Speakers Murray Fraser & Eva Branscome
Date 14.4.2023
Time HKT 10:30 am - 12:00 nn
Location Zone F, CUHK School of Architecture
"Creative Design in the Reuse of Historic Buildings and Urban Areas" by Murray Fraser
The leading French architects, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, have for years practiced the mantra that we must never demolish buildings, only transform and reuse them. It is a policy now openly echoed by the deputy urban planner of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire. Indeed, many are claiming that it is the only possible position to take in an age so worried about human-driven climate change. Yet is the move towards the refurbishment of buildings due to an ethical impulse, or about something broader? This lecture will examine historical changes in attitude towards the reuse of buildings in Europe, linking this also to trends now taking place elsewhere, including Hong Kong and China. What is proposed is that reuse is in fact being driven by the realisation that the very best contemporary designs are those which involve alterations to existing structures, as evidenced by projects by Herzog & de Meuron, Atelier Deshaus and others.
Professor Murray Fraseris Professor of Architecture and Global Culture at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture, and former-Chair of the Society of Architectural Historians GB. He is General Editor of the 21st Edition of Sir Banister Fletcher’s Global History of Architecture (2020), awarded the SAHGB’s Colvin Prize. He also received the 2018 RIBA Annie Spink Award.
"Berlin: The City of Unforgetting" by Eva Branscome
Berlin is in a process of continuous construction. While some structures are being cleared away, the city is also rebuilding many that were destroyed long ago. This raises the question of how these ‘new’ urban replicas relate to Berlin’s here-and-now. How do they navigate between pathos and nostalgia on the one hand, and truth and authenticity on the other? To examine this persisting identity crisis, the lecture discusses four distinctive conditions within Berlin’s built heritage: penance (Nazi Germany and Germania); humiliation (ruination during the Second World War); embarrassment (post-war division into East and West); and national pride (reunification in the 1990s). Which histories are being foregrounded, which ones are eclipsed, and is the compulsion for reconstruction in Berlin in fact creating an architecture of denial? Which parts of the city do we need to remember, and which parts of the city is it alright, or even a good thing, to forget?
Dr Eva Branscomeis an Associate Professor at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture. Originally trained as an interior architect, her research work follows two strands: the links between built heritage and cultural practices in contemporary cities, and the modern architectural history of Central Europe. She is the author of Hans Hollein and Postmodernism (2018), the first major monograph on that Austrian architect-artist.
