The 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale wraps up on Sunday, so I'm republishing today a feature I originally did for another publication about the Torre David installation that won the Golden Lion for the Best Project.
Visitors to the 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale (until 25th November) may find themselves surprised when, upon reaching the Corderie of the Arsenale will find themselves inside the Venezuelan 24-hour restaurant Gran Horizonte.
This temporary social space rebuilt using humble materials will allow them to socialise and rest while discovering in this common ground a project by architects Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner and their teams at U-TT (Urban-Think Tank) and ETH Zurich, in collaboration with photographer Iwan Baan, and curated by Justin McGuirk.
The project revolves around the Caracas-based Torre Confinanzas also known as Torre David, designed by Venezuelan architect Enrique Gòmez. After its developer died and after the collapse of the Venezuelan economy in the '90s, a vibrant community installed itself into the forty-five-storey office tower recreating inside it living spaces that currently form a sort of city within a city.
The project ponders upon the possibilities of adaptable architecture expanding on real people's needs. Baan's photographs of the Torre residents (there are currently over 750 families living there) could be used for both architectural and social studies. In Baan's images there are for example children playing downstairs and people praying in the church area or living intimate moments of their lives.
Critics compare the place to a vertical slum, but the story told by this installation is definitely not a sad story about poor people as Baan's images are not used in negative ways, but are employed to highlight the dignity of the Torre David residents.
The tower is also conceived by the architects involved in the project as an example to understand many other urban failures and as a way to try and imagine an alternative future in which design may be put at the service of people's needs.
Together with many other spaces scattered all over the world and employed by local communities in more or less the same way as the Venezuelan building, the Torre David represents indeed an example of informal living that may inspire new modes of vertical mobility that could be applied to other spaces all over the world, as explored also by Brillembourg, Klumpner and Baan in the recently published volume Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities (Lars Muller Publishers).
Interview with Photographer Iwan Baan
How did you meet up with U-TT?
Iwan Baan: I was in Caracas two and a half years ago for a Moma exhibition for which I photographed different projects. One of the projects I was shooting there was this cable car that Urban-Think Tank designed in Caracas and that connects the favelas with the formal city. That's how I met with them. While I was there they showed me this skyscraper that stands in the middle of Caracas, a 45-storey office tower that was thoroughly occupied and I thought that would have been a very interesting project to document, even though they told me it was very difficult to get the people living there photographed as they don't want to meet outsiders. One of the guys from the office went there weekly to talk to people and introduce ourselves, then, nine months later or so, we came back and started working in the Tower, documenting things and speaking to people.
How did you come up with the installation format at the Venice Biennale?
Iwan Baan: It started from talks with the curator and the architects, we really wanted to bring Caracas to the Biennale and we thought that a restaurant it's a kind of common ground where people can share company and food and have a nice time. We wanted to recreate a little bit of atmosphere from Caracas, so we even brought the sign of the Gran Horizonte 24-hour restaurant to Venice, and we rebuilt the place in the same style people built their own spaces in the Torre David.
Is there one image among the ones you took that is particularly meanigful to you?
Iwan Baan: It's hard to choose. Maybe the image of the façade that allows you to see how everybody individually built in between the concrete columns of the building their own private domain and they did so in different styles. This is really fascinating in a way since the façade changes constantly.
What struck you the most about this very unique community?
Iwan Baan: The fact that 3,000 people built themselves out of nothing a completely working city. In Venezuela it's difficult for people to get housing - 60% of the population in Caracas lives in slums - and for people to organise themselves in this way was in my opinion also very touching. It was difficult to even make the first step inside the Tower, but, once we were in, we saw how incredibly proud these people were about what they had made by themselves. We found ourselves in front of a group of people with no class who completely fell out of the formal system and had to organise themselves and create for themselves a place where they could live. We thought it was also relevant with what's happening at the moment on a global level: because of the crisis, many places, including office buildings in city centres, became vacant and people could actually use them to live in. The Torre David is an extreme example, but it's interesting to think about it as an ingenious model that we could bring to other city systems. There are of course a lot of problems also in the Tower, it certainly isn't an ideal situation, but it's so much better especially if compared to the favelas.
How did you feel about the installation winning the Golden Lion for the Best Project at the 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale?
Iwan Baan: It came as a big surprise especially because there are a lot of projects in this event by famous architects and artists. I'm quite new in this field as I started doing architecture photography around 6-7 years ago a little bit by accident, before I used to do more documentary photography. This project for me was very exciting because it brings together two worlds, telling a story of ordinary people in a documentary way with architecture in the background.
Interview with architects Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner
What inspired your research on the Torre David?
Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner: U-TT came out of several years of research and work in the informal communities of Caracas. Over the years, our focus has honed in on different typologies and morphologies of informal built environments not just in Caracas or Venezuela but all over the world. We believe that the future of urban development hinges upon finding bridges between informal and formal growth. It's this intersection where we believe cities are at their best – where residents can find more equal opportunities for sustainable urban living. For several years, we observed what was happening at the Torre and began to see it as an iconic and remarkable example of one type of informal growth – literally the “informalization” of a formal skyscraper. There were lots of rumors about its recent history and current inhabitants, but we always prefer to investigate for ourselves. Once we gained entry and spent a few days inside, we knew that it was worth some serious attention. It struck us as a logical step in our line of architectural and urban research. We are fortunate enough to be conducting research out of the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich, which progressively provides so much support to in-depth projects like this one. We elaborate upon these ideas in our book, Torre David: Informal Vetical Communities. But we also want to stress that it's important that architects, designers, or anyone does not romanticize the story and existing conditions of the Torre and its community. We must acknowledge that just like the barrios that compose a large portion of Caracas' built environment and the slums which are a growing portion of urban development all around the world, there are real problems facing residents in terms of infrastructure, access to long-term financial investment, and of course land tenure. But it is also unique in its verticality and semi-autonomy. We think it could serve as an urban zone or site of experimentation on a large scale, partnering with academia, private firms and government to try out novel approaches to making better vertical architecture.
