Kai Schiemenz – The Empty Dwelling, the Vain and the Mad Colonist
SPEKULATIONEN SERIE 2007-2008
A spiraling architectonic sculpture rises from Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum’s lone hill, a mound of WWII building ruins. It consists of three parts, a staircase, a small enclosed platform and a tower. Observed from afar, it operates as a monument standing alone in the park’s vast field. But upon approach, viewers can ascend its stairs and look out from the platform, providing both the practical purpose of seeing and of being seen. The plywood and lattice structure is built intuitively from the ground up. Its design references past movements as Constructivist forms collide with more recent Post-Structuralist mega-buildings, and suggests a utopian architecture: As a Mad Colonist it takes a last stand against the looming urban renewal. On March 5, 2008, the tempest Emma destroys the structure, magnifying its symbolic charge.