A dancing centre at the historical slaughterhouse district in Munich, housing a complex of performance, school, production and residency spaces for contemporary dance. The project started with the bodily experience of intimate and public gestures, as well as its transformation into architectonic object.
The concept is to frame the existing halls architectonically by constructing two solid buildings on both ends, protecting its materialised testimony of history as well as preserving the continuity of memory and identity of the place. Existing porous urban structure, ambiguous address, and closed appearance will continue to be present; while existing passageways will weave the new buildings together with the old. The middle hall will be taken down in order to plant a garden: an olfactory object, filled with plants of different heights and colours that change in seasons; a public secret in the city. The bricks from the hall will be broken down and casted in thermo-concrete for the new building, remaining their presence.
I explored the perception of time in architectural spaces, which is especially articulated in inner passageways of various lengths and atmospheres. In the design process, I imagined experiencing the house at different times scenically, in the constant change of natural and artificial sounds and lights. I documented time embodied in building materials, memory of bricks, while trying to care for the fragility of industrial structures with new architecture.
Figure ground plan 1:2500
The site for the dancing centre in Munich is located at the historical slaughterhouse district. The program is a complex of performance, school, production, residency spaces for contemporary dance. The project starts with the body experience of intimate and public gestures, as well as its transformation into an architectonic object
Surrounding Model 1:500
I was fascinated by the fragments of existing brick walls on site, as well as the incredible atmosphere of the existing halls once used for livestock trading, which has a closed appearance to the city, seeming to be an extension of the wall.The history and the echoes of time are imprinted in every piece of brick, becoming textures, colours and imperfections. One piece of the wall encloses a void at the street corner of Zenettistraße and Thalkirchnerstraße, continuously used for temporary functions such as parking lots, waiting for something.
Existing Siteplan 1:1000
Intervention Siteplan 1:1000
The architectonic idea derives from these observations. Two solid and heavy buildings will be built at the end of the existing halls, as if a frame that protects the history-imprinted architectural structure. The one to the street will fill up the void in the wall. One of the four halls will be demolished where a garden will be planted. The existing concrete canopy remains as a slight gap between the old and the new, which also functions as passageway entering into the complex, which has a familiar dimension of the often-found passageways in the area. In this way, the porosity of the urban structure continues. There is not a clear address to the dancing centre, rather it is an open structure, a public secret in the city. The closeness to the city of the existing hall remains in the new buildings, which are the intimate spaces in the dancing center. They are solid structures that protects the public space, the garden, the heart of the complex. Long linear passageways are the spaces inbetween. While the buildings are open to the garden.
Concept Model (plaster, steel, wax)
The intimate spaces are like massive walls that surround the public space, the garden and the adjacent spaces. Inbetween there are the linear connecting passageways, which are like the skeleton of the building.
I imagine the garden as an olfactory object, filled with plants of different heights and colours, creating different relationships between the four parts of the complex while holding them together. From the windows looking to the courtyard, the garden is like a framed painting that constantly changes in different time and positions. Rainwater is collected from all the roofs into the pond at the centre of the garden.
Material Collage 1:5 (concrete, brick)
The brick from the demolishment of the existing hall will be used again in the thermo concrete for the new building.
Collage of snapshots from the existing wall subjective perception of passageways
The passageways that weave the complex together, takes 1:10 minutes and 2:40 minutes to walk through. I imagine the walking through to be a scenic experience, of constant change of artificial and natural sound and light. Even in the repetition of the daily routine of dancer, it’s always a different experience. The aspect of intensively experiencing space in time, has been significant for me in my experience as a dancer.
When the camera of the phone is pushed towards the existing brick wall so closely, a whole world appears on it with a different scale. Everything is already there. Materials, textures, landscapes, shadows, moving figures, horses, plants, bricks etc.. In a long collage of photos, I tried to construct the subjective and sensual experiencing of the passageway. From the city into the wall, through the bricks, windows, glances, lights, arcades, garden, and again into the dim light, narrowness, until, one find oneself under the blue sky.
I imagine a house
as a frame
out of massive stones
So massive
that even steel bends
into soft angles
like spine of the body
A house that frames the time passed by
frames the moving body at this moment
the intangibility
frames the old halls
frames a garden
frames an intimate thought
an emotion
a flower
a stone
an effort used to put up a stone
the crying of a cow
a dream
a laughter
a tender heart
a fragile moment
At dawn
At day
At dusk
At night
At 3 am in the morning
there is always a light lit up somewhere in the house
midday and midnight
A house of an archive of time
First built in 1912
Destroyed in the war in 1945
rebuilt
extended
renovated
It will be partially torn down
and extended
If a brick has a memory
it has lived through all time
and become part of the time
Walking through the house
is a travel of time
Everything is already there on the wall
a texture
a color
a sentence
a mountain
a landscape
a piece of sky
a silhouette of a shadow
a memory
Dance
is a travel of time
As the body has a memory
from the beginning of human existence
Dancing
or watching someone dancing
What is dance
how can we define a movement as dance
and another one not
It’s the blick
the space that frames around it
Architectonic Object
Research on the spatial configuration of intimate, public and inbetween spaces
A fluid space in the space. Borders between spaces are dissolved into a series of net structure of different density in favour of intimacy. Intimate spaces are the floating enclosed masses, around which the spatial structure develops. Towards the periphery, the inbetween spaces emerge, as the enclosure becomes less dense, the space more transparent and readable; yet the space get narrower, so the intimacy is kept safe. The public spaces are shaped between the enclosure and the outer skin of the spatial structure, zoned by the enclosed spaces, while being almost transparent to the outside.
Intimate Spaces
The intimate spaces are the core of the spatial structure. Massive and solid, yet they have the softness of a human body, as if a womb. The spaces are separated from each other, and vary in its dimension, openness and form, carved for the individual needs. They vibrate together with the body inside, as a beat echoes for seconds.
Inbetween Spaces
The inbetween spaces are tensed linear structures that hold the intimate spaces. They are corridors of different length and width, in different directions. One has the sensation of going upwards and downwards, even if the ground is even. There are light/no light, end/no end. The sensations of arriving and leaving are always different.
Public Spaces
The spaces are airy and hell; it’s hard to perceive when it starts and ends, the opposite of intimate space. Yet after the long corridors, one is prepared for the change. The air seems lighter than before, while the sounds become an ambient noise, it’s hard to tell where does a sound comes from.