Places and stories

An idea never comes alone. Its origin lies in the coincidence of two things: the reading and understanding of a place and the story that is destined to find its beginning there. This is how Wim Wenders describes his approach to cinema. As a director he combines documentary with storytelling.

Quite similarly to this approach, architecture has always got to find an understanding and a relation to a place before being able to create space that will surround human life and their future stories.

One of the greatest privileges of working a White Arkitekter are the yearly study trips, where hard working people from different offices spend several days together visiting cities in foreign countries, experiencing architecture and by that having time to find common ground for future projects.

The only way to really connect to a place and hence to understand it is to visit it yourself, see it and feel it, to meet the people that inhabit it and become part of their reality for a while. Because architecture is about people.

Below some moments where I think I understood a place.

Dia Beacon in upstate New York is a converted former box-printing factory. The museum was suited to the needs for the large scale art it contains as sculptures by Richard Serra or Any Warhol.

The National Tourist Routes in Norway tries to put the human into relation to the overwhelming surrounding fjords and landscapes through man made installations.

In Swiss Graubünden, local materials and a careful conservation of existing buildings with traditional building techniques influences and shapes contemporary architecture.

Test Site Rotterdam: the Luchtsingel in Rotterdam is a crowdfunded infrastructure in the proximity of the temporary re-use of a former office building before its destruction. ?

This building in Rotterdam combines a market hall with housing.

This result of a Baugemeinschaft in Vienna demonstrates the potential of what can be done instead of underground parking: a private patio giving light to a house nursery and assembly rooms for the community.

Finally, the highline in New York, a public space reusing a former elevated railroad offering a completely new experience of the city while accessing new areas and enabling projects beyond the domain of the car.

This is the fourth and last part of “looking back while moving forward”. I wish you - my dear network – and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fear. Onward and upward. ??????