Hello everyone, Kaissa here, I recently decided to transfer to this group. I want to do my study on the Berlin Wall, and after speaking with Lorens Holmes he reccomended I read Rem Koolhaas’s final thesis which also dealt with the Wall. After some snooping and sending of emails, I managed to get a hold of it. Unfortunately its only the text without the images but I thought I would post it in case anyone was interested.
Once, a city was divided in two parts.
One part became the Good Half, the other
part the Bad Half.
The inhabitants of the Bad Half began to
flock to the good part of the divided city, rapidly
swelling into an urban exodus.
If this situation had been allowed to con-
tinue forever, the population of the Good Half
would have doubled, while the Bad Half would
have turned into a ghost town.
Af ter all attempts to interrupt this undesir-
able migration had failed, the authorities of
the bad part made desperate and savage use
of architecture: they built a wall around the
good part of the city, making it completely
inaccessible to their subjects.
The Wall was a masterpiece.
Originally no more than some pathetic
strings of barbed wire abruptly dropped on
the imaginary line of the border, its psycholog-
ical and symbolic effects were infinitely more
powerful than its physical appearance.
The Good Half, now glimpsed only over
the forbidding obstacle from an agonizing dis-
tance, became even more irresistible.
Those trapped, left behind in the gloomy
Bad Half, became obsessed with vain plans for
escape. Hopelessness reigned supreme on
the wrong side of the Wall.
As so often before in this history of man-
kind, architecture was the guilty instrument of
despair.
Architecture
It is possible to imagine a mirror image of this
terrifying architecture, a force as intense and
devastating but used instead in the service of
positive intentions.
Division, isolation, inequality, aggression,
destruction, all the negative aspects of the
Wall, could be the ingredients of a new phe-
nomenon: architectural warfare against unde-
sirable conditions, in this case London. This
would be an immodest architecture committed
not to timid improvements but to the provision
of totally desirable alternatives.
The inhabitants of this architecture, those
strong enough to love it, would become its
Voluntary Prisoners, ecstatic in the freedom
of their architectural confines.
Contrary to modern architecture and its
desperate afterbirths, this new architecture is
neither authoritarian nor hysterical: it is the
hedonistic science of designing collective
facilities that fully accommodate individual
desires.
From the outside this architecture is a
sequence of serene monuments; the life inside
produces a continuous state of ornamental
frenzy and decorative delirium, an overdose of
symbols.
This will be an architecture that generates
its own successors, miraculously curing
architects of their masochism and self-hatred.
The Voluntary Prisoners
This study describes the steps that will have
to be taken to establish an architectural oasis
in the behavioral sink of London.
Suddenly, a strip of intense metropolitan
desirability runs through the center of London.
This Strip is like a runway, a landing strip for
the new architecture of collective monuments.
Two walls enclose and protect this zone to
retain its integrity and to prevent any contami-
nation of its surface by the cancerous organ-
ism that threatens to engulf it.
Soon, the first inmates beg for ad mission.
Their number rapidly swells into an unstop-
pable flow.
We witness the Exodus of London.
The physical structure of the old town will
not be able to stand the continuing competition
of this new architectural presence. London as
we know it will become a pack of ruins.
Reception Area
After crossing the Wall, exhausted fugitives
are received by attentive wardens in a lobby
between the Reception Area and the Wall. The
consoling atmosphere of this waiting room is
an architectural sigh of relief. The first step in
the indoctrination program of the other side of
the Wall is realized: the newcomers enter the
Reception Area.
On arrival a spectacular welcome is given
to all.
The activities inside the Reception Area
require minimal training for new arrivals,
which is only accomplished by overwhelming
previously undernourished senses. The train-
ing is administered under the most hedonistic
conditions: luxury and well-being.
The Reception Area is permanent I y crowded
by amateurs who through their dealings
exercise an inspired state of political inventive-
ness, which is echoed by the architecture.
The senses are overwhelmed by thought.
The sole concerns of the participants are
the present and the future of the Strip: they
propose architectural refinements, extensions,
strategies. Excited groups elaborate proposals
in special rooms, while others continuously
modify the model. The most contradictory pro-
grams fuse without compromise.
Central Area
The roof of the Reception Area, accessible
from the inside, is a high-altitude plateau
from which both the decay of the old town and
the physical splendor of the Strip can be
experienced.
From here, a gigantic escalator descends
into a preserved fragment of the “old” London.
