Rooftop living and alterna-caravans

[imomus]

Since it's a time when we're all trying to imagine what life post-capitalism (or at least post-capitalism-as-we-know-it) might be like, I thought I'd post about a dreamy fantasy I've long had about living in unconventional structures on roofs. For some reason buying a house has never appealed to me -- they seemed so disappointingly dull, and so vastly over-expensive. But what has appealed is a dream of living in some curious, romantic, misshapen structure parasitical on another one (and therefore, presumably, cheap). And particularly one of the odd structures you find on the roofs of buildings.



Here's a collection of images of rooftop living. Some are from a project I saw at the Berlin art school rundgang this year, in the architecture department (didn't see any names, but I think it was a collective student project). Some concern the use of rooftops in Japan, where I've seen temporary igloo-like structures erected on roofs to provide much-needed extra space, and where it's common for people to have parties or gatherings on rooftops in order to avoid disturbing neighbours.



The bottom row here is a "found street" on the roof of a semi-official squatted art building (a former factory) on Landsberger Allee here in Berlin. I often see structures like these on roofs and try to imagine them at street level. These ones, catching the late afternoon sun, looked like a "hidden" Japanese street up on the roof of a German building.

Someone left a comment after my Austerity after prosperity piece on Saturday asking about Kenji Kawai's beehive house, and adding: "I foggily remember a post some time ago about a commune in Germany with self-built shacks. This was you, right? Please provide a link if so."



The piece in question was Your inner hippy lives in Lohmuehle, a documentation of an alternative caravan community in the Treptower area of Berlin. Since photographing the outside of the wagon-like structures I've seen an exhibition (just next door to them) showing fisheye images of the interiors. They turn out to be surprisingly modern and luxurious inside (somehow you don't expect people to be using laptops inside alterna-caravans), and the wide-angle photography gives the impression, if not of vast space, at least of resourcefulness in giving that impression (the trompe l'oeuil forest murals, for instance). It's also interesting to see how many references there are, in these German caravans, to Japanese living.

Comments

[dabroots.livejournal.com]

Very nice. Excellent use of wide angle for this unusual way of living.

[(Anonymous)]

I was intrigued by your "1998" post of the other day. It got me wondering what is the stuff you think is great now but that in ten years' time you'll think is "so 2008"? Also, what will you do when Berlin is "over"? Have you set down enough roots there that it won't bother you? A lot of artist friends of mine are quite down on Berlin at the moment - work space costing double what it did five years ago, culture too "mono" etc... One friend of mine is talking excitedly of moving to Brussels - super cheap to rent there, super well-connected what with Eurostar & Thalys, burgeoning art scene... I'm wondering if it will be the new Berlin...

[(Anonymous)]

I read a Herald Tribune article about buying luxury condos in "funky" Berlin neighbourhoods - not a good sign. Berlin is still good, but its best days may be behind it. Brussels is good, but it's pretty small.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Sure, I got a sort of Berlin feeling from Brussels when I was there (http://imomus.livejournal.com/2007/10/27/) a year ago -- but I'd include the "threat" to the squat we were living and playing in. The threat of yuppification hung over Brussels as it does over Berlin. The good news is that the current financial crisis and the collapse of the property bubble means that this yuppification has suffered a serious setback.

I don't have much sympathy with people who focus on specific areas of Berlin -- Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, usually -- and bemoan the fact that they aren't what they were ten years ago. For instance, people who think the imminent end of Tacheles means "the end of Berlin". For god's sake, get out of those areas! It's not all about them! Come to Neukolln, or -- if Tacheles is your thing -- go to Landsberger Allee 54 (the building in the second picture today), where there's something better than Tacheles, but very much in the same spirit.

A lot of this mentality ("Berlin is over") comes from Americans whose dollars are weaker than they were (to some extent this affects me, because some of my income is in dollars), and who find Berlin more expensive as a result. And a lot of it comes from people who want the boho spots to be where they were ten years ago. Get on yer bikes!

[(Anonymous)]

Brussels has shrunk over the past ten or fifteen years - that's why it's so cheap to live there at the moment. There's been a bit of a "white flight" phenomenon - middle classes and EU types increasingly moving out to villages around Brussels and commuting. (This in turn has exacerbated the Walloon/Flemish crisis, since Francophones are moving in on Flemish villages.)

