I C A R C H 

THE HOUSE OF ANTI-WAR

It would be easy to dismiss the thought of war, at a time when we learn, ecstatically, that Kim Kardashian lost a few more pounds, when we learn that a new drone-toy was invented, quite accessible to the “public,” that the richest man on earth just got much richer and so on… indeed, what war…?!

And the fact that some minor “incidents” happen, from time to time, some mere killings here and there, or that Russia just added to its arsenal of weapons a supersonic something, means nothing, really… after all, Neymar just scored another beautiful goal and the revealing dress of a TV hostess makes the audience wild…

Yet… somewhere, in the dark, the blind forces of Fate lurk.

And we cannot control them.

The Second World War happened just seventy something years ago… Yes, some of the people we might know were alive when Jews, and not only Jews, were “annihilated” in gas chambers, when human bodies just like ours were thrown to the garbage just like garbage, when unheard of atrocities took place as if human beings didn’t learn anything from thousands of years of man-made unspeakable tragedies.

Did we change…?

We doubt it.

We are just a button, or a few buttons away, from transforming the whole earth into cosmic dust.

Yes, Homo Sapiens does have this power, dear reader!

Is it what we want…?

If not, why do we continue to flirt with disaster, a disaster even the saddest images from Hiroshima cannot dispel…?!

Perhaps we should look daily to pictures from Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Maybe it should be an obligation, for all the people on this planet to display, in their living rooms, revealing images of Auschwitz and Hiroshima.

SO WE DON’T FORGET. NEVER!

Are these words and thoughts morbid…?

But if they are, are they more so than what actually happened at Auschwitz and Hiroshima…?

We doubt it.

But it is easier to dismiss the uncomfortable, as if it never existed and never will, again… until it happens, again.

The government of Austria is puzzled about what to do with the building at Salzurger Vorstadt, 15, that is, the building where, on Easter Sunday (of all days), in 1889, Hitler was born.

We strongly feel this building, transformed, should be the most powerful ANTI-WAR architectural statement possible! Nothing less.

And we invite you now to do just this: to envision ways to redesign this building in such a way that anyone seeing it, or visiting it, might be outraged at the simple thought of starting another war.

Let’s fight war, through architecture, the way Goya did, in his "Disasters of War," or Dali, in his “Face of War!” Let’s make this building equally tormenting, so no new war would still be possible!

While we have all the reasons to be skeptical of our success, WE HAVE TO TRY. Just as Goya did, and Dali, and some others, although not too many architects, unfortunately.

Please make the building where Hitler was born the most intense, the most powerful ANTI-WAR statement possible! We accept nothing else.

Don’t make it a pleasant building. Make it a tormenting building, as tormenting as war itself.

We accept ANY work, ANY size, ANY format. The deadline to submit your work is December 12th, 2016. Please write to us at info@icarch.us in order to receive a registration number with which to anonymously identify your work and the CAD plan of the building site. For more texts related to this competition, please read below.

Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery



THE HOUSE OF (human) TRASH

Dear architect,

We feel we are reiterating a banal truth: life is ephemeral, for all of us. Life is precious, but unfortunately, often, we forget it.

Just the other day, we came across the picture above: it shows a sketch, from a sketchbook found in Auschwitz, done by someone with the initials MM. Please read through the link below:

http://design-milk.com/keepers-exhibition-precious-trash/

Let’s try to imagine WE, ALL OF US, were this MM artist, maybe next in line towards the gas chamber.

Can we imagine such horror…?

COULD WE EVER, EVER FORGET…?

To forget this is to forget EVERYTHING: the miracle of life, the immense gift that was given to us, at birth.

WHY SO MUCH HATRED…?

The Earth is rich enough for ALL OF US.

Why are we hating each other…? Is it because we actually hate ourselves…?

The horrors of Second World War SHOULD NEVER, EVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

Just a few days ago we read an article saying that a new war seems unavoidable. At this very moment all kinds of people contemplate all kinds of wars!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/10-horrifying-future-wars/

Why...???????

Why is this happening and HOW could this be happening…?!

To us it is incomprehensible.

It is obvious that both Goya and Dali failed in their attempts to show the horrors of wars. And they were not the only ones.

But we should never, ever tire of advocating PEACE.

Not in a placid, mellow way, but VEHEMENTLY, just like the artists mentioned above.

