Living-Fence_klein

Im Rahmen des von den Urbanophilen Nikolai Roskamm und Stefan Höffken geleiteten städtebaulichen Workshops Warschau – Berlin an der TU Berlin und der Politechnika Warschau entstanden neben städtebaulichen Entwürfen auch kritische Auseinandersetzungen mit der aktuellen gesellschaftlichen Situation in Warschau. Einer der Studierenden, Mateusz Maj, beschreibt im folgenden Artikel eine daraus resultierende Idee, um auf die zunehmenden Gated Communities in der Region Warschau zu antworten. Der Natolin Reactor als künstlerisch-kreative Aktion, soll einen kritischen Blick werfen und Anstoss zu einer Debatte um die zunehmende Privatisierung und Abgrenzung des öffentlichen Raumes in Warschau geben.

//Gastbeitrag von Mateusz Maj//

The life in Warsaw suburbs changed in the last years. Gated communities bloom. Dealing with the Przy Ba?ºantarni Street Natolin – a district of Warsaw – our group dealt with the topic of gating the private space. Analyzing the history and the current situation we developed the NATOLIN REACTOR – a part of which was the Living Fence Day.

Current Situation

The area is in one of Warsaw”s dormitory districts – the landscape consists of panel-formed housing from the “80s, gated and semi-gated communities from the “90s, all patched up with spontaneous forms of commercial and public land-use (Link zu Google Maps).

Existierende Zäune

Existing Fences in the area

The historical axis – the Przy Ba?ºantarni Street, an axis of the 18th century palatial-park complex in the east, is interrupted by a crossing with a transit route and a gated community. And the palatial-park complex itself is a compound with limited access, hidden behind a fence with a gatehouse full of security guards.

area_natolin

The historical axis (dotted) and the gated community (blue) as a barrier.

The aim of the Workshop Team

It is clear, that any attempts to create a lively city street in this location are pointless. A certain recreational character, with elements of local services (educational and religious among them), is already visible. It would be interesting, to sustain this character instead of reconstructing an image from a long lost past or creating a new, fake image demented from reality or local society”s expectations.

Living Fence Day
Living Fence Day is created through the reactory strategy. The fences in the area reduce the open space and limit the opportunities of urban life. A “flash mob”-like event will create human fences (much like human-shields) shutting off all of the remaining open space in the area. This provocative idea is to open the discussion on the “gated community” problem.

… and the Fence Exposition

Fence Expo is a continuation of the Living Fence Day concept but with a more permanent characteristic. It is also a proliferation of an exposition started here in the ’90 by one of the construction companies operating world-wide (a gated community was fenced with an acoustic barrier painted in the company’s color as a presentation of
their advanced technology). The consensus concerning the commercial/artistic character of our exposition (should people be able to choose/buy a fence for their gated community?) was never reached. However, we managed to define it’s idea of pastiche. Contrary to open critique or parody, pastiche is inducing reflective thoughts and more subversive critic.

Fence Expo is a continuation of the Living Fence Day concept but with
more permanent characteristics. It is also a proliferation of an
exposition started here in the '90 by one of the construction
companies operating world-wide (a gated community was fenced with an
acoustic barrier painted in the company's color as a presentation of
their advanced technology).
The consensus concerning the commercial/artistic character of our
exposition (should people be able to choose/buy a fence for their
gated community?) was never reached.
However, we managed to define it's idea of pastiche. Contrary to open
critique or parody, pastiche is inducing reflective thought only in
those capable of it, without outraging the others (it can keep an
illusion of being dead serious).
We have experienced a small part of a stir the instalation would have
caused at the presentation ending the workshops.