#aboutarchitecture

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ArchitectureAroundME

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Saying goodbye

It is a grey Monday afternoon, the rain has been soaking through my black coat for a long time. I'm still standing in the cemetery staring at the gravestone. Cold and empty it stands there, a few silver letters form the name of my grandmother, but I cannot remember her here, she isn’t present in this place any more as she was in her lifetime. She never wasted her time in the cemetery. She was on the road, she travelled the world.

That's why I too move on, leave the cemetery through the wrought-iron squeaky gate and walk through the streets of the small village. I stop at a big house in the small street called Main Road. The house is more than a hundred years old, and yet it looks very modern between the adjoining farmhouses with large stables and barns, because it is only a residential house. Its bright, even façade normally shines opposite the gloomy half-timbered houses next door, but today the white plaster façade has absorbed the rain, so that now a wooden timbre structure also faintly appears. Nevertheless, one can see that this house does not really want to stand here, between the cowsheds and a small slaughterhouse, but that it belongs to the city.

I take refuge from the rain under the overhanging shelter in front of the entrance door, and everything is so very familiar. This is where I grew up, this is where I spent a large part of my childhood, and suddenly all the memories are back. I feel it surrounding me and at the same time I am seized by a great joy and a deep sadness. I stroke over the handle of the heavy wooden entrance door and froze at the thought of entering this house probably for the last time.

I enter the far too narrow vestibule, where one has to squeeze a little under the fuse box to close the huge door again. As it falls into the lock, the whole staircase echoes and I suppress the impulse to shout "Hello!" to my grandmother, as I have always done, but I secretly expect the sound of the upper door to open. But of course that isn’t happening.

I push the heavy dark curtain a little further to the side to take the first small staircase up. Actually, it only hung there in winter when the staircase needed to be heated. But this spring nobody was there anymore to take it down, so it is still hanging here although it’s early autumn.

Here on the ground floor is actually my great-grandparents' apartment, but I only know it as it is now. Living room and bedroom have become playrooms and storage rooms, only the big kitchen is still as it must have looked in 1930: On chessboard-like black and white tiles stands an antique stove, which is still fired with wood and in winter prevented ice flowers from forming on the windows. No matter how much my grandma hated this stove, the Christmas goose was always roasted in its old stovepipe at Christmas, because it was simply too big for the modern stove in the upstairs kitchen.

At the same time the palm trees and other sensitive plants from the backyard were allowed to winter here in the kitchen slightly heated by the stove, which is why this room was always like a small jungle for me as a child. The only witnesses of this are on and under the big heavy oak table, which at some point was only used for gardening: flowerpots, watering cans, gardening gloves lie around. Clumps of earth lie scattered up to the back door, as if my grandfather had just manoeuvred the big palm tree through the door frame to the outside.

I turn around and climb the creaky stairs up to the upper floor. My grandmother's treasures stand on the landing in a motley jumble: a garden gnome stands on the floor, red, pink and orange flower pots crowd the windowsill. The plants in it used to be an equally varied mess, but now they have withered and only the scrawny stems are reminiscent of the blooming colourful past.

When I open the front door, the familiar and unique scent rises to my nose, as every apartment has, even long after the inhabitants have left. It smells of perfume and gravy, of heating oil and leather.

The smell of leather comes from the many shoes and coats that bury the wardrobe so far underneath that only the small space for the lime-green receiver telephone remains. The clothes don’t seem to fit here: Two extravagant fur coats are there, wide leather jackets in the style of the 80s and on the floor - similar to the flower pots in the hall - red, pink and orange high heels are piled up, of which one cannot imagine that they were ever worn in the dusty village street.

But they were. As long as I can remember, my grandmother always - always - wore high heels and bright colours. Like a ‘bird of paradise’, she danced between the neighbours' dung heaps, got into the orange VW Scirocco and confidently parked it backwards out of the much too narrow driveway, so that the men in the village stretched their necks, but no one dared to say anything about women and driving.

The handbags made of crocodile and snake leather, which she always carried with her - matching to her shoes of course - would probably have blown up the small wardrobe in the hallway, which is why they had their own cupboard in the bedroom.

Not the large double bed, but the bright red plush stool in front of the dressing table seemed to be the centre of this room. On the mirror cabinet in front of it, perfume bottles, make-up stuff and jewellery boxes were piled up, but on the open shelves behind the bed laid her real treasures: Asian vases and oriental glasses, African masks and Caribbean shells, all souvenirs from the many countries she had visited. When I was a little girl, I always listened to the sound of the sea through the largest shell. She told me about the first time she had tasted crocodile meat and how incredibly hot it was in the desert.

I listened to the stories in amazement until I fell asleep in the soft feather pillow.

[fat-seminar]

How a glass pane became a Buddhist

I am a broken glass pane. Don't worry - I don't want to lodge a complaint about those who have brought me from the state of wholeness to thousands of fragments. That way I became a Buddhist. When I realized: I take all possible forms and to decide which ones is not in my hands. A short time ago, a significant part of me covered the ocean floor not far form the Indonesian coast. Changing my aggreation state has given me, among other things, the quality to reflect. The next phase – I entered in many pieces - has increased my multifacetedness many times more. Just as I have always shared my reflections with you without asking - but mostly not undesirable - I cannot avoid giving you the following advice on your way. Before I set out to mine via dustpan and garbage truck towards Nirvana. I don't take it personally to have been broken. When I was intact it didn't have a bad reputation. Almost everyone has a glass pane in their home, even if the most private things rarely take place in front of windows. I even took the place of some beautiful stone. Even if some - admittedly – attributed me with a certain arrogant and bureaucratic coldness. I was hardened over scorching heat, my edges and burrs removed with the grinder. As stoically as I endured this treatment, I was guarding the display of the shop that I was supposed to clad. I easily endured the tensions that had spread between my molecules. I was ambitious and wanted to shine. Now I might be torn into pieces though I feel in peace because I know that there is an opportunity in every crisis. A cobble stone has become my catharsis. No composite security film fits between being and becoming. We'll meet Again!

