WAR AND ARCHITECTURE -
PAMPHLET ARCHITECTRUE 15 - PRINCETON ARCHITECTURAL PRESS
LEBBEUS WOODS
BUILDING EXISTENTIAL REMNANTS OF WARS:
"where ever buildings are broken by the explosion of bombs, altillery shells, by fire or structural collapse, their form must be respected as an integrity, embodying a history that must not be denied. in their damaged states they suggest new forms of thought and comprihension, and suggest a new concept of space that confirm the potential of human integrity itselfy, to be the whole and free outside of any predetermined totalizing system. the new spaces of habitation constructed on remnants of war do not celebrate the distruction of an established order, nor do they symbolize or commemorate it. rather they accept with a certain pride what has been suffered and lost, but also what has been gained. they build upon the shattered form of the old order a new catagory of order inherent only in present conditions, within which existence feels its strength , acknowledges its vulnerabilities and failures, and faces up to the need to invent itself as though for the first time, thus seizing the means to contineously refresh and revitalize itself. there is an ethical and moral commitment in such an existence, and therefore a basis for community."
INJECTIONS:
"In the spaces voided by destruction, new structures are injected. complete in themselves, they do not make exact fit, but exixt as spaces within spaces, making no attempt to reconcile the gaps between what is new and old, between two radically different systems of spatial order and of thought. these gaps can onlybe filled in time. the new structure s contain free spaces, the forms of which don not invite occupation with the oldparaphernelia of living, the iold ways of living and thinking. they are infact difficult to occupy and require inventiveness in everyday living to in order to become habitable."
PAMPHLET ARCHITECTRUE 15 - PRINCETON ARCHITECTURAL PRESS
LEBBEUS WOODS
BUILDING EXISTENTIAL REMNANTS OF WARS:
"where ever buildings are broken by the explosion of bombs, altillery shells, by fire or structural collapse, their form must be respected as an integrity, embodying a history that must not be denied. in their damaged states they suggest new forms of thought and comprihension, and suggest a new concept of space that confirm the potential of human integrity itselfy, to be the whole and free outside of any predetermined totalizing system. the new spaces of habitation constructed on remnants of war do not celebrate the distruction of an established order, nor do they symbolize or commemorate it. rather they accept with a certain pride what has been suffered and lost, but also what has been gained. they build upon the shattered form of the old order a new catagory of order inherent only in present conditions, within which existence feels its strength , acknowledges its vulnerabilities and failures, and faces up to the need to invent itself as though for the first time, thus seizing the means to contineously refresh and revitalize itself. there is an ethical and moral commitment in such an existence, and therefore a basis for community."
INJECTIONS:
"In the spaces voided by destruction, new structures are injected. complete in themselves, they do not make exact fit, but exixt as spaces within spaces, making no attempt to reconcile the gaps between what is new and old, between two radically different systems of spatial order and of thought. these gaps can onlybe filled in time. the new structure s contain free spaces, the forms of which don not invite occupation with the oldparaphernelia of living, the iold ways of living and thinking. they are infact difficult to occupy and require inventiveness in everyday living to in order to become habitable."
