Art visual np2

After Interaction Between the Elements , here is another project by Rietveld Landscape I wanted to publish. Bunker 599 + 603 is the story of a Matta Clarkian cut in the middle of a bunker on the Dutch coast. The most massive and close architecture thus becomes permeable and proposes to the viewer, a three dimensional section of this mass of concrete. Here is the official text related to the project: Bunker 599 + 603 This project lays bare two secrets of the New Dutch Waterline (NDW), a military line of defence in use from 1815 until 1940 protecting the cities of Muiden, Utrecht, Vreeswijk and Gorinchem by means of intentional flooding. A seemingly indestructible bunker with monumental status is sliced open. The design thereby opens up the minuscule interior of one of NDW’s 700 bunkers, the insides of which are normally cut off from view completely. In addition, a long wooden boardwalk cuts through the extremely heavy construction. It leads visitors to a flooded area and...

Nébuleuse is a photographic work by Guillaume Amat investigating the strange territory of the French Atlantic coasts and its military ruins from World War II, bunkers. The atmosphere of the photographs helps to compose a foggy heterotopia where those bunkers appears as monolithic artifacts within an infinite sand landscape. This work integrates perfectly the series of article written about bunkers on boiteaoutils and that can be read by following this link . Here is the text related to the series (nb: the complete series has to be seen of Guillaume Amat's own website ): Nébuleuse In April 2007, in a muffled silence, the sea disappeared, as if vanished, leaving behind only ghosts of stone. These Blockhaus, remains of World War II, slowly digested by the tides turned out to be threatening places of refuge in the middle of an unexplored desert. A haunting wind is sweeping along the coast and wrapping distant figures. In the open sea, one could hear the muffled sound of a foghorn ver...

Almost as a sequel of the article I wrote about the notion of Urbicide, here is a invitation to read Andrew Herscher 's essay, Violence Taking Place. The architecture of the Kosovo conflict which attempts to illustrate the role of architecture destruction in the second conflict of the Balkans in the 90's (the first one being the Bosnia war). In fact, destructing buildings in an asymmetrical conflict is not anymore a strategy of diminution of the enemy's forces but rather a symbolic negation of the otherness' culture and to a broader scale, the otherness' existence. Herscher thus recounts the three phases of the Kosovo conflict which all dramatized this perspective on architecture assassination. The first one (1st and 2nd images) is the 1998 series of attacks, massacres and profanation from (Christians) Serbians towards (Muslims) Albanians in Kosovo. The second one was the surgical bombing of Belgrade by NATO (3rd image) targeting not only political objectives but al...

I've been recently interested in camouflage in architecture and I excerpted the following documents from two books: - Camouflage by Tim Newark. Thames and Hudson 2007 - Industrial Camouflage Manual. Pratt Institute 1942 When the first one (fourth first pictures) attempts to explore camouflage as much in military than in the animal world and in art, the second one was developed during the Second World War and was interestingly enough, intended to participate to the war effort. I let you discover those pages that speak for themselves...

This project has been posted by Lebbeus Woods on his blog a year and half ago and it certainly catch my interest for walls, borders and labyrinth. As a matter of fact, this project gathers those three typologies in one as a poetical response to the Bosnian war of 1992-93. Lebbeus Woods imagines this monumental wall all around Bosnia which does not forbid its entry but rather make it more difficult by the experience of this labyrinth. He narrates how this giant edifice would ultimately becomes a whole city (probably started by people who never found the exit). His text can be read on his blog but another explanatory paragraph deserve attention when Woods answers to a criticism of a comment posted on it: "You are certainly correct in saying that the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was not as simple as my project seems to suggest. However, there were trench lines around Sarajevo, manned by the Bosnian army and Sarajevo citizens, and these prevented the Bosnian Serb military forces ...

picture: Gaza after the 2008 Israeli Siege. Getty Images Here is a small text I recently wrote about the notion of urbicide. It includes a digest of Eyal Weizman's lecture about Forrensic Architecture I had the chance to attend both in New York and in Bethlehem. Despite of the fact that this strategy has been always occurring in history, the notion of urbicide has been invented by the former Mayor of Belgrade, Bogdan Bogdanovic after the wars of Yugoslavia between 1992 and 1996. One could define it as the act of destroying buildings and cities that do not constitute any military targets. Urbicide is rather an act that is supposed to affect the very life of the population in such a way that war cannot be ignored by anybody. This technique is being used in symmetrical wars like the Second World War and the Blitz in England on the one hand and the systematic bombing of German cities by the allies on the other hand. However, urbicide is also fully present in asymmetrical wars with ...

Architecture of Aggression: Military architecture of two world wars is a very interesting book written by Keith Mallory and Arvid Ottar in 1973 which proposes an inventory of military architecture during WWI and WWII according to their typology and location. The two example I chose here are camouflaged bunkers in the United Kingdom and a mobile sea fort also in the UK (the Maunsell Towers are obviously in this book as well --> see former article ).

Hebron is a city in the Southern part of the West Bank. Its particularity is that Israeli settlers are both living around the city but also WITHIN the old city center. For example the market street (see pictures above and below) is surmounted by settlers who do not hesitate to throw rubbish or even acid and molotov cocktails on the Palestinian population underneath. Most commercial activities have been shut down by the Israeli soldiers and a whole part of the old city (including the Khalil Al-Rahman Mosque which is extremely important for the Muslims) is controlled directly by the Israeli Defense Forces. Around the city, Israeli settlements are situated very close from the road and Palestinian villages. Even settlers' agricultural fields are fenced and surveyed by observation towers...

Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank are a mean to prevent, control and filter Palestinians’ movement on their lands. They also constitute a good reaction to the political situation: when the conflict is particularly tensed, they are used as much as a “risk control” as a way to oppress Palestinians and limit or dissuade their movements. Several types of checkpoints exist. Those that are set on the line of the Wall imply a control of every vehicle and every pedestrian (buses’ customers are requested to go off and walk), their goods, their passports, permits etc. Some other checkpoints are spread all over the West Bank (mostly at every entrance of cities) and control a more or less important amount of vehicles depending on the soldiers’ mood and orders.