[desant012.livejournal.com]

It's definitely cheaper for Americans to live in New York City than Berlin. Given the exchange rate, we're probably paying the same to live in our 1brs in halfway decent immigrant neighborhoods. Any Americans you see in Berlin preaching the bohemian dream are immediately suspect.

[pulled-up.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

not forgetting heather and ivan morison

http://pulled-up.blogspot.com/2008/09/tales-of-space-and-time.html
http://www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk/index.php/artists/biography/heather-and-ivan-morison/
http://www.morison.info/
http://www.walesvenicebiennale.org.uk/artist.asp?artistid=11

[pulled-up.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

joe and I are also fond of treehouses

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2008/sep/19/hotels.green?picture=337787354

They won't know if you jumped or you fell off

[(Anonymous)]

Berlin over? ha, that's what they said back in '45....

anyway here is more rooftop action - and if you're a hot for archiporn you can request the blueprints for free....

http://www.baustelleberlin.com/2008/09/up-on-the-rooft.html

cheers,
William

[drywbach.livejournal.com]

lol, I dream of having my own place. Even this scary-sounding one: http://www.arbroathherald.co.uk/news/HOUSE-DISCOVERED-AT-ARBROATH-CLIFFS.4416499.jp

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Jobriath spent his last years living in the famous pyramid on the rooftop of the Chelsea Hotel until he died of AIDS in 1983. Nigel Finch's 1981 BBC documentary "Chelsea Hotel" films an interview with Jobriath in his rooftop pyramid.

all my cares just drift right into space

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

I always keep a mental checklist of things I have in common with momus.

no desire to own a house - check
secretly want to live in a funky, parasitical structure on a rooftop - check
eye problems - check
x-large penis - fail
pretty, petite, artistic wife - fail
hyper-literate - fail

50% ain't bad ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Lovely. I too used to fantasize about building a smaller structure for living on top of a roof. Also, in my hometown, there was a tall building downtown with a shack on top, rumored to have been the rock and roll radio station in the 50's, which I often imagined claiming that for myself. You might be interested in the books published by Lloyd Kahn, a former geodesics evangelist, whose terrible hippie prose is near unreadable, but who has compiled surveys of alternative and self-built dwellings. Thanks very much for such an involved reply to my two requests.

-Jace

Japanese living

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

NIc, isn't celestial viewing part of the asian cultural scene?

randa shaath

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

randa shaath photographed people of cairo, egypt, who also LIVE on rooftops,

http://www.noorderlicht.com/eng/fest04/friesmuseum/shaath/index.html

erik
rotterdam
the netherlands

on a completely unrelated subject:

[(Anonymous)]

I've just read that Nick Cave has written a second novel, and that it's going to be published around the same time that your fiction is coming out. It's called 'the Death of Bunny Monro' and has been billed as a modern day Faustus.

I've obviously never read 'Book of Jokes' but I have drawn a parallel with 'And the Ass Saw the Angel not literally, of course, but having watched some of your readings in Youtube I imagine it to be similar in its tone.

Have you ever read Cave's book, and if so did you enjoy it? I imagine you did. And it's one of my favourite ever works of fiction.

Re: on a completely unrelated subject:

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Actually, I haven't read it, though for a while I shared Nick's literary editor (Simon Pettifar, who put out my lyrics collection). I think ah wuz put awf bah th' fake Faulknuh-esque acc-sents an' thu Biblical ref-uh-ah-say ref-uh-runces, bwoay!

Momus auf dem dach

[bokmala.livejournal.com]

Astrid Lindgren (The author of Pippi Longstocking) wrote a book called Karlsson on the roof, about a recluse with a secret and parasitic rooftop house in Stockholm.

When pressed on his age, Karlsson only ever answers: "I am a beautiful, wise and suitably fat man in his best years", possibly making him a 50's children's-book equivalent of a kidult (Are rooftop-dreams invariably connected to kidult tendencies? Momus might know.).