Which was the most challenging aspect of this project, did you find it difficult for example to win the trust of the Torre David community while working and researching there?
Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner: It was challenging at first, as the residents have had some unpleasant interactions with outsiders – particularly those who show up asking to document the space in some capacity. They feel that both local and international media has not portrayed them in an honest manner, and as a result have a rather closed-door policy. However, after about a month of explaining what U-TT is and what our motivations were, we were granted limited access to begin surveying the structure and talking to residents. Over the course of the year and a half we've been engaged there, our relationship with the residents has become much more collaborative. We have attended numerous community meetings, presenting our research and design proposals for making the space safer, more comfortable, sustainable and productive. Our design process is always contingent on community engagement and participation, so receiving this kind of access and establishing mutual goals is necessary. We still try to be sensitive to the precarious situation that the residents are in, and we have been in constant communication with residents since our installation in Venice opened and we're hoping that this increased exposure leads to something productive for the residents and the city as a whole.
Torre David is a space in constant change as people move in and rearrange it in accordance to their needs, is its constant mutability one of the main reasons that could turn it into a valid architectural example to adopt even in other communities?
Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner: The Torre David presents a remarkable opportunity for experimenting with new strategies to retrofitting existing architecture, incremental city development and mixed-use programming in vertical density. The ways in which residents have adapted the existing structure has provided us with numerous lessons about what does and doesn't work. Indeed, some experiments have proven to be successful, such as removal of windows on certain parts of the façade that provide excellent ventilation in the absence of air-conditioning or communally negotiated partitioning of open spaces into separate residences. However, other forms of development have not worked, such as one residents' attempt to create a brick manufacturing business in the basement of the Torre several years ago that proved to be economically unprofitable. Residents have come up with many ideas to solve certain deficiencies, and there is a willingness to leverage this creative impulse to try larger scale experiments, some of which involve making the Torre more autonomous in terms of resource consumption and energy production.
How was it working with photographer Iwan Baan on this project and how did you come up with the restaurant idea for the Arsenale?
Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner: Iwan is a pleasure to work with. His philosophy toward photography is very much in sync with U-TT's ethos – he believes that context is tantamount to understanding any building or site. He understands that spatial documentation must take into account the surroundings, history, local culture and current social life of a place. He was curious about the Torre and when he came to Caracas in 2011 to photograph one of our projects, the FAVA School for Autistic Children, he came with us to the Torre. Over the course of the next year and a half, he was able to come back and do a thorough documentation of the structure and community. His photos - many more than appeared in Venice - are part of our book on the Torre. When it came time to plan our installation in Venice, we primarily set out to create an environment that would truly foster common ground. It's easy to fall into the trap of making just a conceptually or aesthetically interesting space that addresses the notion of common ground head-on with lucidity and intelligence. But we wanted to create real, useful common ground, not just comment on it in a didactic manner. So 8 months ago, when we were starting to discuss ideas for the installation with Justin McGuirk, we thought of our Caracas office's favorite meeting point after work - Gran Horizonte, a 24-hour restaurant near our downtown office. By recreating elements of Gran Horizonte in Venice, and inserting the story of the Torre, which in itself is a story about common ground, we hope visitors will feel engaged and involved. And ultimately, the name Gran Horizonte signifies to us the grand horizon of the future of architecture in the Global South. "Gran Horizonte" is also the name of our feature-length film, coming out next year, pieces of which take place in the Torre. Segments of the film also appear in the space on old TVs and a large projection.
How did you feel about winning the Golden Lion for the Best Project at the 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale?
Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner: We are honored and thankful to the jury, the crowds that populated our space and tried the arepas, and of course to the residents of the Torre, who worked with us for over a year on the research that went into this installation and in the related book. We did a smaller photo exhibition with Iwan in the Torre several months ago, and when we received the enthusiastic approval of the residents to take the show on the road, we knew we had to do them justice. We're grateful that this installation achieved that goal.
The book "Torre David - Informal Vertical Communities" will be launched on 10th December 2012, 6 pm, ETH Zurich, Main Building, Semper Aula, Floor G, Room 60, Ramistrasse 101, Zurich.
Images credits:
Image 1-7: Gran Horizonte/Torre David installation in Venice by Anna Battista
Images 8-10: Torre David by Iwan Baan
Images 11-13: Torre David, U-TT Archives/Daniel Schwartz
Image 14: Map by U-TT Architecture
Image 15: From left to right - Alfredo Brillembourg, Iwan Baan, Justin McGuirk, Lorenzo Ornaghi (Italian Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities), Hubert Klumpner and Paolo Baratta (President of the Venice Biennale). Photograph Giorgio Zucchiatti, Courtesy of the Venice Biennale Press Office
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Posted by: Pyjamas | November 24, 2012 at 06:07 AM