Over the years, we abandoned many buildings and structures. These buildings became ruins as weather and time take a toll on them, and nature engulfs it. We can see ruins in either rural or urban landscapes with either a section of a ripped wall or a truncated ceiling. Ruins remind us that time and decay change everything. I am allure with the idea of bringing new life to ruins rather than ignoring it to rot. Ruins have the potential to be a modern, livable space.
Ruins reveal what was lost and tell us what the future holds. It stimulates our imagination with the architectural allegory and metaphor that buildings can remain unfinished. Ruin's broken form can emphasize the symbiotic relationship between nature and culture. For architects and designers, ruins are more than rumbles of debris. It says more on a dialogue between the envisages of the past and the questions of the present.
Creating contemporary buildings from ruins is not a new concept in architecture. It is part of reinventing space as we know it. There are a lot of architects and designers who take on these projects. Here are some notable projects that reborn the old ruins into a contemporary space.
Gucci Hub, Millan, Itally
Who would have taught an old aircraft factory will become a fashion hub. In 1915, Giovanni Caproni owned a bland warehouse for manufacturing and testing aircraft. Caproni's business decline due to a decrease in military contracts. The factory building has an elegant brick structure and is spacious.
In early 2000, Gucci, a globally renowned fashion house, selected Italian studio, Piuarch to repurpose the iconic factory in the eastern suburbs of Millan. The studio draws inspiration from the modular concept of the old factory. The Gucci headquarters consists of a multipurpose space like showrooms, a restaurant, and a photo studio, to name a few.
The design mixed a powerful historical overtone with modern-day needs for a flexible workspace, which its spatial layout allows seamless interaction between the inside and outside. The Haggar serves as a venue for events and fashion shows. The hub has an industrial fabric warehouse in its six-story tower.
Les Docks Cité de la Mode et du Design, Paris
Les Docks Magasins in Paris is an industrial warehouse to accommodate the growing river trade in Paris, 1907. The warehouse became not essential for merchandise shipping and storage as time goes. In 1984, the Les Docks Magasins closed its doors.
In 2004, the City of Paris hosted a design competition to refurbish the warehouse. Parisian architects Jakob + MacFarlane wins the contest and task to design for the warehouse. They choose to retain the old skeletal structure while giving it a vibrant facade. To date, it is an important heritage site and beloved landmark along the city's waterfront.
La Fabrica, Sant Just Desvern, Spain
La Fabrica is a modern-day workplace for Ricardo Bofill's firm, but in the 70s, it was a cement factory. The factory has 30 silos, two and a half-mile of underground tunnels, and spacious engine rooms. After abandonment in 1968, the factory is in partial ruin. The staircase would bring us to nowhere, and pieces of iron are hanging in the void.
The remodeling took two years to complete. Eight silos remained, which houses offices, laboratory, archives, and library, to name a few. They cleaned cement in the space and put greenery. More than a dozen of plants surround the complex. The garden has eucalyptus, palms, olives, and cypresses. This project proves imaginative architect can transform an ugly ruined space into a breathable and modern space.
Fooddock, Deventer, Netherlands
In 2015, Fooddock opened to the public. It is a gastronomic hub with a collection of food trucks and stalls. You can find fresh produce and prepared for the provision. Before becoming what it is today, it is where an old storage silo (De Zwarte Silo) located in 1923.
De Zwarte Silo is a series of storage silos in the oldest city of the Netherland in 1923. In 1990, people abandoned it after a decade of operation. The silo is along the trade routes at the time. A.J. Lammers Company operates the silos until 1990. In 2010. a local civic organization, BOEI, drew an interest in it. They transformed it into a food hub. Fooddock still resembles the old historic silos in its design. It links the old silos to the modern gastro hub.
Boekhandel, Netherlands
Boekhandel was an old church ruin that is now a repurposed bookstore. In 1577, it was a Dominican church that suffers from looting and partial destruction by German mercenaries. For centuries, it functions as a religious center for the Dutch city of Maastricht. Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of the Netherlands in 1794 convert the place into a storage facility for equipment and personnel.
After nearly two centuries of abandonment, it became a warehouse, printing house, an archive, a school, and a flower-exhibition center. In the 2000s, it was the most elaborate biblical storage. Dutch bookseller Selexyz asked the Merkx + Girod architectural firm to repurpose the church in 2005. Paying respect to the place's history, the Bookhandel earned the most beautiful refurbished bookstore in the world.
Architects and its design embrace the ruin's history in repurposing it to the modern space. Paying respect to the ruin's history, the architect gives a sense of the old world into the modern-day structure. The old theme was not completely gone, and it co-exists with the new architectural design. The ripped walls and truncated ceiling became a statement of what the building has passed through time.
Architects and designers can embrace the ripped walls and ceiling in their design. They can make a design that communicates the old days to the present than making ruin's old self indistinguishable. The architecture for ruins reveals symbiotic relationship between the past, present and future of structures.
References
- In Ruins: 6 Projects That Breathe New Life Into Dilapidated Buildings
- Six ruins reborn as great contemporary buildings
- Architecture for Ruins: How Building New Can
Showcase the Old in Barboursville, VA - The Architecture of Ruins: Designs on the Past, Present and Future
- In the beginning was the bestseller: Is this the world's finest bookshop? Jonathan Glancey on a new life for an old church
- La Fabrica/ Ricardo Bofill
- Zwarte Silo / Wenink Holtkamp Architecten
- Cite de la mode et dU Design