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CONTENTS | 4 SITES |
SILO |
TETTERODE | DE LOODS | EDELWEIS | APPENDICES | NOTES | SUB-SITES |
BOOK: DAVID CARR-SMITH - IMPROVISED ARCHITECTURE IN AMSTERDAM INDUSTRIAL SQUATS & COLLECTIVES
"GRAIN-SILO"
SQUAT 1989 to 1998
NORTH & SOUTH DRYING-TOWERS - p1(of 5) &
THE NORTH DRYING-TOWER ( the "IRON-TOWER")
<
SILO - INTRO < . THE
NORTH & SOUTH
DRYING TOWERS
<
SILO - GROUND-FLOOR <
<
SILO - CENTRAL STAIR <
< SILO - ATTICS <
SILO - DRYING TOWERS
>
SILO - "CORNER TOWER" >
>
THE PUBLIC SILO & THE KROEG >
>
NEW-SILO - PUBLIC & PRIVATE >
DRYING-TOWERS - p1: N & S TOWERS INTRO / N TOWER & APTS
> DRYING-TOWERS - p2: N TOWER & APTS - cont >
> DRYING-TOWERS - p3: N TOWER & APTS - cont >
> DRYING-TOWERS - p4: N TOWER & APTS - cont >
> DRYING-TOWERS - p5: S TOWER & APTS >
A fourth environmental and functional type of Silo 'mini-region' is the two drying-towers, wherein grain - too dirty or wet from the farms, or too hot from its storage in silos or ships - was poured and diverted through stacked installations that could dry, cool, dust, clean and weigh it. These towers were essentially huge multi-functional mechanisms encased in minimal protective envelopes with minimum means for access.
Such installations had been erected against each of the Silo’s end walls: the larger version was in a purpose-built utility tower attached to the north end of the building, the smaller was housed in an existing building-addition at the south end that was crudely extended upwards to house it.
At the time of squatting these sites were the only parts of the Silo whose installations were still intact and filled their spaces. Relatively isolated from the more communal main body of the building the pioneering domestication of both towers attracted people who were independently solitary and exceptionally physically resourceful.
.
THE
NORTH DRYING-TOWER (THE "IRON-TOWER")
[“The
rest of the Silo is very heavy earthy, this is very metal.” - BRIAN ]
The most austerely industrial, the least humane, the most bizarre and extreme challenge to domestication that this huge Silo building-machine (or any other site I’ve seen) presented, is the version at the N end: the 'North-Tower' or "Iron-Tower" - a totally utilitarian 30m high, 9x7m, 8-level, steel-frame structure, cheaply built in the early 1950’s. Its thin frame in-filled with single brick on three sides, the fourth is the Silo’s external wall. It contained a double stack of dryers fed by a huge delivery-hopper near its top; beneath the stack were sievers and weighers, and everywhere ducting.
Two aspects of the domesticated North-Tower are marvelous. The first is the exceptional/acute poignancy of the contrast, in this least comfortable and most austere of all the Silo’s mini-regions, between domesticity and its harsh industrial context. The second is the extraordinary resourcefulness and energy of the people who made the tower habitable - for an unmotivated outsider this so-called “Iron-Tower” would have presented an inconceivable challenge: much of what is now inhabited was filled with installations - without cutting and moving large amounts of metal there was no space to use.
. CLIMBING THE TOWER ... cont ... Above the first apt is the only un-transformed level in the tower (L3) - there through the eyes of a prospective occupier one apprehends the sheer work of clearing space - the floor is almost filled with metal: the lower third of the tower’s dryer, its big twinned hoppers and impeller-ducting is now crudely burned off just below a wooden in-fill ceiling (Brian’s lower floor). Suddenly the tower is undisguised and provokes a vision of the ad hoc infill character of the apts and their spatial positions in the structure (as might pertain in a ‘plug-in city’). The awareness that this steel-girt machine and dirt-filled space sits on top of Horst’s exquisite complex apt is poignant. This abandoned floor is the ‘frontier’ of Brian’s and Mark’s pioneering upper tower. From here on up
the ascent is increasingly vertiginous - multi-directional views open out
and through the structure: vertically and diagonally through stair and
hoist-hole, and horizontally through escape-doors into the bright space
above the Ij. A half-step from each stair-top 1¼ metres of missing floor
opens at ones feet, deepening as one ascends, until the long perspective
is so like a corridor, variegated with the walls of living-spaces:
plaster, wallpaper and soft hangings, that orientation is confused - until
a gasping moment when (ones body jerks back its balance as) its
accelerating depth is grasped as down! - its central rope spilling at the
bottom like spaghetti in the drain of a sloppy kitchen. |
||
N-TOWER
(L3): THE UNUSED FLOOR This machine-filled floor - the only level of the tower unused (except as a dump) - separates its two zones of occupation. The only sign of the intense domesticity above this ceiling is the brutal torching of the installations that once penetrated it. |
N-TOWER
(L3) LANDING - THE UNCLEARED FLOOR FROM BEHIND THE HOIST-HOLE On this level one can appreciate the multi-directional openness of the pre-squatted tower - the multi-level openings in floors and walls; the hoist and stair-holes revealing windows and escape-doors on adjacent floors. |
N-TOWER
(L3) LANDING - VIEW UP THE HOIST-HOLE View up to L6 Kitchen - the termination level of the hoist. |
N-TOWER
(L4-L3) STAIR VIEW DOWN TO L3 View down from the stair to L3 'machine-floor' and its open escape-door. |
N-TOWER
(L4) LANDING VIEW TOWARDS THE IJ Both L3 and L4 escape-doors are open. |
N-TOWER
(L4) LANDING ESCAPE DOOR OPEN This level's escape-door opens onto a catwalk that is more or less intact and which fronts the lower-floor of Brian's apt. |
N-TOWER
(L4) BRIAN'S APT FROM ESCAPE CATWALK Brian's lower floor, with its huge fitted windows, from escape-catwalk. |
N-TOWER
(L4): BRIAN APT FROM ESCAPE CATWALK Interior of Brian's lower floor from escape-catwalk. |
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<
SILO - INTRO <
DRYING-TOWERS - p1: N & S TOWERS INTRO / N TOWER & APTS
>
DRYING-TOWERS - p2: N TOWER & APTS - cont >
>
DRYING-TOWERS - p3: N
TOWER & APTS - cont >
>
DRYING-TOWERS - p4: N
TOWER & APTS - cont >
>
DRYING-TOWERS - p5: S
TOWER & APTS >
.
CONTENTS | 4 SITES |
SILO |
TETTERODE | DE LOODS | EDELWEIS | APPENDICES | NOTES | SUB-SITES |