reportage
Concrete landscapes I’ve always been fascinated by the problems of urban areas. Damaged buildings, squatting people in empty corners where even police are afraid to check. Additionally, loads of socio-economic issues the municipality cannot handle alone. My former field of study is recreating these spaces and making them more liveable. I feel like it is engraved in me. I want places to be functional, sustainable and beautiful. But what can I do if developers and authorities have other plans? Re-vita Let’s start with the definition of revitalization. It’s a very complex process and demands a lot of money, speaking of which – they are often wasted. But I am not going to whine from the beginning. Re-vita means bringing back to life. But first, the thing has to be dead or almost dead. Many cities or neighborhoods were created in the surrounding big factories during the Industrial Revolution. People started to migrate from villages to the cities because there was easier to get a job and make a living. But we are no more in the nineteen-century, the economy wholly changed, and factories went bankrupt or human work was replaced by automated massproduction. There were left white spots 16 - VOICES
in the cities–after not used railway and military areas or old factories. Together with that, many socio-economic issues like unemployment, the ghettoization of the inhabitants, suburbanization, social pathologies, and many more. Revitalization is a multidimensional process that responds to the problems of the urban area. It’s not only about renovating buildings, road repairs, or cleaning. It has to heal both - the city and its inhabitants. We need to add new functions to the urban tissue and hear people’s voices. How? Utopia With all the necessary renovations, repairs, and urban planning, has to go a social plan. Old inhabitants have to be
taken care of to minimize the negative social impact of future changes. There are many ways to create social initiatives and new workplaces and organize courses or events to bring the people together. Also, the task is to pull new inhabitants to the environment and integrate them with autochthons. But as far as I saw, even though they are trying to do something – it’s not always possible or not that easy. Fabrika Tbilisi (Georgia) is my favorite utopian example of successfully changing the function of a damaged place. Once there was located a soviet sewing factory. After years of abandonment, people decide to save this building but in a different form. It became a hostel with an evident postindustrial vibe – some of the walls or