Below is the link to a cult Soyuzmultfilm cartoon version (Karlsson was big in the U.S.S.R... and banned in parts of the U.S., because Americans thought "Karlson might incite young children to disobey authority and mistrust and fear babysitters.")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LbWFbsbdeo&feature=related

on roofs and try

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

Woodland Home

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm

[vonbruckhousen.livejournal.com]

My older brother used to sleep on the Burger King roof in a hammock as a teenager. Work toil, sleep.

joined the caravan of love

[(Anonymous)]

do those caravans look on to the canal?
am buying a house in berlin just about soon
i liked it there
atrists poets i dont care
if am there i want people to stare
and if the goings rates fair
then thats better
but people forget you dont need much to live
love and to give
laugh at the spiv
x

Re: joined the caravan of love

[(Anonymous)]

at my wrist
i am a risk
take this gift
one small kiss

[xchimx.livejournal.com]

Almost all those roofs are BUR systems which are not the most friendly things in the world to long term foot traffic.

I once installed a hypalon single-ply roofing system that was colored grass green in the factory. The building had a residence living on the top floor, so they could use it as a faux lawn for barbeques and such. It turned out really beautiful when we were all finished.

But yeah, hot tar roofs don't lend themselves to roof top living IMO.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

In your opinion--since you've worked on rooftops--how feasible are these green roof initiatives that cities like Philly are currently flirting with?

[xchimx.livejournal.com]

They aren't too bad as far as I know. I've never had the chance to work on one despite being involved in commercial roofing for 5+ years. As far as I know they are generally done with Hydrotech or EPDM I believe, the latter is a roofing system that they actually use to make artificial ponds, so it can handle the water/soil.

Like everything, the main problem is the cost, especially when you are planning on having larger plants with big root systems. On top of that, it makes maintenance a nightmare since to repair or replace the roof you have to pull out (literally) tons of soil, and I believe depending on the system there is also the problem of roots burrowing holes into the roof (although I don't know if that is an issue with hydrotech).

I think they look great and I would really like to work on one someday, but right now they seem to be an exclusive perk for rich condo owners. And honestly, the mantra of the construction industry no matter where you go these days is "get it up fast and get it up cheap", so I can't imagine that it will ever really catch on that much unless there are some serious changes.

[xchimx.livejournal.com]

Also, a lot of buildings simply can't handle the load of green roofs. You're adding a lot of weight, and old ply wood decks would simply fail.

[grzeg.livejournal.com]

Whether it’s Kawai or Nishiazawa, Fujimori or Fujimoto, a house in Japan by an architect is 40,000,000 yen, period. Boutique architect, corporate firm, or cookie-cutter developer. Japanese architects have to build houses in the same price range as developers or architects are out of business: avant-garde ateliers are not any cheaper or more expensive than corporate houses. You would think the avant-garde’s merits are all that separate them, but you would be surprised in how similar at heart they all are (sustainability, austerity, etc); though between them their architecture just looks different. It is a misconception veiled in the bourgeois decadence from the bubble era, an age primarily dominated by corporate-made, banal megalomansions in styles of chateaus and villas, much like dot-com millionaires without taste in bay area of the 90's. Japan is still in materialistic age, though it’s nice to project that a certain few who can afford it choose to go ‘post’, as exemplified by the editors at Ku:nel and co. Roof-top structures, alterna-caravans and “post-materialist” culture as you have presented is the revulsion to excess, though as reactionary, wishful reveries: as we saw in the Spacecraft book, the appeal is itself in the dream, the fantasy of living in the idealized romantic (because in reality, it isn’t cheap).

A Contemporary look at Masculinity and Sport...

[(Anonymous)]

This is Annie from the LACMA press office. I wanted to bring your attention to our newest show coming up: Contemporary Projects 11: Hard Targets—Masculinity and Sport. This is one of our smaller shows of the year, but it’s bound to make waves with its contemporary take on male athleticism – I thought it may be of interest to your blog.

Overall, the exhibition makes the argument that despite all that has changed since sexual and social identity became a hot-button topic in art throughout the last thirty years, one American stereotype is still unshakable: that of the male athlete. This show chooses to question why that is, and to implicate that there is more to the male athlete than we choose to perceive.

Hard Targets is a multimedia exhibition featuring photographs, sculptures, video, and installations that look deeper into sporting events by examining the male to male dynamics, the sporting events themselves, and even the uniforms and equipment that we associate with masculinity.

This exhibition goes on view October 9. If you'd like the release, or if you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to ask!


Best,

Annie Carone
acarone@lacma.org
Jr. Associate
Press Relations
LACMA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90036
T 323.857.6515
F 323.857.4702