These ancient buildings provide temporary
accommodation for recent arrivals during their
training period: the area is an environmental
sluice.
Ceremonial Square
The other (west) side of the roof is completely
empty, except for the tower of the Jamming
Station, which will protect the inhabitants of
the Strip from electronic exposure to the rest
of the world. This black square will accom-
modate a mixture of physical and mental exer-
cises, a conceptual Olympics.
Tip of the Strip
This is the frontline of the architectural war-
fare waged on the old London. Here, the mer-
ciless progress of the Strip performs a daily
miracle; the corrective rage of the architecture
is at its most intense. In a continuous con-
frontation with the old city, existing structures
are destroyed by the new architecture, and
trivial fights break out between the inmates of
the old London and the Voluntary Prisoners
of the Strip. Some monuments of the old civil-
ization are incorporated into the zone after
a rehabilitation of their questionable purposes
and programs.
A model of the Strip, continuously modi-
fied through incoming information from the
Reception Area, conveys strategies, plans,
and instructions. Life in the building barracks
at the Tip of the Strip can be hard, but the
ongoing creation of this object leaves its
builders exhausted with satisfaction.
The Park of the Four Elements
Divided into four square areas, the Park of the
Four Elements disappears into the ground in
four gigantic steps.
The first square, “Air,” consists of several
sunken pavilions overgrown with elaborate
networks of ducts that emit various mixtures
of gasses to create aromatic and hallucino-
genic experiences. Through subtle variations
in dosage, density, and perhaps even color,
these volatile scented clouds can be modified
or sustained like musical instruments.
Moods of exhilaration, depression, serenity,
and receptivity can be evoked invisibly in
programmed or improvised sequences and
rhythms. Vertical air jets provide environmental
protection above the pavilions.
Identical in size to the first square but
sunken below surface level is “Desert,” an
artificial reconstruction of an Egyptian land-
scape, simulating its dizzying conditions: a
pyramid, a small oasis, and the fire organ -
a steel frame with innumerable outlets for
flames of different intensity, color, and heat.
It is played at night to provide a pyrotechnic
spectacle visible from all parts of the Strip,
a nocturnal sun.
At the end of tour linear caves, mirage
machines project images of desirable ideals.
Those in the Desert who enter the tubes run
to reach these beatific images. But actual
contact can never be established: they run on
a belt that moves in the opposite direction
at a speed that increases as the distance
between mirage and runner shrinks. The frus-
trated energies and desires will have to be
channeled into sublimated activities. (The
secret that the pyramid does not contain a
treasure chamber will be kept forever.)
Deeper still into the earth is “Water,” a
pool whose surface is permanent I y agitated
through the regular but variable movement
of one of its walls, producing waves of some-
times gigantic proportions. This lake is the
domain of some pleasure seekers, who have
become completely addicted to the challenge
of the waves. Day and night, the sounds of
this interior sea serve as the acoustic back-
ground to the activities of the Strip.
The fourth square, at the bottom of the pit,
“Earth,” is occupied by a vaguely familiar
mountain, its summit precisely level with the
surface of the Strip. At the top, a group of
sculptors debate whose bust to carve into the
rock; but in the accelerated atmosphere of this
prison, no one is important long enough for
them ever to reach a conclusion.
The walls of the cavity repeat the past his-
tory of this location like a scar; part of a now-
deserted Underground line is suspended in
this void. Deep in the other walls, cave dwellings
and cavernous meeting places are carved out
to accommodate certain primordial mysteries.
After spiraling through the tour squares,
the wanderer is returned by an escalator to
the surface.
Square of the Arts
Devoted to the accelerated creation, evolu-
tion, and exhibition of objects, the Square of
the Arts is the Strip’s industrial zone -an
urban open space paved in a synthetic material
that offers a high degree of comfort to its
users. Dispersed on this surface are the build-
ings where people go to satisfy their love for
objects.
There are three major buildings on the
Square. One IS old; It has always been a
museum. The other two were built by the
Voluntary Prisoners. The first bulges from the
surface; it was built. It with the materials of the
second, which was carved out of the Square
and is in fact the interior of the first. At first
sight it is impossible to understand that these
twin buildings are one, and that this is not a
secret. Cooperatively forming an instrument
for the indoctrination of the existing culture,
they display the past in the only possible way:
they ex pose memory by allowing its provoca-
tive vacuums to be filled with the explosive
emotions of onlookers. They are a school.
