The
Hanging Cemetery of Baghdad, by NaJa
& deOstos.
The RIEAeuropa
Concepts Series "presents in-depth explorations
of ideas and conditions...[aimed] at exposing innovative,
speculative and experimental work." Edited by über-experimenter
Lebbeus Woods, the small monographs resemble the Pamphlet
Architecture series (of which NaJa & deOstos will
contribute for #29), though of course this series is less
concerned with constructing architecture than with constructing
ideas. With that said, one should not mistake Nannette Jackowski
and Ricardo de Ostos's Hanging Cemetery as anything but
a speculative project of architecture.
But what a project. NaJa & deOstos
propose "a gigantic presence of a hanging funereal
structure [that] extends over the volatile city of Baghdad."
The impetus for the project need not be stated, but the
fact that the duo is tackling such a topic at a time when
bodies continue to be added to the war's death toll shows
the potential power of speculative architecture. What could
an architect otherwise similarly accomplish via the means
of traditional architectural practice? Could a building
(taking perhaps a few years to design and construct, at
best) carry the same weight as this direct hit in the face
of cruelties of this unnecessary war?
The book is saturated with black
and white images of statistics, photos, models, and some
just plain beautiful renderings of their hard-to-decipher
entity up in the air. The text is a wonderful parallel to
the images, each chapter a separate narrative voice coming
to grips with the cemetery's presence; its shadows painting
patterns on the streets of Baghdad, its ramp connecting
the two realms; the bodies hanging overhead as a reminder
of the inevitable that might come much too soon.
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