We urge you to fight together with us.

War can happen any time, indeed.

And we should not allow it.

The sadness of the picture above, of the drawing above, should inspire us all.

What does it mean to be “on your way to the gas chamber…?”

What does it mean…?

And how could it be that a graduate in philosophy, like Goebbels, took an active part in this…?!?

How could this be…?!?

Are we allowed to ever understand such a horror…?!?

Please fight! If you do, you will fight for LIFE! Not just yours, but everybody’s. And when we say “everybody’s,” we include yours.

Thank you,

ICARCH



 

            A NEW "GEBURTSHAUS" FOR ADOLF HITLER

Salvador Dali working on "The Face of War" in 1940

THE HOUSE OF ANTI-WAR

Dear Architect,


Busy as we are, we can easily forget that prospective monsters could lurk in unexpected places... as it is well known, the tempest could easily start from a seemingly blue sky.

We human beings are unable to control our destiny as scientifically and as righteously as we would like.

It seems surreal to read, almost daily, about the atrocities so very much present, still, in the human affairs.

Crimes of all kinds, terrorism, war, etc... the list is endless.

How to explain this...?!

Why is it that despite unending suffering, human life is still trapped in a persistent inability to avoid the very mistakes it vowed to avoid, the very mistakes that provoked so much bleeding...?!

Quite often we read on the "news" about the prospect of a Third World War.

How could this be...?!

Did we forget the horrors of the Second World War...?!

Indeed, it seems we cannot learn.

But we must never stop TRYING to learn.

We read recently that the Austrian government and the town of Braunau am Inn don't quite know what to do with the house where Adolf Hitler was born... that very house that brought "unwanted attention" to Braunau am Inn... please read through the link below and please watch the video:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hitlers-birthplace-loathes-him-not-building-104151251.html

https://youtu.be/n9jwPkfqVfU

So we thought of inviting you to conceive a house that would bring a WANTED attention to Braunau am Inn... through the very house mentioned before.

THE BIRTHPLACE OF ADOLF HITLER.

THE HOUSE WHERE ADOLF HITLER WAS BORN.

LET'S SEARCH FOR POSSIBLE WAYS TO TRANSFORM THIS HOUSE IN THE MOST POWERFUL ANTI-WAR STATEMENT POSSIBLE.

LET'S TRY, WITHOUT UNWARRANTED OPTIMISM, TO MAKE THIS HOUSE A SYMBOL OF OUR STRUGGLE TO KEEP FUTURE "WORLD WARS" AWAY FROM HUMAN LIFE.

Is it possible...?

WE HAVE TO TRY.

This house, while in itself "just a house," because Hitler was born there it is invested, symbolically, with unusual characteristics.

And we feel that we can make these characteristics visible and comprehensible, if we have the courage to show their truth as much as possible.

WE SIMPLY CANNOT ALLOW ANOTHER WAR TO DEVASTATE LIFE ON EARTH THE WAY THE SECOND WORLD WAR DID. The estimates are: between 60 million and 100 million people died, of whom around 11 million died because of the Holocaust.

What is a person...? A single person...?! And what are 100 persons...?! What about 1,000...?? What about 10,000...?? What about 100,000...?! And what about 1,000,000...?!?

And what about 100,000,000...?!?!?

Do these numbers mean anything...?!?!

We feel that if we don't appreciate one single life, we don't appreciate one million lives. The two are correlative.

We invite you to reflect with all the seriousness possible, with all the gravity you are capable of, on the issue of war. Just imagine that someone very dear to you died in this war, uselessly.

Let's transform the House where Adolf Hitler was born in the most powerful ANTI-WAR statement possible.

Let's make it, architecturally, as relevant as, let's say, Goya's "Disasters of War" or Dali's "Face of War" (shown above).

Can we do it...?!

This competition will take place in two phases: the first phase will start now and the deadline will be the 12th of December, 2016. Please write to us in order to receive a registration number with which to anonymously identify your work, and also the CAD drawing of the site plan and the building. The second phase will take place between December 12th, 2016 and January 1st, 2017, when the best works will have a chance to be developed. In between the two phases we want to send a portfolio with all the works received to the City Hall of Braunau am Inn and other governmental Austrian agencies to ask for their support to develop this enterprise and to actually implement the winning project. If you have any questions, please write to us at: info@icarch.us.

Thank you.