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The gravel road made the same noise she remembered from her childhood, while she was driving over it, approaching the small house on the little hill. That same noise she was hearing as a child when she was riding in the back seat of her parent’s car. The noise that gave her that feeling of arrival after a five-hour car ride. Now it gave her a strange feeling. She had not been at her grandma’s house since she passed away a few years ago. As she reached the house and parked her car, she realized that what once had been a well looked after and neatly groomed garden in front of the house had been taking over by nature. The small house with its crooked roof, was hidden by big bushes and shrubs. Almost as if it was tucked in a green blanket she thought as she approached the wooden door, which was once painted in bright orange. Now only a few spots of paint reminded of the colour it used to have, the rest of it had flaked off over time due to weather and seasons. While she put the key in the rusty lock and turned it, she realized she never needed to use this lock before, as her grandma always had been in the house when she visited, waiting and opening the door for her. She looked in the small room which used to be her grandmas living room. On the opposite site of the room was her grandmas old and trusted wooden fired stove, in front of which she used to sit, on her little wooden stool, watching her grandma cook, on cold winter days. The wall behind it was barely visible as it was covered by pots and pans, whisks and spoons, sieves and strainers and all sorts of other cooking utensils. The copper pans were reflecting the evening sun brought in through the open door, filling the room with a golden and orange shine. As she stepped in, the old pine floorboards started squeaking. To her right was the small table, which was painted in a vivid blue. That she used to love as a kid, because it would not matter when she made a mess while eating and that she got annoyed by as she grew older, as it was always wobbly, because one of its four legs was a bit shorter than the others. Around the table stood four chairs, all of which were different. One was made of dark wood with leather upholstery, one was painted red with a green cushion, one had a metal base with its seat and backrest made out of plastic and one was made out of pine wood, but got grey over time as her grandma always put it outside to sit in the garden and too often forgot in the rain. Behind the table was the old and steep wooden stair that led up to the attic where she used to sleep when she was little. To her left, next to a small wooden window, was her grandmas beloved armchair, that had patches all over it covering up the wear of the decades. As her grandma used to sit in it every night watching the sun set over the little forest at the end of her gravel road or taking midday naps after reading the newspaper. On the wall to the left, her grandma’s collection of wooden figures and colourfully painted ceramics was displayed in rustic, dark stained shelves. What once used to shine in vibrant colours was now covered in a thick layer of dust, dampening the colours and unifying everything in a dull grey. Disguised between all the shelves with her grandma’s collectibles was the small door to her grandma’s bedroom, that used to scratch over the floor when you opened it.

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The Origin of Being

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Reimagination

As he walked towards the place where once his house was located Frank was greeted by many birds and insects that seemed to have taken over the whole neighborhood and were trying to defend their new habitat. He was scared and nervously excited as he approached the big empty space walking on the non existent path that used to be the sidewalk. The big bushes and trees on the right must have been here for quite a long time judging by their size, but he can't remember them always being there. “Isn’t that were Miss Barkley would have had her car parked?” he asked himself. There were so many questions in his head that he almost passed the big empty space which once was his front yard. Frank abruptly stopped and overviewed the bare land turning to his right. He took his first step towards the location where he would have entered his front door and noticed that the base of his front gate was still visible. As he approached the formerly front door he realised that it made no sense taking the front door, since there was no door, nor doorway, nor walls. But Frank decided to take the same route as he would have back in time. The foundation of the house, or what has been left of it was still noticeable beneath grass and between a bunch of elderberry bushes. So he worked his way through the small entrance area towards the kitchen. A little piece of brick on the ground still had some of the plaster on it. Franks wife Louise painted the entrance in yellow because she said she wanted to bring more sun in the narrow little space. He smiled as he remembered her words and walked to his right entering the kitchen area. As he reimagined the white cupboards and silver handles of the kitchen cabinets facing South towards Miss Barkley's house Frank noticed a little breeze just as when the window used to be opened. Louise would have baked a cake today because it was Sunday. He tried imagining the smell of freshly baked apple pie. Passing the emptiness that once consisted of a big dining table with mixed antique chairs Frank walked towards the South- East facing living room. He turned around to the right now facing back towards the kitchen where once a dividing wall held family pictures. Overlooking the wild fields to the East he then sat down on the bare concrete and tried to imagine the feeling on his skin when he sat down on the cold brown leather couch coming back from a long day at work. He thought about how nice it would have been to raise his two daughters here, how they would’ve played hide and seek in the backyard and picked cherries off the old tree in the back. Frank noticed himself being over nostalgic and stood back up to explore the rest of the non existent house. Still focusing on the wild fields on his right he accessed the bedroom tripping over a piece of blue ceramic that might have been part of the bathtub once. As he starred in the corner where Louise had her dressing table he noticed that the birds stopped singing. He hated the silence. This area of the city was once so vividly and filled with welcoming neighbors. Frank decided to leave and try to keep the house in memory as it was. He exited back through the front door and the gate, tuning to the left where he came from. 

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Wrong Architecture 

[basicsaboutaroundarchitecture]

Tomba monumentale Brion, Carlo Scarpa (San Vito di Altivole, 1969)