GAP Generation

Posted by MadScientist (Düsseldorf, Germany) on 5 July 2008 in Cityscape & Urban.

Once more we're resting at Düsseldorf's Schwanenspiegel, a pond between the notorious Altstadt and the Bilk quarter. We've been visiting this place already a few times ago, because it's one of the more beautiful corners of my city. This time we're looking to the east, the Kö, Düsseldorf's boulevard, isn't far away.

The casual visitor of my blog certainly knows my favourite type of architecture. It's not that I'm against modern (or better: recent) buildings but when it comes to architecture I always pay attention to very simple attributes: the overall appeal and the durability.

Many old buildings in Germany were destroyed in WW II, even more in the following decades, when old buildings were everything but sought-after. Post-modernism was the first type of building coverage that at least tried to adapt itself to traditional architecture without denying the insights of modernism and without pretending to follow revolutionary concepts of the 1920s. Most of German post-war architecture was just crap (with the exception of the 1950s) and I'm sighing with relief every time a piece of abberative architecture from that period is demolished.

Representative architecture tries to be different. Architects and builders try to give a signal of vitality and power then as now. Orientation towards future seems to be indicator of recent buildings. And while old buildings usually tell something about their builders and their ideas and hopes, recent representative (company-)buildings often tell nothing. They are brilliant and shiny but they don't promise anything. There are many reflections, because their facades are made of glass and steel, but they are not reflective. JoeB published an excellent example of this architecture on his blog a few weeks ago. These buildings have to be prestigious, but many companies won't stay for long and the next owner has to fit in there as the current one does. Angrily said, anonymity is reinterpreted and called International Style.

Now back to the photo. The big building to the left was built 2003 - 2005. It's called GAP 15. GAP 15 is short for "Graf-Adolf-Platz 15", the building's address. It's a representative office building, hosting a few white-collar companies that are too expensive for you and me to hire. Lots of young, well-educated people are working there, the future is theirs, things you'll see in the news later are planned here. It's the GAP generation, worshipping the God of success in this stylish cathedral.

While the sun is shining you can have a pleasant walk when exploring the site. If it's windy or even rainy, you better run away, because GAP 15 won't give you shelter: its surface is even and your umbrella will be blown away. But whoever is working here won't be touched by the elements: the windows can't be opened and most people arrive by car and enter the building through the deep-level garage. The only memento of the world outside is given by the facade: it's all glass and steel and if you're inside the building you're better free from giddiness.

What you can't see here are the construction sites behind the park and that building crane, within sight of GAP 15. Some buildings of the late 1950s are soon to be demolished and I wonder what hopes their builders then had. They are gone by now and so will do the GAP generation. Perhaps they will go a little bit earlier, when corrosion and financial crises will turn GAP 15 into a less cool place than they think it is today.