Berlin's Vanishing Points: this (k)not the horizon
by Marcelyn Gow
In the case of the horizon the point of departure is, in some instances, the vanishing point.
The act of speculation produces deformations in the urban scape. Speculation refers here to conjecture regarding the potential value of a particular site at some future moment in time as well as referring to the specular condition of vision (i.e. obtained by reflection only; having the reflecting property of a mirror). The current speculation of investors with interests in the rapidly developing new Capitol of Germany (Berlin) extends beyond the large scale urban projects planned for Alexanderplatz, Pariserplatz, the Spreebogen, and Potsdamerplatz and into more localized areas in the districts which comprised the center of former East Berlin. One such area is the Spandauer Vorstadt in Berlin Mitte, encompassing the series of blocks extending North and West of the Rosenthalerplatz, bounded by the district of Wedding on the North and Friedrichstrasse on the West. Ackerstrasse, the site of speculation, cuts diagonally through this area linking the Scheunenviertel in the south to Wedding, where the project this is (k)not the horizon explores the concept of dislocation.
Ackerstrasse serves as a case study which typifies the changing face of Berlin and the migration of micro-communities within the urban realm; the condition of the community and its re-definition are examined through a series of transformations upon a photographed horizon. Traditionally the perspectival vanishing point is located on the horizontal axis. The (k)notted horizon is the coexistence of both a perspectival datum, which is produced in the photographic projection, and a lowered horizon, which occupies the space where facade and groundplane intersect. This is in opposition to the convential reference system based upon the meeting point of the sky and the built fabric. One block of the Ackerstrasse is isolated photographically from its context and reconfigured about The (k)notted horizontal axis. The horizon describes the limits of the visual realm, and in so doing frames the conceptual space where the notion of the real and fictive interface.
The pin hole camera is employed as the tool of documentation due to its specular qualities. The inverted negative image produced by direct exposure onto photosensitive paper is a mirroring of the positive image which is perceived by the eye without the mediation of the photographic apparatus. The pin hole camera is a darkened receptacle into which light enters through a single hole. The pervasive darkness within the camera is interrupted only by the entry of reflected light from the space outside. This light carries an image of the exterior into the camera, and registers on all surfaces excluding the perforated plane. Due to the behavior of light passing through an aperature, the projected image is inverted and thereby transformed from its original reading. The camera is a model of ocular mechanics. The perspectival vanishing point of the projected image coincides with the cameraâs aperature, hence the inscription of a new horizon internal to the image. When the camera box is cut and unfolded along a line passing through the aperature, a severing and splitting open of the perspectival vanishing point occurs. The cylindrical pin hole camera is perforated along the longitudinal axis of its side and placed with this axis in a horizontal position. Convergence of the photographic image is therefore organized along a vertical axis. The perspectival horizon of the photograph intersects that which is defined by the meeting point of the facade and the groundplane.
The (k)notted horizon acts as a datum which graphically organizes the disparate components comprising the Ackerstrasse. The streetâs uneven character or contrast owes to the presence of occupied commercial and residential properties adjacent to voids left by destruction in the war and post-war period. The uneveness of the block is both programatically and physically evidenced. Newly renovated buildings stand beside those which remain essentially unaltered since the time of their construction. Discontinuity is a product not only of the physical absence of structure in some parts of the block, but also of the various stages of a transformative process which leave their mark both on the architecture of the street as well as in the social fabric of this urban space. The present marks of juxtaposition are increasingly obscured with time and urban renewal initiatives, homogenizing the city, and this block. The establishment of an infrastructure to support the German government in the new Capitol of Berlin necessitates a massive transformation in the urban fabric. One part of this transformation is the creation of residential districts to house the influx of a new population. The dissolution of the existing community, due to an increase in property values and rising rents, is symptomatic of a larger scale transition and economic dislocation with in the city as a whole.
Serving as a model for contemporary urban strategies in Berlin, a theoretical transformation in the project This is (k)not the horizon, is enacted through a series of twenty-seven pin hole cameras, each of which captures one image of the block. The entire block is packaged as a continuous string of images fifteen meters long. A horizontal axis (defined by the intersection of vertical facade and the groundplane) is inscribed as a continuous element throughout the series of images and acts as a datum about which the documentation of individual pieces slip_. Rotation of the cylindrical camera produces a change in the level of the groundplane within each exposure. This act of mechanically dislocating the horizon refers to the redefinition of Berlinâs horizon as a whole due to the large scale interventions currently being carried out on its surface (the Potsdamerplatz being perhaps the most extreme example of this horizon- altering process), situating the project as a paralell dislocation for urban transformations presently ocurring within the city.
The specular aspect of the pin hole camera, an image reversal produced in each exposure and thus the series as a whole, resituates the entire block of Ackerstrasse. The North and South extremities of the street exchange places. This reversal of elements induces the vertiginous effect of experiencing a portion of the city turned inside out. The block is reconfigured as a series in which perspectival discontinuities as well as the reversal of the block itself, reposition and dislocate the viewer in respect to the urban space. The project operates via the mechanism of correspondence between transformations on a localized scale and transformations which have impact on a more extensive scale, but does not provide answers to a localized problematic. Rather, the (k)notted horizon attempts to stimulate an awareness of the contemporary dilemmas engendered through massive urban reorganizations.
The project this is (k)not the horizon was produced as part of the exhibition Phototrope in Milchhof e.v. Berlin in June 1996. Marcelyn Gow holds a Diploma from the Architectural Association in London and is currently engaged in the production of an MFA thesis at Columbia University.