Assemblages: Interventions in the city's "vacant" spaces
Zervou Angeliki, Pyrlis Agis 2005
In the context of contemporary perceptions regarding the practice of ‘space reuse’, which do not associate the term with a specific, rigid content, but rather view it as an ‘open’ condition wherein to examine the relation between space and meaning, the group’s aim was to explore spatial meaning and styles of urban dwelling.
The city is a backdrop for various styles of dwelling that may often fail to correspond to the purpose programmatically laid out for specific spaces at the stage of urban planning. These alternative styles are often unpredictable and may create conditions of semiotic or topical ‘alterity’. Spaces and locations whose identity is clear and whose character has already been determined and classified within the larger system of urban reality, may at some point become ‘disengaged’ from this particular reality. The possibility of such disengagement depends mainly on spatial conditions that are specific to them, as well as on the particular conditions that govern the way these are being inhabited. Their ‘disengagement’ suggests a break from common urban practice, which gives them a new character and turns them into spaces that are to be explored anew; spaces that may be conducive to alternative styles of dwelling. For instance, such spaces may include existing shells that are either still in use, or have fallen into disuse, sections of the city that have not yet been developed, parts of urban infrastructure, factories, port facilities, etc. It is not the fact that they may no longer serve their original purpose, or that they may have been abandoned that invests them with this new quality, but rather the dynamics developed as a result of the citizen’s physical-experiential engagement with the city.
The general term assemblage is used to describe a condition of synthesis that brings together different spatial elements and qualities into the character of certain spaces.
The city is a backdrop for various styles of dwelling that may often fail to correspond to the purpose programmatically laid out for specific spaces at the stage of urban planning. These alternative styles are often unpredictable and may create conditions of semiotic or topical ‘alterity’. Spaces and locations whose identity is clear and whose character has already been determined and classified within the larger system of urban reality, may at some point become ‘disengaged’ from this particular reality. The possibility of such disengagement depends mainly on spatial conditions that are specific to them, as well as on the particular conditions that govern the way these are being inhabited. Their ‘disengagement’ suggests a break from common urban practice, which gives them a new character and turns them into spaces that are to be explored anew; spaces that may be conducive to alternative styles of dwelling. For instance, such spaces may include existing shells that are either still in use, or have fallen into disuse, sections of the city that have not yet been developed, parts of urban infrastructure, factories, port facilities, etc. It is not the fact that they may no longer serve their original purpose, or that they may have been abandoned that invests them with this new quality, but rather the dynamics developed as a result of the citizen’s physical-experiential engagement with the city.
The general term assemblage is used to describe a condition of synthesis that brings together different spatial elements and qualities into the character of certain spaces.
An assemblage presupposes pointing out those elements and qualities; creating, in other words, a small list that describes the selected spaces; examining in depth the meaning of the ‘words’ that make up this list; creating yet another list that enumerates the proposed interventions and, finally, creating and intermediary list that reveals and explains the successive meanings associated with the original ‘words’ so as to lead to the meanings implied in the interventions.‘Words’ may refer to actual words, with all their various connotations, as well as other ways of formulating meaning, such as diagrams, abstract models, text excerpts, etc.