The density and impenetrability of the first
building intensifies the expectation of arriving
students who wait outside its gates, while the
apparent emptiness of the second provokes
anxious suspense. The visitors, driven by an
irresistible power, begin a journey down the
escalators that link a series of enigmatic
galleries into an exploration of the most mys-
terious corners of history. At the lowest
gallery, they discover a bottomless interior;
new galleries are under construction, filling,
as completed, with unfamiliar works that
emerge in a continuous flow from a tunnel that
is seemingly connected to the old museum.
Returning to the surface, the traces of this
course are retained on the retina and trans-
ferred to certain parts of the brain.
The old building contains erased pictures
of the past. The uninformed visitor’s first
impression is of an almost infinite number of
empty frames, blank canvases, and vacant
pedestals. Only those with knowledge
acquired on the previous course can decipher
the spectacle by projecting their memories
onto these empty provocations: a continuous
film of images, improvements, and accelerat-
ed versions of the history of art automatically
produce new works, filling the space with
recollections, modifications, and inventions.
Apart from these three main buildings, the
only tangible exhibits in the Square are small
buildings that resemble pawns on the grid of
an ancient game. They are dropped like mete-
orites of unknown metaphysical meaning,
waiting to be moved to the next intersection of
the game; with each move they are further
deciphered.
Baths
The function of the Baths is to create and
recycle private and public fantasies, to invent,
test, and possibly introduce new forms of
behavior. The building is a social condenser.
It brings hidden motivations, desires, and
impulses to the surface to be refined for
recognition, provocation, and development.
The ground floor is an area of public
action and display, a continuous parade of
personalities and bodies, a stage for a cyclical
dialectic between exhibitionism and specta-
torship. It is an area for the observation and
possible seduction of partners who will be
invited to participate actively in private fan-
tasies and the pursuit of desires.
The two long walls of the building consist
of an infinite number of cells of various sizes
to which individuals, couples, or groups can
retire. These cells are equipped to encourage
indulgence and to facilitate the realization
of fantasies and social inventions; they invite
all forms of interaction and exchange.
The public area/private cells sequence
becomes a creative chain reaction. From
the cells, successful performers or those con-
fident about the validity and originality of
their actions and proposals filter into the two
arenas at both ends of the Baths. Finally, in
the arena, they perform. The freshness and
suggestiveness of these performances
activate dormant parts of the brain and trigger
a continuous explosion of ideas in the
audience. Overcharged b ythis spectacle,the
Voluntary Prisoners descend to the ground
floor looking for those willing and able to work
out new elaborations.
Institute of Biological Transactions
The Institute sustains the Voluntary Prisoners
through biological emergencies and physical
and mental crises; it also demonstrates the
harmless nature of mortality.
It is divided into four parts by a cruciform
building. The first part, the hospital, contains
the complete arsenal of modern healing, but is
devoted to a radical deescalation of the medi-
cal process, to the abolition of the compulsive
rage to heal. No forced heartbeats here, no
chemical invasions, no sadistic extensions
of life. This new strategy lowers the average
life expectancy and with it, senility, physical
decay, nausea, and exhaustion. In fact,
patients here will be “healthy.
The hospital is a sequence of pavilions,
each devoted to a particular disease. They are
connected by a medical boulevard -a slow-
moving belt that displays the sick in a contin-
uous procession, with a group of dancing
nurses in transparent uniforms, medical
equipment disguised as totem poles, and rich
perfumes that suppress the familiar stench
of healing, in an almost festive atmosphere of
operatic melodies.
Doctors select their patients from this belt,
invite them to their individual pavilions, test
their vitality, and almost playfully administer
their (medical) knowledge. If they fail, the
patient is returned to the conveyer; perhaps
another doctor tries the patient, but it soon
becomes apparent that the belt leads beyond
the pavilions, through the cruciform building,
and straight into the cemetery.
The mood here is continuously festive.
The same smells, the same ethereal dance,
are made still more human by the contrast
between the ruthlessly formallay out of the
plots and the unnaturalness of the dark green
shrubbery.
In another part of the square, the Three
Palaces of Birth, there is a statistical balance
between births and deaths. The physical prox-
imity of these events suggests the consolation
of a causal relationship between the two, a
gentle relay. The lowering of the average life
expectancy creates an ambitious urgency; it
does not allow the luxuries of underexploited
brains, the artificial prolongation of childish-
ness or wasted adolescence. The Three
Palaces of Birth will also care for babies, edu-
cating them and turning them into small
adults who -at the earliest possible date -
can activefy participate in life in the Strip.
