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from zero gravity
catalogue
High-rise
buildings in modern satellite towns conjure up one clear image in
everyone's mind, a picture of anonymous concrete buildingsseparated
by bits of parkland in the no man's land of the suburbs. Colourful
balconies might hope to provide a sense of variety, yet, in the
end, the image is dominated by a battery of rubbish skips and rampaging
graffiti. What architects like Le Corbusier considered a revolution
in housing construction now seems like a failed project. The high-rise
has become a symbol of the social coldness of capitalist society.
Jakob Kolding grew up in one such place, the satellite town of Albertslund
near Copenhagen. It is a designed living environment complete down
to the last detail, with an integrated school, kindergarten, supermarket
and hospital. In his collages, Kolding describes these conditions
by juxtaposing starkly contrasting motifs. Photographs of adventure
playgrounds in front of high-rises are combined with images of DJs,
skateboarders and football fans. Plain titles from sociological
studies appear next to fetish objects from subculture such as turntables,
sound mixers or drum machines. Some of the images are from the 60s
or 70s, such as a photograph of city planners with Beatles haircuts
busily hunched over architectural models, while pinpointing other
images is almost impossible. Like the high-rises themselves, much
seems to remain in the timelessness and placelessness of a bizarre
architectural utopia.
Kolding's collages appear minimal. In many cases he places his material
in succinctly simple arrangements. Empty spaces remain where they
are. Elsewhere he links texts and images in dynamic compositions
reminiscent of the visual language of El Lissitzky or Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
With playful juxtapositions of negatively and positively laden motifs
Ð images of dismal concrete buildings next to images of lively subcultures
and architects at work - he produces a surprising ambiguity. Has
the utopia of the integrated high-rise really failed? Or does the
geometry of the architecture still retain its charm? Is the inorganic
quality of their formal language, for instance, not also fascinating
in terms of electronic music (produced often enough by the children
of satellite towns)?
At the moment when a general public has apparently shelved the designs
of the 60s as failed projects, Kolding reopens their history and
brings them back into the discussion. The question Kolding raises
is whether a form of architecture judged to be inhumane does not
actually create unexpected freedom. He consciously leaves the answer
hanging in the air.
by
Jan Verwoert
from Zero Gravity catalogue, Kunstverein DŸsseldorf
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