Paradise Again

NURARCHITEKTUR’s contribution to Waiting for the Barbarians by Toxic dreams(See TOXIC DREAMS)

The people of Austria are particularily proud of the beauty of the Austrian landscape. However, this beauty is under constant attack from construction and soil sealing. Socially adequate housing is another pillar of the Austrian nation‘s self-image. It becomes obvious that the salvation of the beautiful landscape and the continous development of this very landscape are hardly compatibel. A competent bureaucracy - another feature in the national repertoire - will therefore be redirected to remedy the situation:

The word paradise has its etymological roots in the Old Persian Avestan pairi daêza, which means walled enclosure. Thus the wall is the constituent element for the separation of the delightful inside and the surrounding wilderness of nature.

The mythological narrative finds its continuation in the phantastically imagined construction system which supports, elevates and protects the temple in Jerusalem. In the world of the ancient Egyptians the hieroglyphs chiseled in the stone walls became the connecting link between the actual deeds of the kings and the descending people in a projected eternity.

We propose a wall surrounding the entire country. This wall will accommodate the living space for the entire population in a luxurious way. Everybody will have a fantastic view to the henceforth empty and beautiful land. To the outside of the wall a three-dimensional bureaucratic labyrinth will take care of the ones desiring to change sides.

The old Greeks gathered in front of a retaining wall on a hillside to practice early forms of democracy. However, through the ages of Babylonians, Romans and Chinese, the predominant purpose of the walls was security and defense - always as the construction of a peaceful inside versus a hostile outside. Only rarely has the historical justification for the construction of a wall been lost. Religious precincts required a clear geometrical demarcation, whereas the resistance against the eroding forces of the weather were fought against by a network of pragmatically placed stone walls in the land. For the longest time a city was unthinkable without - even defined by - the surrounding walls. It was these walls that guaranteed a different life: hence the meaning of city air makes you free. Retaining walls, fortifications and ramparts became the significant features of a landscape transformed by military engineering. Occasionally the protection by walls was one against the winds so that tempered courtyards would facilitate a better harvest. The dynamics of the industrial age demanded ever larger installations for energy generation: dams of unprecedented size have collected enormous quantities of water. Most present, however, are the walls as physical manifestations of socio-political intentions, visible symbols for separation.