In the fourth part, mental patients will be
on display as in former days, not as them-
selves but as part of a well-produced exhibi-
tion of their delusions, sustained by the most
advanced technical equipment: an infinite
number of Napoleons, Florence Nightingales,
Einsteins, Jesus Christs, and Joans of Arc,
all in their custom-made uniforms.
Finally, the cruciform building, which sepa-
rates the four compartments, contains the
archives- records of all vital facts, develop-
ments, and life incidents of past and present
Prisoners. Bureaucracy, so often criticized
for its passion for control, contempt for
privacy, and moral blindness, guarantees the
Prisoners a new kind of immortality: this
statistical treasure, linked to the most imagi-
native computers, produces not only instant
biographies of the dead in seconds, but also
premature biographies of the living -mixtures
of facts and ruthless extrapolations -used
here as essential instruments for plotting a
course and planning the future.
Park of Aggression
In this recreational area, rudimentary struc-
tures were erected to correct and channel
aggressive desires into creative confronta-
tions. The unfolding ego/world dialectic
generates the continuous emergence of con-
flicting ideologies. Their imposed coexistence
invokes childish dreams and the desire to play.
The Park is a reservoir of sustained tension
waiting to be released, a gigantic playground
of flexible dimensions to accommodate the
Strip’s only sport: aggression.
Here, conflicts are reenacted: the staged
battles dissolve the corrosive hysteria of good
manners. On an individual level, the Park is
a sanatorium where patients recover from
remnants of Old World infections: hypocrisy
and genocide. The diagnoses provide richer
forms of intercourse.
The most prominent edifices are the
two towers. One is infinite, a continuous
spiral; the other, consisting of 42 platforms,
has a familiar architectural style. Magnetic
fields between these towers create a tension
that mirrors the psychological motivations
of their users.
Entry to the Park is free, and performances
are continuous; visitors arrive alone, in pairs,
or in small groups. The aggressive confidence
of the players compensates for the electrifying
uncertainty about the safety of the square
tower. Inside the tower are shelves containing
cells where visitors withdraw to vent sup-
pressed hatred, freely abusing each other.
But these private antagonists are also
spectators: the shelves serve as viewing gal-
leries which overlook the larger platforms of
the tower, provoking visitors to join groups
involved in unknown physical transactions
below. As remnants of shyness are overcome,
visitors add their private energies to this
incredibly demanding and mutant form of
social behavior. In an agitated sleep, they
ascend the tower; as they pierce each floor,
their view of the activity below improves, and
around the architecture of great height they
experience an exhilarating new sensation
of the unfolding spectacle.
As their tower leans forward, they push
their antagonist into an abysmal fall through
the relentless spiral of introspection. Its
digestive movements consume excessive
softness: it is the combustion chamber for
the fat underneath the skin. The human
missiles, helped by centrifugal acceleration,
escape through a chosen opening in the walls
of the spiral. They are objects of terrifying
energy released into a trajectory of irresistible
temptations.
The entire surface of the Park -the air
above and the cavities below -becomes a full-
scale battlefield. As the operations continue
into the night they take on the appearance of
hallucinatory celebrations against the back-
drop of an abandoned world of calculated
extermination and polite immobility.
As they return from their nocturnal adven-
ture, the visitors celebrate their collective
victories in a gigantic arena that crosses the
Park diagonally.
The Allotments
To recover in privacy from the demands of
intense collectivism, each Voluntary Prisoner
has a small piece of land for private cultiva-
tion. The houses on these Allotments are built
from the most lush and expensive materials
(marble, chromium, steel); they are small
palaces for the people. On a shamelessly sub-
liminal level this simple architecture succeeds
in its secret ambition to instill gratitude and
contentment.
The Allotments are well supervised so
that both external and internal disturbances
can be avoided, or at least quickly suppressed.
Media intake in this area is nil. Papers are
banned, radios mysteriously out-of-order, the
whole concept of “news” ridiculed by the
patient devotion with which the plots are
plowed; the surfaces are scrubbed, polished,
and embellished.
Time has been suppressed.
Nothing ever happens here, yet the air is
heavy with exhilaration.
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