ICARCH Gallery

www.icarch.us

HIDEOUS - CREEPY - LURID - SPOOKY - GRIM - SCARY - GRUESOME

Yes, maybe these words would describe accurately A HOUSE FOR ADOLF HITLER.

A (NEW) BIRTH HOUSE FOR ADOLF HITLER.

The house where he was born is still "alive", much more alive than the more than 60 million people who died in the Second World War, the most deadly of all wars, until now.

We wish we didn't have to use the words "until now"... unfortunately, it seems we human beings do not quite learn.

Yet, we do hope we can learn.

This is why we invite you to imagine A (NEW) BIRTH HOUSE FOR ADOLF HITLER, that is, TO TRANSFORM the existing one in such a way that anyone seeing it would NEVER, EVER, start a war again!

Could architecture fight war, in this way...?!

Louis Kahn said that a painter, if he wants to oppose war, he can paint the wheels of the war machine square, but that the architect must make them round. We are not sure about this... we feel that in the case of a war, the architect should make the wheels of the war machine square too.

But what to do with this existing building...? It seems the town of Braunau am Inn and the government of Austria don't quite know what to do with it.

We feel that perhaps the best usage of this building would be to make it some kind of ANTI-MEMORIAL, ANTI-MONUMENT, something that would express the horrors of wars in such a powerful way, that no one seeing it would remain indifferent.

Yes, let's contemplate the seven words above (and there are others)... would they describe, accurately, the psychological portrait of The Fuehrer...?!

And how would a building described by these seven words look like...?

This is the question.

Make it terrifying, dear architect, as terrifying as the horrible realities of that horrible war.

Make this building an equivalent of Goya's Disasters of War.

Make it so abhorrent that no new war would still be possible.

THE MASK OF WAR ITSELF: HIDEOUS, GRIM, LURID, CREEPY, SCARY, GRUESOME.

Tell the truth, dear architect, about your feelings vis-a-vis war in general and vis-a-vis Hitler.

SHAME THEM, dear architect, SHAME THEM...!!!!

And we didn't even mention the Holocaust, that Horror of Horror, through which the Cleansing Fuehrer wanted to CLEANSE EVERYTHING, except the dirt within.

TAKE THAT DIRT OUTSIDE, DEAR ARCHITECT, AND SHAME THE LYING WHITENESS OF HIS "PURE" IDEALS. TAKE THE DIRT OUTSIDE...!!!!!

The lover of purity, of unending WHITENESS, had no problem at all to cover the earth with RED blood. And with ASHES.

SHAME HIM, DEAR ARCHITECT, SHAME HIM! And together with him, anyone with equally monstrous desires to "cleanse the world."

BEWARE OF THE MANICS OF CLEANSING!

So we invite you to transform this building in the very opposite of CLEANNESS.

We expect a DIRTY BUILDING, AS DIRTY AS WAR, AS DIRTY AS THE FUEHRER'S SICKNESS.

MAKE A SICK BUILDING, telling thus the truth.

T H E   S I C K E R,   T H E   B E T T E R!
T H E   S I C K E R,   T H E   B E T T E R!

THE HOUSE OF ANTI-WAR

It would be easy to dismiss the thought of war, at a time when we learn, ecstatically, that Kim Kardashian lost a few more pounds, when we learn that a new drone-toy was invented, quite accessible to the “public,” that the richest man on earth just got much richer and so on… indeed, what war…?!

And the fact that some minor “incidents” happen, from time to time, some mere killings here and there, or that Russia just added to its arsenal of weapons a supersonic something, means nothing, really… after all, Neymar just scored another beautiful goal and the revealing dress of a TV hostess makes the audience wild…

Yet… somewhere, in the dark, the blind forces of Fate lurk.

And we cannot control them.

The Second World War happened just seventy something years ago…
Yes, some of the people we know were alive when Jews, and not only Jews, were “annihilated” in gas chambers, when human bodies just like ours were thrown to the garbage just like garbage, when unheard of atrocities took place as if human beings didn’t learn anything from thousands of years of man-made unspeakable tragedies.

Did we change…?

We doubt it.

We are just a button, or a few buttons away, from transforming the whole earth into cosmic dust.

Yes, Homo Sapiens does have this power, dear reader!

Is it what we want…?

If not, why do we continue to flirt with disaster, a disaster even the saddest images from Hiroshima cannot dispel…?!

