Apartment Block Stories - The art of the archive
Zervou Angeliki, Mpiza Marina 2005
To choose, collect, store and archive constitute fundamental activities, not only in science and social institutions, but also in everyday life and in art. As a functional way of organizing memory, the archive preserves objects and ideas in time, and allows for their future recalling for study or pleasure.
Contemporary artistic projects involve the archive as an artistic method of critical investigation of reality and sees in this method the involvement of architecture as structure and as spatial metaphor.
The archive contains stories that are related to the entranceways of apartment buildings as well as proposals for their redesigning. The communal entranceways of apartment buildings in the center of Patras are places of chance meetings among people, between the private and public sphere. How does the apartment block tenant or visitor experience the entranceway? In what way can these spaces take on a different character and function as spaces for social encounters and activities?
"column/collector" in the entrance
interaction with building's tenants
We worked on a typical apartment building of the ‘90s, on Morphou Street in Agiá. We observed a strategy of encounter and dialogue, designing the objects that would create conditions favorable for participation. Aiming to transform the empty space of the entranceway into a live archive of collected stories, we constructed and placed there a “column/collector” which functioned as a collector of ideas, proposals and stories, but also as a means of daily exchanges among the tenants and visitors. We visited the building’s apartments and discussed with the tenants the content of our research and invited them to exchange ideas, attaching to the column texts, sketches, photos or any other medium that would best describe their proposals. Whoever wished to participate was left a card that contained descriptions of the spaces that comprised the entranceway, questions and instructions as to the way the ideas should be attached to the column/collector. The “collector” remained at the building’s entranceway for a fortnight. To choose, collect, store and archive constitute fundamental activities, not only in science and social institutions, but also in everyday life and in art. As a functional way of organizing memory, the archive preserves objects and ideas in time, and allows for their future recalling for study or pleasure.
Contemporary artistic projects involve the archive as an artistic method of critical investigation of reality and sees in this method the involvement of architecture as structure and as spatial metaphor.
The archive contains stories that are related to the entranceways of apartment buildings as well as proposals for their redesigning. The communal entranceways of apartment buildings in the center of Patras are places of chance meetings among people, between the private and public sphere. How does the apartment block tenant or visitor experience the entranceway? In what way can these spaces take on a different character and function as spaces for social encounters and activities?
"column/collector" in the entrance
interaction with building's tenants
tenants' thoughts and ideas
