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Tomas S. Butkus
AMBER-CHAMBER
 e2 >>
Amber Chamber is a form of reality
which surrounds or separates us. In each point of the earth's surface this
form unifies what is begun and completed by that point. It is a part and a
unity. But where does the former begin and the latter end? Why is "the
modern city" our inevitable residence strikingly different from its
ancestor, the polis? I know the uniqueness and restlessness of Angkor, the Capadocian cave, Manhattan or Venice. But I do not know the answer to
the question: what is the difference between a megalopolis and an
agglomeration and, most important, why does not all this remind one of a
city?
Take Klaipėda: a port, the hope of Lithuania. The city that has its history
and perspectives, but no identity. Here is the vision of a harbour: the
seashore, haunted by city dwellers twice per year, the red brick wall, local
jazz and liberal attitudes. The dilemma of the harbour versus the city had
emerged in pre-war times and troubled the city dwellers in soviet times. Now
the municipality and the state are made to balance near some Unknown Wealth.
"Look deeper", the mass media suggests, and we do. But so attentively
and so deeply that we do not recognize the obvious: we live in a wasteland,
our houses are bunkers, and we are modern barbarians.
What makes me think so? History?
The city-castle was founded in
1252 for military purposes by the Livonia order at the fall of the rivers
Nemunas and Danë. This was the establishment of the city. Later the area
was attacked and several times plundered by Samogitians. The city is
surrounded by star-shaped ramparts, the castle is separated from the island
by channels, and hatred separates
city-dwellers from castle-holders. A continuous defence of the city is going
on. At the end of the 18th c. another important change reshapes the structure
of Klaipėda's city-image: the suburb town of Fridrich or Odų (the
Hide) is separated from Island city (formed by Castrum Romanum principle) by the size of
its quarters and the the tempo of living. More dispersed suburbs and estates'
meadows stretch beyond the desolate embankments. The development of the urban
structure remains almost unchanged until the end of World War II. The year 1947 brings soviet
inventorization and re-evaluation. The city hopes to get rid of its slow
burdensome history and to develop. However, it was in vain. Just because all parts
of this system were built according to the principle that a man or a building
is only a part. There is no certain unity: at best it is substituted by the
communist party, a five year plan, or gagarin. So far this is the last phase
in the city development or, in other words, the decline.
What is the basis of my thinking?
The perspectives, oppressed by the disadvantageous current situation? A
massive buffer, the port, separates
the city from water. One can hardly see through it to the Curonian spit and a
few spires of churches or the postoffice. And there is no place for us.
The core of Klaipėda city, like many other cities of
the world, does not have a clear form or
distinct contents (unlike the Old Town of Vilnius the unique
Lithuanian urban monad). The fragments of urban and architectural heritage
make up just a very small part of this sphere. Too small to be identified as
a unity. The influence of the heritage to the developing city image makes
up just a buffer against mercantilism
and profesional incompetence.
What is the basis of my thinking?
On the basis of identity, which for Plato was a state, for Leibnitz a
monad, and for Kevin Lynch a city image. On the basis of the Amber-chamber,
whose search has been too painful for Klaipėda (although any structural limits
of the unity and the part should be recreated immediately). On the basis of
the Creators eye that once fixed upon a spider stuck in the solidifying
magma of pine gum. Because the magma has preserved the genuine form of the
incluse, the results of its socio-economical existence, the clutches of its
setting, the freedom of its authentic form. On the basis of the name which
legally belongs to its single owner.
The identity of klaipėda is in geometry and composition.
The identity of klaipėda is in gravitation and dominants.
The identity of klaipėda is a monad.
The unity is a part. And the part
is a unity.
The Manifesto has references in the MA thesis "The Interaction
of old and new structures in the nucleus of klaipėda"
(Vilnius Gediminas Technical University,
Faculty of Architecture. Advisor
sen. assistant Algis Vyšniunas. Vilnius, 1999)
1998 Vilnius - 2000
July, Klaipėda.
© Amber-Chamber studio, MMIII
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