Perhaps we should look daily to pictures from Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Maybe it should be an obligation, for all the people on this planet to display, in their living rooms, revealing images of Auschwitz and Hiroshima.

SO WE DON’T FORGET. NEVER!

Are these words and thoughts morbid…?

But if they are, are they more so than what actually happened at Auschwitz and Hiroshima…?

We doubt it.

But it is easier to dismiss the uncomfortable, as if it never existed and never will, again… until it happens, again.

The government of Austria is puzzled about what to do with the building at Salzurger Strasse, 15, that is, the building where, on Easter Sunday (of all days), in 1889, Hitler was born.

We strongly feel that building, transformed, should be the most powerful ANTI-WAR architectural statement possible! Nothing less.

And we invite you now to do just this: to envision ways to redesign that building in such a way that anyone seeing it, or visiting it, might be outraged at the simple thought of starting another war.

Let’s fight war, through architecture, the way Goya did, in his "Disasters of War," or Dali, in his “Face of War!” Let’s make this building equally tormenting, so no new war would still be possible!

While we have all the reasons to be skeptical of our success, WE HAVE TO TRY. Just as Goya did, and Dali, and some others, although not too many architects, unfortunately.

Please make the building where Hitler was born the most intense, the most powerful ANTI-WAR statement possible! We accept nothing else.

Don’t make it a pleasant building. Make it a tormenting building, as tormenting as war itself.

Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery 

A NEW GEBURTSHAUS FOR HITLER
Braunau am Inn - Austria

What is birth…?

What is death…?

A beginning and an end… although some, less afraid to be optimistic, think that the end might also be another beginning… who knows…?

And… what is a baby…? A newborn…? Does the newborn contain already the seeds of what would follow…?

How was the baby Hitler…? Did he giggle…? Did he amuse his parents and others with that deliciousness that only babies can deliver…?

Was he angelic, as all babies seem to be, within some approximations…?

How was the baby Hitler…?

Maybe there was nothing special about him… “just” a baby… learning the first gestures, the first words, the first steps…

But what was in his developing mind…? Did the baby Hitler have any forethought of the adult Adolf…?

Should we demonize Hitler…? Should we think he was simply an unfortunate tool in hands of a fatidical history…? Or, quite contrarily, should we hold him responsible in the highest degree for the atrocities of the Second World War…?!

How come complex and rich minds like Heidegger’s, Emil Nolde’s, Knut Hamsun and others sympathized with Hitler…?! How was it possible…?

There are probably countless books published on him.

But how many books are published in the countless sufferings of those who confronted (unsuccessfuly) death thanks to what the baby Hitler became…?

Did Hitler forget that once he didn’t know words, he didn’t know gestures, he didn’t know how to walk…? Did he forget that once he was a baby…? What would the baby Hitler have said about the “mature” Hitler…? Would he have agreed with him…? And what would the baby Hitler have said if a bomb fell on him, while he was giggling, or, worse, if he was sent with his mother and father and siblings to a gas chamber, something so horrid that it is almost impossible to conceive.

We ask you to conceive THE HOUSE OF WAR – THE HOUSE OF OPPOSING WAR – A MEMORIAL AGAINST WAR, ALL WARS, PERIOD – in the house where Hitler was born.

We invite you to TRANSFORM THIS HOUSE, FOR GOOD, IN THE MOST MOVING PROTEST AGAINST ALL WARS. INVEST IN IT ALL THE IMAGINED ANGUISH ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DIED IN THIS HORRIBLE WAR AND ANY OTHER, MAKE IT CRY AND SCREAM IN PAIN.

Transform the 16th century building into THE SHRINE OF ANTI WAR, not by making it white, but by making it HORRID. Apply Eisenman’s words: EN TERROR FIRMA.

EN HITLER’S GEBURTSHAUS FIRMA.

Make any passing tourist, arrived in front of this house TREMBLE.
Make it so moving that no new Hitler would ever be born again.
MAKE WAR IMPOSSIBLE. Transform Hitler's Birthouse into an indelible sign: The Sign of Anti-War!

Redesign it, in any way you find appropriate!

Express your anger, sadness, hope. Hope that what happened in the Second World War will never happen again!

Thank you,

ICARCH

THE HOUSE OF RESURRECTION

Strange, very strange indeed that Hitler was born on Easter Sunday, in 1889.

