Auf Wiedersehen, Berlin!

above Church of Christ the King

Byng Place

the view outside my window (ii)

temporary workspace

Dessau

I spent the day in Dessau, at the Bauhaus and biking around the city.

The Bauhaus has an exhibit-- "Less is Future"-- on the 2010 International Building Exhibition (IBA) addressing the phenomenon of "shrinking cities" in Sachsen-Anhalt. http://www.iba-stadtumbau.de/index.php?iba2010-en

The numbers in this exhibit were unbelievable. There are 1 million unoccupied flats in the state.

Dessau is one of these shrinking cities. The strategy in this case has been to identify functioning "urban cores" and demolish the areas in between them, ideally the pre-fab concrete apartment blocks, but there was evidence of earlier architecture having also been cleared. Strategies for other cities involve reviving an 18th-century urban development plan (Schoenebeck/Elbe), "balancing" a "double city" (1200-year-old university town and socialist Neustadt) along a Hochstrasse "seam" (Halle/Saale), restoring 1300 timber frame houses built over 6 centuries (Quedlinburg), demolishing a city periphery and transforming it into a "drive-through gallery" (Sangerhausen)...

The train rides between Berlin and Dessau (and Leipzig) are scary. I missed a train/got on a wrong train today and ended up at the end of the line in Annaburg (and in Bitterfeld -- "ecological disaster area" -- on the way back from Leipzig last weekend). These are total non-places. Barely functioning factory, boarded up train station, graffiti, and sometimes a name that gives a clue about the identity the city or town once had (ie. Lutherstadt-Wittenburg).

Soviet Medievalism

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (iv)

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (iii)

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (ii)

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (i)

Leipzig