Infamous Address

Nazi Germany's General Foundation for Welfare and Institutional Care was located at Tiergartenstraße 4. It was the bureau responsible for the deaths of physically and mentally handicapped people in the years just before the holocaust. Germans who knew about the program as simply the T4 Action.

The building is no longer there but a plaque in the sidewalk commemorates the horrors that were mandated at the site. Hospitals throughout the nation were ordered to perform euthanasia on patients who were considered incurable. That meant the“criminally insane,” schizophrenics, epileptics, people with Huntington’s, chorea, advanced syphilis, senile dementia, paralysis, encephalitis and “terminal neurological conditions generally” (and of course "non-Aryan" patients were always welcomed by T4).

The instigators and participating physicians of the T4 action were charged in the "Doctors' Trial," one of the several trials following the major war crimes trial. 20 of the 23 defendants were medical doctors, seven were hanged.

Virtual Landmark

Found over at Digital Urban.

a rundown

Since I don't have time to do any of these topics justice in a full posting, here is a rundown of some things that I've been exploring.

Habitat 67 - I saw it first in a big, softcover architecture book under the heading: Clusters. People still live in Habitat 67. The designer is architect Moshe Safdie, a Palestenian-Canadian.

Container Bay - A collection of projects built from shipping containers. Some have been built while many are only planned. FYI: I've been working on my own container home in SketchUp. I'll get some stills up here once it's ready.

Rights & Obligations - Berlin's Hauptbahnhof (The new main train terminal) is about to get a judicial renovation, "The Berlin District Court has ruled that Deutsche Bahn must rebuild whole sections of the new Hauptbahnhof according to the architect's plans, setting a spectacular precedent."

Urban Rail . net - This is neat.

Green Real Estate Portfolios - The Slatin Report covers the trend.

Kennecott, Rem, & Architecture's Scientific Revolution

A lot has happened in the last two months. Part of what has inspired me to revive Toponymy was a wealth of links that caught my attention. Without further ado,

• Kennecott Land is a branch of a copper mining company in Utah. The company also owns one of the largest unbroken tracts of land in the continental United States. So why should I mention it? Because they want to build a "a 20-mile string of densely packed, 'walkable' communities framing the rural west side of Salt Lake County. The communities would be laid out along a planned highway and light-rail lines connecting to Salt Lake City."
• Rem Koolhaus is a cool cat. Der Spiegel just did an interview with him. They brought up the Palace of the Republic in Berlin, which I wrote about earlier.
• Seed has a nice article about Architecture's relationship with Science.
  
• Point and Click Census Data + Google Maps.
• Detroit Sold for Scrap (Thanks Ken!) "Once dismantled and processed, Detroit is expected to yield nearly 14 million tons of steel, 2.85 million tons of aluminum, and approximately 837,000 tons of copper."
• Pittsburgh's Green Building Alliance boasts the nations first LEED certified residence hall (at Carnegie Mellon) and the first LEED certified convention center (David L. Lawrence)
• Kinda dense but neat housing article in Metropolis Mag. Worth a read, or at least a cursory glance.
  

Lifestyle Changes and the Palace of the Republic

As most of you know I'm now done with my Bachelors degree in Urban Planning. Considering that I might find myself with more time to contemplate issues that I find interesting I'll probably also have more time to update this website. So, here's the first post-MSU posting.

The East German 'Palace of the Republic' is a controversial landmark located on East Berlin's Museum Island. The deterorating building is a hairsbreadth from demolition at the hands of those who believe the concrete, steel, and glass building is wildly out of place in a "proper" European capital.

I couldn't disagree more. While the building is an eyesore to those seeking classical elegance, it is an undeniable part of Berlin's striking history. If the facility were cleaned up a bit and landscaped to conform to its surroundings (a herculean task in such a spatially dysfunctional city) it could become a new kind of landmark - one that honestly portrays an important part of the late 20th century.

According to the NY Times, "The Palace is ugliest when approached from the west along Unter der Linden." - thus the entire building was an intentional political statement at a critical junction of East-West politics. Read the rest of the NY Times article, here.

Room for Improvement: Green Certification

Interesting and highly informative article from the Wall Street Journal regarding Green Buildings. It appears that the certification process that allows certain buildings to be dubbed "green" gives equal weight to features with wildly divergent prices and ecological outcomes. (Scroll to the bottom of the article for a quote from GR's own Progressive Architecture)

Under the current system, buildings get points for "green" features on the list, such as water management or use of natural sunlight. Builders get one point for installing a $350 bike rack or an electric-vehicle recharging station that few might use. They score the same one point, however, for promising to obtain 5% of the building's energy from renewable sources such as wind or solar power. To win a green seal from the council, a building needs to earn 26 from a total of 69 possible points.

Talking Trash Cans are encouraging Berliners not to litter. Oh, and they're solar powered.

Four Great Links from Things

Radical Cartography is a treasure trove of fascinating maps. Click on Projects and Yummy to get to the goodies. 'A Different Atlas,' 'Art & Language,' and the 'Boy Scout Camp' are a few of my favorites (don't forget to read the descriptions on the left.

Check out both galleries on Lori Nix's page. Her scenes of imminent destruction seem almost warm and comforting because they are easily dismissed as "models."

In Place of Berlin - scroll down for some good photography and observations about Berlin.

Reused Big Boxes. Yeah, there are a bunch of mega-churches, but there's also the Spam Museum.

Also (not from Things) Building Green's 10 point plan for New Orleans. Ambitious but informative proposal.