That is, he was born on The Day of the Resurrection, speaking in Christian terms.

But through what he did, later in life, he was against ANY resurrection.

If we look in the dictionary for antonyms of the word “resurrection,” this is what we get:

Disappearance     Abolition     Allowance     Depletion    Disintegration  Dissipation     Evanescence     Evaporation    Impounding      Loss    Sequestration     Slice     Slide

 
This is what Thesaurus tells us, omitting, perhaps strangely, the word "death" and the related words.

But didn’t Fascism act, factually, in the name of Disappearance, Depletion, Disintegration…? Didn’t it act AGAINST life…?!?

We do not feel we need to be Christian to believe in the renewal of life Christ’s Resurrection meant.

We feel human beings need a “horizon of hope,” as someone called it.

Yes, Resurrection represented and represents, for the Christians, a horizon of hope.
Other religions have different horizons of hope.

But all human beings need, we feel, A HORIZON OF HOPE.

So let’s oppose Hitler, let’s bring back to the house he was born in, on Easter Sunday, in 1889, what he, unfortunately and tragically, tried to dismiss.

RESURRECTION.

The victory of Life over Death.

This is what we ask you to do, actually. To give architectonic expression to Life’s victory over Death.

It is a transmutation, the most important of all, probably.

What could be a greater challenge, than to transform Death into Life…?!?

Let’s do it, dear architects, let's do it…!!! Even if aware of Holbein’s puzzling painting “The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb" (shown above), the one that anguished Dostoevsky and his Prince Myshkin.

Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery
www.icarch.us

THE HOUSE OF ANTI-WAR

Dear Reader,

As you can see through the link below, it seems that the only two options that are contemplated now about the house where Hitler was born are to either be demolished, or to be transformed into a museum, or a shop.


http://112.international/politics/adolf-hitlers-house-to-become-museum-or-a-shop-there-7037.html


SHOP… indeed… what else is Capitalism good at, but Shopping, Shopping, Shopping… until dropping dead.

Or a placid museum… the museumification of the world is well advanced, indeed… how “civilized,” how righteous, how politically correct and polite, indeed.

But let’s oppose this civilized politeness to the horrors of the Second World War. Yes, Hitler didn’t wage that war alone, but he was a quintessential, emblematic, almost paradigmatic part of it. In our imagination we connect, inevitably and ominously, WWII with Hitler.

And thus the house he was born in is invested, equally inevitably, with symbolic attributes that we cannot evade.

So let’s see… there is no other way besides demolishing this building or transforming it into a museum or a shop…?!?

Selling and buying what, for God’s sake…?!? Souvenirs of war…?!? Sweet images of dead bodies, sweet images of gas chambers, sweet images of tanks, rifles, bombers, and…!?!

We cannot accept reducing the terrifying memory of this deadliest of all wars to shopping bags and other commercial paraphernalia! It is impossible to transform the house where Hitler was born into a shop, to make another quick buck on the most ominous of all subjects.

Capitalism, indeed, wants to sell everything… without discernment… SELL, SELL, SELL.

To demolish the building won’t solve the problem either. Because “the return of the repressed,” to use the words of a famous Austrian, Sigmund Freud, would be impossible to avoid.

So then what to do…?!

You saw above several texts that tried to provoke you towards approaching this subject, and this building, as we feel it is appropriate, that is, to face the ugly truth squarely.

Symbolically, this building is charged in significant ways. We cannot hide this symbolism under the rug, and we cannot domesticate it by transforming it yet into another commercial venture, or, almost equally inconsequential, into a more or less placid (because not visceral enough) "educational" endeavor... We feel "good intentions" are not enough.

In this building was born the one unquestionably at the very roots of the Second World War. And while he didn’t wage that war alone, as we already stated, he was at its crux. So let’s not treat this house, and its symbolism, lightly.

It was estimated that approximately 100 million people died in the Second World War, of whom around 11 million in the Holocaust.

These numbers should make us tremble.

We simply cannot allow ourselves another disaster, another tragedy of the same proportions. We need to protest with all the vehemence we are capable of. And this is what we invite you to do.

WE WANT THE MOST INTENSE, THE MOST POWERFUL ANTI-WAR ARCHITECTURAL STATEMENT POSSIBLE. NOTHING ELSE!

Thank you.

ICARCH Gallery