Pen Pal
PHYSICAL OR INTANGIBLE? Words and Images Ksenija Onufrijeva
Starting with the modernist movement, the idea of architectural identity as seen in the local values of vernacularity went into processes of deconstruction, and turning into international style. This transition created a range of buildings that would be adaptable within numerous urban contexts in terms of their independent position within that same urban surrounding. Not always can these buildings adapt to the way the contextual interaction develops though – the context itself might either accept the new-built intruder or reject it over time.
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The three buildings – UNESCO Headquarters in Paris (1958), Y-block in Oslo (1969-2020) and the World Trade centre in Riga (1974) – were designed to represent new art of building with "freedom, expressed in a wealth of forms"1. Even though designed in a new modernist fashion with a seemingly similar starting point in terms of their representativeness and contextual independence within the historical surrounding, the three siblings developed very different story lines. Firstly, designed in Paris and approved by an international architectural committee including Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and Eero Saarinen, the "three-pointed-star"2 preserved its function and power over time, becoming a landmark. While it was carefully kept and restored in 2009 to fit the contemporary standards of energy-efficiency and technical properties, the other two buildings were not as lucky to get honours to the same extent. The Y-block, even though seen as a unique monument of art created in collaboration between Norwegian architect Erling Viksjø and Pablo Picasso, was recently demolished due to a redevelopment plan of the Government Quarter after a terrorist attack on the district in 2011. Ironically, just before the attack that caused the later change of the building’s image and led to its demolition, the Y-block was about to be granted protection by the Directorate of Cultural Heritage.3Even after the continuous debates and protests, the Norwegian three-pointed star got torn down to develop a safer and "greener, more functional and more accessible urban space" in the Government Quarters. 4
