»Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.«

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Blog Building of the Week

Funeral for a Building

Leaving this world in a blaze of glory

  • On the eve of its demise in 2014, an impressive laser and audio installation told the story of the Citytower. (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 1 / 18  On the eve of its demise in 2014, an impressive laser and audio installation told the story of the Citytower. (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • Built in 1974, the Citytower was intended as an icon for Europe’s largest coal mining town: Bergkamen, in Germany’s Ruhr area. (Photo: Rainer Knäpper, Wikimedia Commons, 2009) 2 / 18  Built in 1974, the Citytower was intended as an icon for Europe’s largest coal mining town: Bergkamen, in Germany’s Ruhr area. (Photo: Rainer Knäpper, Wikimedia Commons, 2009)
  • The Citytower’s modern apartments were highly desirable when it was completed, but residents later yearned to escape, and by 2001 it stood completely empty. (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 3 / 18  The Citytower’s modern apartments were highly desirable when it was completed, but residents later yearned to escape, and by 2001 it stood completely empty. (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • Already marked for demolition in 2013, its façade was painted in a matte black shroud for the “farewell performance”... (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 4 / 18  Already marked for demolition in 2013, its façade was painted in a matte black shroud for the “farewell performance”... (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • ...turning the tower into a strange, abstract sculpture by day... (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 5 / 18  ...turning the tower into a strange, abstract sculpture by day... (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • ...absorbing all light... (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 6 / 18  ...absorbing all light... (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • ... symbolising the obliteration of its life ... (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 7 / 18  ... symbolising the obliteration of its life ... (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • ... and turning it into a projection screen at night ... (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 8 / 18  ... and turning it into a projection screen at night ... (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • ... for a laser projection that revealed its inner structure. (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 9 / 18  ... for a laser projection that revealed its inner structure. (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • The artistic intervention also featured interviews with former inhabitants, politicians, and social workers... (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 10 / 18  The artistic intervention also featured interviews with former inhabitants, politicians, and social workers... (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • ...who told their personal stories about the tower. (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 11 / 18  ...who told their personal stories about the tower. (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • One could listen to these stories via a pirate radio station which was installed at the top of the tower. (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 12 / 18  One could listen to these stories via a pirate radio station which was installed at the top of the tower. (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • With this performance, the Citytower, for once in its life, did indeed become an icon for Bergkamen... (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 13 / 18  With this performance, the Citytower, for once in its life, did indeed become an icon for Bergkamen... (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • ... attracting a crowd of locals and non-locals alike. (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 14 / 18  ... attracting a crowd of locals and non-locals alike. (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • Yet its fate remained unchanged. (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 15 / 18  Yet its fate remained unchanged. (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • Its demolition began in 2014...  (Photo: Johannes Marburg) 16 / 18  Its demolition began in 2014...  (Photo: Johannes Marburg)
  • ...and by December, the Citytower was completely gone. (Photo: osa) 17 / 18  ...and by December, the Citytower was completely gone. (Photo: osa)
  • It is slated for replacement by an extension of the adjacent shopping mall, yet another building form past its sell-by date. (Photo: osa) 18 / 18  It is slated for replacement by an extension of the adjacent shopping mall, yet another building form past its sell-by date. (Photo: osa)

Rounding up this month’s After Dark issue, as Building of the Week we’ve chosen the “Citytower” in Bergkamen, Germany – or rather the ex-Citytower, as it was demolished last year. But as you'll see from its story and the accompanying images, the impressive “farewell performance” for this former landmark, created by osa (office for subversive architecture) and Christoph Rodatz in 2013, seemed a fitting carne vale for our current issue.

Bergkamen, a new town in the east of Germany’s Ruhrgebiet, was only founded in 1966, but grew rapidly to become Europe’s largest coal mining town. Yet its fortunes were short-lived. Today, with most of its mines having closed, Bergkamen is one of those Ruhr area cities facing severe challenges in finding a new identity – and economy – after coal. Basically it needs a new raison d‘être. A perfect symbol of its story is the Citytower.

When Bergkamen grew out of five rural villages, a new civic centre was laid out between them, linking the former villages. This encompassed a new city hall, shopping facilites, a central bus station and, of course, the mandatory multi-storey car park. Remember, it was still the age of the autogerechte Stadt – the “automotive city” built around the car. As a landmark for this new development, the Citytower was built in 1974: a contemporary apartment tower, with all mod cons, its 63-metre metal façade looming high over the region like a lookout, offering spectacular panoramic views to its new residents. Not surprisingly, people queued up to get on the list for one of the 150 spanking new apartments.

