KOYAANISQATSI

Just saw that movie again.
KOYAANISQATSI.

A 1983 documentary using only pictures and music.
Showing and questioning modern civilization.
Saw it first time in my late teens. No exaggeration
to say it lastingly influenced my views.

Here are some links:
http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/films/koyaanisqatsi.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi (german)

This film reminds me that our life styles could be so different.
For hours every day it's screens that get my attention whether
it's for professional reasons or for entertainment.
Mass produced items made of plastics, metal and glas are not
only worth longing for, they are crucial to own, I learned.
To indicate my place in society. To fuel the economy. To keep
cities' retail strips vibrant.
Bricks and concrete is what cities are built from. Biosphere
can't be controlled completely, yet, but it's not really a matter
in cities apart from design decisions.
Planting a million trees in Los Angeles, as projected, to me
is not a way to change our life styles. It's a design decision,
though probably a good one.
It's urban plants that are not planned or controlled
that remind me on the other side of life.

Bauhaus style architecture in Weimar

Bauhaus like family homes, recently built
in Weimar, Germany by different architects.

Here Bauhaus School of design and architecture
startet in 1919. Then moved to Dessau and Berlin,
where it was terminated in 1933 by the Nazi regime.

Leipzig living with ruins

Leipzig: History, Radicals and Wealth

Leipzig, city of 500,000 in Saxony, Germany.
City in transition. One of the great, historic cities
of Eastern Germany, socialist urban planning
could not erase. So many buildings of the early
1900s, containers of social history. Wars, poverty,
or just personal fortunes and tragedies.
People of these days long gone. Rewind the time to
experience life in the early days of the last century.
As long as there are buildings to see, to touch, to smell,
there is a base for imagination.
Many houses dilapidated, waiting. Some to be
manicured to fit into new urban economies,
some without any chance. The city,
like so many other urban areas of the East, lost
big shares of population to new burbs and the West.
But this is a great city, and it's balancing German
historic identity. (More pics to follow)

Plants ahead

Dark caves' green view to the outside. Apartment above, beauty parlor below.

Bricks covered in Berlin

Growing along urban Concrete

Urban
neighborhoods
of Berlin

City Plants

What is the purpose of plants in a city?
Reminding us on nature -
like zoo animals do
(don't tell them they're sentenced for lifetime).
Maybe plants help our moods in a surrounding
of brick and stone,
manmade new world
though we belong to the old one.
(which are not suburbs either)

Plants and Control

click to enlarge




Urban planning - as far as I understood - is about
control over space. About making decisions on what to build
and how, what to grow and to let grow. About power and
tolerance. Economic utilization of space. Private property
and public space, no difference.
There was one block in downtown Chicago, lacking
any building for 16 years (plants were not accepted either).
"Block 37". Believe it was owned by the city that sold it
short time ago to investors to build
more office space, condos and hotel rooms.
It could have been a small park instead. A beautiful one,
home of trees, colorful flowers, bugs and bees.
I wonder how NYC managed to keep its famous park.
After reunification some East Berlin main streets
where remodeled. Got upscale shops, much traffic, no trees.
Though trees are so common here that I think they form a group
of residents, besides people and dogs, of course.
Trees tell us urbanites about the seasons, who else should do this?

I would like to oppose this idea of control for a while by focusing on
the secret life of plants (which is a title of a record from the 80's).
It's plants out of our control or within a secret agreement of mutual
tolerance. They know that we can get really serious in
eliminating them, we know we can't win in the long term.
Take a look at the urban green in Berlin.
(to be continued)

Urban entertainment machine

Load power generators and PA systems onto
big trucks, add DJ equipment and party people.
Let them círcle around some big avenues,
in first gear on a summer day.
Draws crowds from all over the country
and beyond. Loveparade in Berlin.
Started from private initiative in 1989.
Now part of the city's entertainment machine.
(Nevertheless a nice one)

Food retailing in pre-war Berlin

(click to enlarge)
My Aunt's food mart in the 1930's. Small store,
no self-service. Not much floor space needed for
Dairy products, canned food and bottled beer.
Kids carried milk cans home every day.
Customers as well as food stores didn't own a fridge,
so using ice blocks for that purpose was common.
"Colonial goods" made the luxury department:
sugar, coffee and tea from overseas - not from
German colonies, those were gone after WWI.
(I was surprised to learn that Australia was among
the countries that took them over).
I doubt that my aunt sold much of those goods.
Poor people everywhere in the 30's.
During war she run the store a one-woman-business.
When food became scarce, government regulated the
distribution of food by handing out food stamps to
the people. Not enough to keep the hunger away.
Many jumped on trains to travel out of town to farmers.
Exchanging whatever they still owned for food.
A watch for a bag of potatoes.

Small Biz in Big Town

Chicago West Town:
get milk, cigarettes, soda and much else
at the local Convenience Store.
Independent businesses, family operated.
No fruits or vegetables. Spoil too fast.
And not so easy to sell a beer. $2,200 a year
to get a license from the city - if neighbors agree.

- click to enlarge -