on-going research project

As the west façade of Unité d’Habitation Typ Berlin (completed in 1957 ) has been renovated, all the original perforated concrete elements from the loggia have been demolished and replaced by new ones.

Our project examines the material afterlife of modern construction through fragments of these concrete balustrade blocks. Originally they are prefabricated as standardized elements of a postwar housing façade,  mediating safety, privacy, light, air, and everyday life. Today, removed during processes of renovation and renewal, they appear as fragments detached from their original system.

The project focuses on concrete not as a neutral building material, but as a layered substance. In postwar Germany, rubbles from wartime destruction was widely crushed and reused as aggregate in new construction. The fragments shown here thus carry a plausible, compressed history of destruction, reconstruction, the recent renovation and its irreversible consequences. We are interested in how such living relics embody both continuity and transformation within the context of habitation.