But when the mines started closing and many people began to leave the city, the Citytower – much like post-war modern architecture as such – lost its glory. In part this was due to poor maintainance, and residents reported that living conditions in the tower had become progressively worse and worse. Thus gradually the tower began emptying out, and its last residents left in November 2000. After that the tower remained empty for 14 years, with the city simply not knowing what to do with it. Finally in 2013, it was sold to a developer commissioned by the city to enlarge the shopping centre, and as a result the tower was scheduled for demolition in 2014.

The artistic intervention also featured interviews with former inhabitants, politicians, and social workers... (Photo: Johannes Marburg)

Before the tower’s end, however, the international art and architecture collective osa – office for subversive architecture – in cooperation with German artist Christoph Rodatz, organised a spectacular event to mark its demise, as part of the light-art festival Urban Lights Ruhr in 2013: a “farewell performance with light and sound”, as they put it. In a piece that they called Discharge/Recharge, they painted the tower a matte black, transforming the metallic icon into a huge shrouded sculpture above the city “expressing the total absorption of light to symbolise the obliteration of [the tower’s] life”. At night the black tower came alive, turning into a huge screen for an elaborate laser projection show, and accompanied by an audio installation that could be listened to on a radio channel broadcasting from the top of the building. These broadcasts told stories from the different stages of the building’s history, including the experiences of the former inhabitants, and of the politicians and social workers involved at some point with its history.

Since this spectacular wake, the Citytower has disappeared without trace, and demolition was completed by the end of 2014.

According to American architecture theorist Charles Jencks, modernism ended on 15th July, 1972 at 3:32 PM, in the dust of the explosions destroying the failed modern housing complex of Pruitt-Igoe in in St. Louis. But in Bergkamen modernism has lived a strange after-life, rearing its head yet again in 1974 an surviving exactly another 40 years – over a third of these spent empty and unloved.

But what is the Citytower’s legacy? What next? Just another (bigger) shopping mall? Is that today’s only vision for tomorrow? Do we learn nothing?

– Florian Heilmeyer

osa-online.net

RECENT POSTS

more

Recent Magazines

25 Apr 2016

Magazine No. 43
Athens

  • essay

    From the Bottom and the Top

    Powering Athens through collectivity and informal initiatives by Cristina Ampatzidou

  • photo essay

    Nowhere Now Here

    A photo essay by Yiorgis Yerolymbos

  • Essay

    Back to the Garden

    Athens and opportunities for new urban strategies by Aristide Antonas

  • Interview

    Point Supreme

    An interview by Ellie Stathaki

>

03 Mar 2016

Magazine No. 42
Walk the Line

  • Essay

    The Line Connects

    An essay on drawing and architectural education by Wes Jones

  • Essay

    Drawing Attention

    Phineas Harper sketches out new narrative paths with pencil power

  • Essay

    Gotham

    Elvia Wilk on a city of shadows as architectural fiction

  • Interview

    The (Not So) Fine Line

    A conversation thread between Sophie Lovell and architecture cartoonist Klaus

>

28 Jan 2016

Magazine No. 41
Zvi Hecker

  • essay

    Space Packers

    Zvi Hecker’s career-defining partnership with Eldar Sharon and Alfred Neumann by Rafi Segal

  • Interview

    Essentially I am a Medieval Architect

    An interview with Zvi Hecker by Vladimir Belogolovsky

  • viewpoint

    The Technion Affair

    Breaking and entering in the name of architectural integrity by Zvi Hecker

  • Photo Essay

    Revisiting Yesterday’s Future

    A photo essay by Gili Merin

>

17 Dec 2015

Magazine No. 40
Iceland

  • Viewpoint

    Wish You Were Here

    Arna Mathiesen asks: Refinancing Iceland with tourism – but at what cost?

  • Photo Essay

    Spaces Create Bodies, Bodies Create Space

    An essay by Ólafur Elíasson

  • Focus

    Icelandic Domestic

    Focus on post-independence houses by George Kafka

  • Essay

    The Harp That Sang

    The saga of Reykjavík's Concert Hall by Sophie Lovell & Fiona Shipwright

>

more

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST Close

Uncube is brandnew and wants to look good.
For best performance please update your browser.
Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer 10 (or higher), Safari, Chrome, Opera

×