Andrej Badin - Deaf landscape

EAF D LANDSCAPE

BADIN

Hortusplantsoen, Amsterdam Study of landscape architecture 4000 m2 Andrej Badin

With the helping of: Dirk Sijmons and Hannah Schubert and Dingeman Deijs Interviews: Anja Hiddinga, Lieke van Schooten, Moncef Beekhof Advice: Dirk Durrer Thanks to: Andrea Veselá, Anna Torres, Jako Hurkmans, Angelina Hopf, Stijn Dries, Meintje Delisse; Con­ TEXt users group mailing list; Gabriela Badinová, Gabriel Badin, Tomáš Badin

This print is made for the occassion of the public graduation presentation on 1.4.2022. The content is a slightly revised version of the graduation report submitted in accordance with the granting of the master's degree in landscape architecture at the Amsterdam University of the Arts on the 15th of July 2021.

Print . . . / 30 DIY printed (and bound).

CC0 - no rights reserved.

DEAF LANDSCAPE Accidentally in the streets of Ljubljana I've found the book Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks, with an admiring perspective on sign languages and Deaf culture in it. The book created a picture in my mind: sign languages being captivating spatio-visual ‘voices’ that one can see. It is Deaf people who make Deaf culture by the use of sign languages. Yet, the picture is double exposed.

Anja Hiddinga said to me: “[ . . . ] since the cochlear implant is marching forward so to say [signs an army advancing to a war]. I think if Deaf people don’t embrace hearing people that support them and are interested in them and interested in their language, then I think the future looks very bleak. Then I think it will just all die out.”

Note: The capitalized ‘Deaf' refers to those who communicate in a sign language, no matter their hearing.

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drawing of Deaf places in Amsterdam by Lieke van Schooten

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In the city of Amsterdam, North Holland, inside the historic city centre, there stands a black stone with a bronze statue atop of it. It depicts people dragging themselves into the unknown. It reads: ‘the world remained deaf’. At its place, Deaf children from a nearby university, that formerly was a school for deaf and hard of hearing, were dragged out of this school and into labour camps, where they've been labelled ‘deaf and dumb’, rendering them useless for labour and thus, with the exception of a single Deaf survivor, immediately —–.

To come to this stone, you can go many routes and no matter the direction, you will experience it (or at least that is how I experience it), as one in a series of open, public spaces with a burdening history that depict the memories of the Jewish eradiction or display collections of colonial origin (e.g. botany). As a rule, from all different directions, the land where the memorial stands is reached by a bridge, with the exception of one tunnel, that leads underground. This isle served as a graveyard for children and the poor, who died of pest from mid 17th to mid 19th century. It bore the name St. Antonieskerkhof then. It is surrounded by water.

From the isle, the view is outwards, toward the Portuguese synagogue. Beside it is a gravel platform bound by trees on all sides, with a statue of a man with his hands and palms spread straight outwards, as if unable to change the moment, yet gathering the power to do so (J. D. Meijerplein).

The view from the memorial stone is dominated also by an enormous glasshouse full of exotic plants, the monument of the botanical garden of the city. Water that flows around it is rarely calm, it is black, dark gray, purple, green, sometimes white, when reflecting the sun that rarely shines on this land overshadowed by a tall north facing facade of the former deaf school and by a row of five heavy, black horse chestnut trees with a twisted bark that winds into thick low hanging branches. Many trees here are planted in a triangular grouping, which creates an interior. This interior is empty space, at their roots is grass. All these large mature trees, precisely planted in groups or rows are the defining elements of this landscape. The oldest one, a Dutch elm of 121 years is a half-dead, half-living sculpture of dead wood.

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drawing of the memorial place by Lieke van Schooten

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p. 18, context of the project area: sketches of the Jonas Daniel Meijerplein; in the right bottom corner: the Deaf Jewish memorial p. 19, view on the memorial site from Jonas Daniel Meijerplein p. 21, photo of the glasshouse of the botanical garden (by accident double exposed over the site of the memorial) p. 22, existing situation 1/1000 p. 24, drawing of the project area with average length shadows p. 26, view on the memorial site from behind the Nieuwe Herengracht canal p. 30, in the former deaf school, named ‘Conrad Amman school’ after the Dutch medico-scientist who developed oralist methods of education, children were taught how to speak and hear and balance, tasks that are often impossible to obtain for deaf people and thus belittling; photograph c Algemeen Dagblad, printed with permission p. 31, photo of the memorial with the inscription ‘the world remained deaf’ p. 32, drawing of the names of the victims whom the memorial remembers, depicting also the former deaf school and the memorial p. 34, 35, 36, photos of the project site p. 37, photo of the present school entrance (Reinwardt Academie, AHK) p. 38, Eurythmic performarnce at the Geneva Fête de Juin, 1918, reproduced from Adolphe Appia: Essays, Scenarios, and Designs

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One evening in November I have joined a commemorative event, organized by a group of Deaf people, some of who were relatives of those Deaf and Deaf Jewish victims of the Holocaust, whom the memorial remembers. We've gathered by the school entrance, that faces the memorial, where people greeted one another.

