FROM COLLAGE
TO MODEL CITY
This draft starts with a journey in the new home. Berlin. How is it perceived, what are the ways, where do everyday life, needs and longings lead. Who is the protagonist, the city itself or its inhabitants? New images are projected in our brains every day, processed and then stored. But they are only excerpts. Fragments that are placed in relation to each other. The subway is the connecting link. From one place to another, or still in place?
These questions and ideas brought me to this project. What would a new Berlin would look like if individual fragments were taken and repositioned in relation to each other. During this journey I went through many tasks that at first seemed complicated and illogical, however, the main goal in this project was to have fun and to enjoy creating new forms and figuers.
Therefore, the whole project was divided into 3 chapters. In collage, montage and model city. Each chapter dealt with its own design methodology, trying to create a world, or rather a new cityscape, which plays with fictional ideas.
CHAPTER ONE
In chapter one, parts of the city are explored, fragments are taken and repositioned in relation to each other. The research focuses on the individual as well as the whole. Stories will be collected and documented. The result is a new image of a city, the portrait of a living space. The city is Berlin.
To do this, individual objects were taken from various locations and then positioned on a map where they were taken to then cut out the map piece.
The cutouts were then thrown onto a grid and pasted onto their land target. The spaces in between were then filled with other map parts of Berlin and the parts were connected to each other.
In the next step I looked for a character who enters the world I created and describes it from a different perspective. Ziggy Stardust, the alter ego of David Bowie took over this role and was able to give me access to this world. He walked through different stations describing them in his own words.
The Entry
“Logbook entry:YADNOM 237801
I was floating through space and time when I heard strange voices, chants, noise and melodies from a distance. At first I didn’t give much attention to it, but when an object was located on my radar, I became curious. I set my course and asked for permission to land. I got no reply, but saw a gate wide open when I arrived.
Collage City ? Mehringdamm? Somehow it all seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it. As if parts of this location had been used before.
I thought: I'll take a look around.”
CHAPTER TWO
The framework was set in chapter one, the stories were told and the main characters established. What does a city need in order to find a home in it? What are its qualities and grievances? Is there enough space or do new forms need to be explored to generate it? Collage City was the basis for understanding the individual living spaces. A new overall picture emerges from single individuals. Its spaces were generated. The known Berlin was confronted with Collage City and new forms and connections were analyzed. This resulted in a new form that was analyzed and drawn.
After a rough representation of Montage City, more detailed structures were designed and a structure was developed that is composed of 3 basic elements: Circle, Square and Triangle.
Several buildings, bridges or terraces were designed and linked to the existing structures of Berlin. In this series of images the growth of these forms is illustrated.
CHAPTER THREE
A new form based on chapter one was developed and explored. The resulting spaces and constructs are now constructed in chapter three using a model. Chapter three is to compare reality and fiction and to make them visible by means of a model. The viewer is confronted with a city within the city.
Now all three chapters play together and thus complete the design of a city.
“Model City, this must be the place” the last chapter of this project. For this, a field of 72 by 72 centimeters was drawn up and the structures from the two previous chapters were depicted. The last part focused on the illustration of a fictitious world. For this, a model was built from the existing Berlin as well as the newly developed structures. The choice of materials was not the focus, but the choice of colors and haptics. Intentionally, no differentiation of the two worlds was chosen, since both are fictitious in this project.
To conclude this project, I compare the process with the story of Alice in Wonderland. It was my goal to explore a new world and represent it in my perception. I live since September 2021 in Berlin and since my arrival in this new world, I discover every day new facets and places of this city Berlin. It was a parallel exploration. On the one hand the real Berlin and on the other hand a purely fictional city. Both worlds can only be created and processed in my head because of the other. It was never my goal to develop a new housing structure or society, but much more to design a fictional, dreamy or even a wishful city. What has emerged is a world that can now be viewed in a real framework, or as a dream that is now over. Dreams, wishes, and imaginations we all have, but it is up to each individual how much they move into our everyday lives.
To illustrate Model City not only in the model again Ziggy Stardust walked through this world in four pictures and meets the singer Nico. She shows him this world.
I thank you very much to you readers and hope I could pull you for some seconds maybe even minutes from the reality.
Joanne Tschenett
