[EN] - Unholy Negociations : The Signalbox (1999)

The signalbox 2 in Basel is one of the buildings that the Pritzker jury selected before giving the prize in 2001 to the Swiss Agency, it is one of the most functionnal programs you could do, but it was done subtlety, the interest of the building is not inside, but outside.. It protects equipement and technology to keep the rail line working, at the same time, it is also able to express vividly these physical qualities 

 

Building in 1999 and in 2015

Built in 1999 it is probably an excellent example of a “decorated shed” because this building is perfectly understood without really knowing what is inside, but it's a decorated shed unlike others, it's exterior is sleek, extremely well built, tthis decorated shed is the son, of another decorated shed built in 1996, the signalbox1 it follows the same principle, but where the signalbox1 is a bloc, the Signalbox 2 is a generated building. In the book “Composition, Non-Composition” Jacques Lucan explains that the building was generated by it's plot and the existing context it seems as it was supposed to be the same as the first on, but it was distorted by the rail lines. 

 

Continuing with composition, the windows are evidently composed the operator sees the train lines and can do his job. But to the pedestrian, not much is revealed, the entrance is a door seemingly disguised with the facade. Except a few windows, the rest is hard to discern, where the floors are, in general what may well be happening inside is a bit of a mystery. The building remains standing, it is monolithic, like a stone, like if it was there forever. I've seen this building on sunny summer afternoons where only mad dogs and Englishmen go out, in chilling winter days with snow etc.. it seems unaffected by weather whatever the condition is it stays, and it's perception will not change. 

A Scholars Stone

 

A stone may last much longer than futile humans, but stones aren't eternal they are subject to erosion, oscillation between nature and culture.. Culture built this monolith of shiny copper in 1999, commissioned by the SBB, but eventually it will be tarnished by nature, in an unholy longstanding negotiation. Stones are a recurrent theme in the work of Herzog&DeMeuron, in “Natural Histories” a whole section is devoted to Scholar Stones, these mysterious stones in China, to whom “something” has happened and are valuable because of this “event”

If we understand the monolithic building as a stone, and the rail line as water, flowing with trains instead of water, the metaphor stays, following this logic, the flow will in the end erode the building so much that it will shatter in two, ending in a inevitable destiny of one days being destroying, as is the fate of most buildings.. 

 

The effects of this dialogue are visible to whom wants to dialogue with this building, take the time to assess it's evolution as the flow of trains continues. The materials of this monolith reveal it's strength and it's weaknesses, it's facades almost fully made of copper oxidizes with time, the building we saw in 1999 is not the same as the one we see in 2015, it is already much darker, and green/blue marks of oxidation appear where it rains on it.

                                    We are left to think what will the signalbox look like in ten years time? 

 A little Photoshop for the imagination..