From there we've walked across a road and over a low fence to the patch of grass where the black stone stands. Naturally organizing into a half circle, we encircled a man who stood at its centre next to the memorial, some people observing his signing, some listening to an interpreter (who interpreted Dutch sign language into spoken Dutch). A lamp lit, it was 6:30 pm. This provided enough light for the whole group. The event was timed, so that the lamp would light up when we were at the memorial.

The commemoration itself was beautiful, yet I have found it hard to be moved by the space where we've met and been standing. Also I've felt (from a personal view) a tension: we remembered the disappearance of Deaf people, in sign lan­ guage, while at the same moment the same sign language itself also is threatened into extinction. The threat comes from hearing implantation (and in the near future prenatal deaf genome modification) being done upon deaf children.

I found it important to work with ambivalence in landscape architecture.

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Sign language theatre - photo Handtheater, reproduced from ‘Gebarentheater in Nederland, Geschiede­ nis en Toekomst van het Handtheater’, Amsterdam, Juni 1991

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Searching also for an expression, I ask: seeing all the dark trees, dark waters and behind them the colonial relics and monuments — how not to add into this haunted place just another memory of sorrow, how to tread lightly and make accessible also to those outside of the Deaf world this place of quietude? Quietude.

Division, contrast, quietude. To create these I've studied what landscape typol­ ogy could accompany mourning by simply being, crying or smiling too. It had to come from Deaf culture.

From the long array of painting, magazine, tv, writing or humour . . . all of which find their unique Deaf expression . . . Deaf theatre is the most suitable to extend the memorial with, since it shares its solemn and representative character. A typology suitable to host the memorial is a garden, that can create a quiet and slow setting.

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p. 42, a concept of the typology for the sign language theatre: a half of the pit of the Greek orchestra is cut out and lighting added, creating a half of a threshing floor p. 43, Threshing floor, Israel, 3000 BC; the predecessor to the Greek orchestra (in which only the seating was added around the threshing floor due to political reasons, wrote Pier Vittorio Aureli in an article on platforms in the e-flux Architecture magazine)

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Both the garden and the theatre are composed within axes of existing elms and chestnuts. The fact that sign language discussion takes place in the form of a circle defines their shape. Their size of approx. 30 metres in diameter each is the maximum distances a human eye can see facial expressions (sign language).

Keeping the theatre small(er) has also been recommended by the Handtheater, a Dutch group of Deaf theatre actors, who consider an audience of 150 people a good maximum, in order for the audience to stay in close visual contact with the actors even if there are interrupting elements such as interpretation into spoken languages.

In size and form the theatre and the garden are like twins, divided and whole. As a whole they are embedded into the exising composition and growth of the park.

In terms of materiality and light, they are opposites, producing an ambivalence.

The gesture to enclose the garden (with the school) and open the theatre (towards the water) is the most important, since enclosure allows grief and openness relax.

A possibility to slow down movement through the park. The existing road used mainly for collecting school garbage, is minimized and shifted and a T shaped car turnabout in front of the school is proposed, so that traffic won't go through the park daily. For taller and longer vehicles that still need to access the school or the metro, but come only once in a year, access through the park side is maintained, since that is the only simple solution. A supporting mattress is placed underneath grass on a track for vehicles up to 12 metres long. The track is visible thanks to the modelling of 1-3% slopes in the topsoil, whose edges are the edges of the track. Pedestrian/bike lanes are narrowed. Being only 1.4 metre wide, enough space is left for grass to grow in the park and along the presently paved embank­ ment. Roots of the aging trees will be able to breathe better so. Thanks to this posibility of remodelling the infrastructure, the park is extended all the way to the Weesperstraat.

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p. 46, 47, 48, project schemes p. 50, 52, 54, project plans in scale 1/1000, 1/500, 1/200 p. 56, project section in scale 1/200 p. 58, entering the park from the West (Weesperstraat) p. 58, the theatre and the memorial at night p. 62, entering the park from the South (where one extra 12m long parking spot is added, that serves as a backstage) p. 63, going further into the park from the South p. 66, the black memorial stone in the light grey garden p. 67, the memorial garden during the night p. 68, axonometry of the garden in scale 1/50 p. 70, the theatre, lit p. 71, the theatre opened towards the water p. 72, plan of structure and finishing of the theatre, section, in scale 1/50 p. 74, details of the theatre floor in scale 1/10 and 1/1 p. 75, 76, drawing of the theatre in plan and section (laid over one another), wax pastel on cardboard in scale 1/25

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The ground where the memorial rests is raised one step higher in a direct exten­ sion of the school plinth. This garden-plinth is high enough to define a longer and slower flow of movement through the park and it keeps providing access through the existing entrance into the school. It is designed a plateau of bright, washed pea gravel. Its ellipse shape is centered on the axis of the five horse chestnut trees.

