HOMETOWN BOOMTOWN

MY TOWN.

Following the Christchurch Earthquakes, and subsequent demolition of a large number of historic buildings which were severely damaged in the quakes, there has been a continual mumble going on in Wellington about our own historic buildings. A number of them are categorised 'earthquake prone' - meaning they must either be seismically strengthened or demolished in the next 15 years.

It is interesting to see that our current policy is not unlike that of the 1970s, when a significant number of historic buildings were demolished. Many of these buildings were landmarks, whose titles, despite the  buildings having been gone for over 30 years,  I have used to denote places in the city my whole life. Places like 'Perrett's Corner', and 'Dukes' retain their titles, but the beautiful buildings which developed them as special spaces in the City are no more.

This wee film makes my heart ache with the concern of what my city will be like in another 30 years if this process is repeated again in the post-Christchurch hysteria. At one of the 'Talking Cities' lectures, someone made the point that numerous lives were saved by street awnings which stopped bricks from historic facades falling on to pedestrians. Perhaps this, rather than demolition, is an interim response worth pursuing.

DOMESTIC QUAKES

Having noted Julijonas Urbonas' 2010 Euthanasia Coaster over at Archiact, I was compelled to find some more of his work. Another piece, sharing the same whimsy-come-controversial nature as his Euthanasia Coaster, caught my eye. His Domestic Earthquake Generator transforms a guest's door tap into an intense object trembling - akin to a one-object earthquake.

I am not sure if they have earthquakes in Lithuania; but this 'quake' is certainly a tame version of the global destruction we have seen of late. The domestication of the quake allows us to reclaim space, ground, and stability as intimate aspects of our lives, rather than as the uncertain fears they have become. Beautiful.

FALLEN BOOKS

 

"Books are earthquake proof" begins the 2008 Fallen Books project by Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson. The project inquires after the status of knowledge in one of the most tenuous of human institutions: the library. The book gathers photographs take in a number of libraries worldwide moments after the onset of a quake. The images are assembled chronologically, and are colour coded against the Mercalli scale - a variant of the Richter which takes into account damage to humans and buildings rather than energy at epicentre. 

Both an archive of desolation and an active participant in this precarious system of knowledge in the earthly world (as a book dedicated to fallen books must be), the book also has a fragile, material beauty. Our organisation systems, our dewey decimals, our coloured covers become a sea of materials; illegible in their usual terms. 

Of course it is obvious why this project has been in my mind lately; images of similar fallen books after the Christchuch quakes resonated with me, and as for Japan, well, the organisation of their knowledge systems is the last of their worries. Books may be earthquake proof, but a bucket of water let alone a tsunami would return them to an almost pre-elemential state.

Images of the Libraries in Canterbury post-quake.