projects synthesize potentialities and criticalities of the actual period, still the horizons cannot be easily interpreted.

Marco Atzori