To draw the shape of the plateau in place, two 28m long strings are attached: one at the edge of the entrance, the other at the edge of the school building as such.

Drawing these two circles, a large ellipse is made, until the strings bend around the existing memorial, where their radius is shortened to 5 metres and they meet.

The main view from the memorial used to be outwards on the Jonas Daniel Meijerplein behind the canal. This view was the most important also during the commemorations, when people wanted to face the inscription on the memorial.

The school was on the backside then. By rotating the stone 65 degrees counter clockwise where it stands, when reading the inscription one will view the school, leaving the surrounding in the back.

The lamp that lit at 6:30 pm is removed. A lightbulb is placed above the school entrance by an existing memorial plaquette. It will light up at 6:30 pm. Shining half-light around the memorial, some signs may remain un—–

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Being close to the edge of a large water body has the effect of transporting oneself into an open, endless space, somewhere else; the zone where land meets water is a landscape of its own. There, the theatre is set. An entrance into the theatre is from the edge of the park, it leads 1 metre below existing terrain into the theatre.

Being inside, the view shifts outwards, on the openness of the large Herengracht canal and the memorial is at the backside.

As a type of space, a theatre that came the furthest in appreciation of the hu­ man body and its movement (sign language is also a bodily expression) was the modern theatre of the Swiss stage designer Adolphe Appia. His aesthetic was reduced to vertical, horizontal and oblique lines in space (floor, pillar, platform, ramp, staircase) only. Such strict geometry contrasted with the free and organic movement of human form. He created in space what in visual art is called a counterpoint. A counterpoint can be an opposite shape, or color, or light, which highlights the other. So for instance an organic shape on the background of a per­ pendicular grid is being higlighted by the grid. Appia further removed footlights in theatre and replaced them with backlights and frontlights that shone against one another, creating silhouettes and highlights at the same time. The vocabulary of forms and the lighting system of Appia is used also in this proposal.

During a play, sound (orchestra) is what sets the ‘time’ for actors in a hearing theatre. The rhythm. The actors play, dance and move by the music which is their theatrical time. In a Deaf theatre time and rhythm are obtained through visual and tactile clues. The play is more or less silent, as the sound of sign language is very subtle. To transmit vibrations of movement between people, there is no seating proposed and no hierarchy audience-actor established in this theatre for sign language. A floor is proposed that has a sprung wooden structure and deflects in order to ease a fall. Wood transmits bass vibrations. On top of it, a rusted sheet metal cover is placed which is the floor transmitting high vibrations.

One can lean against the brick embankment that is the theatre edge and support.

Feet stay on the floor and can feel the tactile movements of others.

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NOTES p. 5, Oliver Sacks: Seeing Voices; a journey into the world of the DEAF. University of California Press, 1989. p. 8, Data top: Bogdan Zaborski, Goode's World Atlas, 21st ed.; bottom: Wiki — List of language families, chapter 7 Sign languages. p. 17, deaf and dumb, doofstom (NL), or taubstumm (DE), the nazi label sewn on the shoulder of deaf people. p. 17, remnants of bones from the cemetry have been dug during the construction of the Student Hotel designed by H. Hertzberger and moved to the cemetery ‘De Nieuwe Noorder’ in Amsterdam North.

There, an ossuarium has been erected. Most of the urban block at the Hortusplantsoen is a valuable archeological ground, with the exception of its edges along the water, where a lot of underground infrastructure has been laid and the archeological value is thus low. The excavation of the theatre does not interfere with the archeological areas. p. 17, more information about the old cemetery is to be found at the Pareau & Dumont family geneal­ ogy website https://pareau.nl/geschiedenis/st-anthonis-kerkhof/ p. 29, Gao, X., Tao, Y., Lamas, V. et al. An article on prenatal genome modification ‘Treatment of autosomal dominant hearing loss by in vivo delivery of genome editing agents. Nature 553, 217–221 (2018).’ p. 32, the exact number of victims is being researched by the Stichting DovenShoah dovenshoah.nl; the website documents the research. In October 2021 there have been 202 victims known. Most of them have been either Jewish or Deaf or Deaf and Jewish. p. 45, the following work provides valuable information about how language theatre should be de­ signed. For the reference on size, see p. 20. Gebarentheater in Nederland: geschiedenis en toekomst van het handtheater. Ervaringen en meningen van spelers en bestuursleden genoteerd door Mieke Julien, Amsterdam, Juni 1991. Pdf at: http://www.handtheater.nl/downloads/B_1991_Gebarenthe­ ater%20in%20Nederland.pdf p. 69, Richard C. Beacham (ed.); Walther R. Volbach (tr.): Adolphe Appia: Essays, Scenarios, and Designs (Theater and Dramatic Studies, 57). Umi Research Pr, 1989.

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