Ruin Porn Redux

As I pointed out in the last article, the ruins of pornography have come to Mexico City. Now I can confirm that it has also arrived in Poland. During my recent visit there, I stayed at the Warsaw Hotel, this skyscraper is equivalent to the recently renovated Mexico Circle in Mexico City, and saw the Elektrownia Powiśle (Power Center), a former Chinese sofa converted from a shopping mall Power plant. A new residential and office development project. Warsaw Hotel is located in the former Prudential Tower, which is home to the Polish headquarters of the British insurance company of the same name. It has 16 floors and was once the tallest tower in Warsaw. The building was completed in 1933 in accordance with Marcin Weinfeld's design and became the target of both parties during World War II. Later it was restored under the communist regime, and then Winfield turned it into a socialist realist style hotel. Now, local GBD architects have demolished the concrete structure, and then painted the interior space with marble, wood and copper. The new materials can be veneered, but they make up for their thinness with expressive textures and luxurious luster to counteract the brute force of concrete columns and beams. The Warszawa made the boldest statement in the restaurant and bar occupying two basement levels. The structure dominates there. Its columns have open capital letters, diagonal steel supports and thick beams, creating a serious display of a gym or Vulcan forge, or, for architects drinking there, Piranesi's paintings. This feeling of doing things with bravery and strength usually generates most of the visual and intellectual interest in this type of refurbishment of the lower part of the skeleton, and the underground location, coupled with the sheer size of the structure, makes this one of the most I have. Beautiful reimagined. Seen. If other public spaces and bedrooms do not conform to this thrust, they will instead create a 3D collage of planes and supports. These planes and supports slide against each other, and part of the plaster ceiling stops to expose the upper slab and is made of emerging materials The door is made of wood, showing its texture next to the sealed concrete. Of course, it is counterintuitive for visitors to obtain sensory pleasure from previously hidden structures, and architects use their new material palette to enhance the sense of luxury. For those who can afford the high prices of hotels, this perversion reaches To a new height. The transformation of the power center is a relatively mild thing, because the project needs to serve the mass market, so it is necessary. When the local construction company APA Wojciechowski discovered the factory, the site was basically in ruins, full of asbestos and contaminated by coal used to generate electricity. The site is located in a less fashionable part of town, but the construction of the nearby Copernicus Center Science Museum and the development of luxury residential developments near the river here make the renovated power plant economically attractive. Most of the power center is now the result of rebuilding. Although these bricks are placed in the same steel frame as the original bricks, they only retain the color of the old material, while the glass is new. Instead of the original fireplace, a beige painted metal cylinder hides many service components. On top of the original truss over the main hall, a new line of structural elements completes the actual ceiling support work. The most obvious element that evokes the original purpose of the building is the control panel. They are kept, gently cleaned, and then inserted again, giving you the illusion that you can still turn the power on and off by simply pressing a switch. occupies the interior of the building It is the usual series of shops, restaurants and beauty salons, although the strength of the steel elements and the overall shape of the building manage to surpass its luster to a significant degree. When trying to align the history of production with the history of consumption, passing Central de Electricidad will bring you a certain degree of cognitive dissonance. But the architect's ability to extend and extrapolate the steel structure and glass and brick infills in a new way turns the once dark and black space into a light and relaxing space. Then there are weird moments, such as the blue supervisor's office hanging in front of the front façade, which is now just an empty icon of the building's previous life. These designs, together with the Mexico City design that I described in my previous article, and many of these projects happening around the world, raise the question: When a production site once used by workers becomes an object of interest what happened. The upper class buys and consumes leisure. You might say that it is capitalism, but I can't help but hope that such a structure can be used in the public interest. Unfortunately, there are few examples of basic pornography used for public purposes. At least these buildings have been reused and the energy contained in them has been preserved. This is a huge advantage in a world where we cannot waste natural resources that we cannot replenish. These buildings also remind us of the history and reality there, expressing it in a three-dimensional and emphasized way, this is the special power of good architecture.