Bauhaus
We took a little drive today out to Esja for a hike, and it was amazingly nice. On both the way there and the way back, we drove past the enormous warehouse style building constructed by the German hardware/homeware store Bauhaus. They were just about finished with the building, and in process of hiring all the employees, when the Icelandic banking system collapsed. The opening of this mega European chain, originally scheduled for December 2008, never happened.
The sight of this building on such a beautiful day in 2010, still sitting there fully built with signage and everything, but completely empty, got me thinking. And so I have a proposal.
I think this building would make the perfect place to create a new "Museum of the Collapse." Here I am thinking of a multimedia, experiential kind of museum, rather than an artifact driven one, but one that archives all the architectural plans for all the overblown projects in the works and on the books in 2006 and 2007. It could play all the documentaries about the collapse, and have a huge room wallpapered with the rannsoknarskýrsla.
This proposal sounds a bit cynical, but I do not mean it that way. To me, this would be an ideal sort of museum. The institution of the museum has evolved over the last 100 years, and it is becoming more and more clear that in addition to providing physical interactions with objects, and unique continuing non-traditional educational opportunities, the best museums also provide an incredibly valuable emotional experience. Museums are becoming more and more comfortable with their role as a community coming together place, and in many cases this coming together serves a memorial function. The Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. is a good example of this trend. It is a museum with artifacts and facts, but more so it is a place to contemplate, a place to consider, a place to mourn, a place to be inspired to action. Museums like this create a special sense of community.
I think Iceland, post 2007, could use a place like that. And I am wondering if that isn't part of the appeal of Besta Flokkurinn, also.
The sight of this building on such a beautiful day in 2010, still sitting there fully built with signage and everything, but completely empty, got me thinking. And so I have a proposal.
I think this building would make the perfect place to create a new "Museum of the Collapse." Here I am thinking of a multimedia, experiential kind of museum, rather than an artifact driven one, but one that archives all the architectural plans for all the overblown projects in the works and on the books in 2006 and 2007. It could play all the documentaries about the collapse, and have a huge room wallpapered with the rannsoknarskýrsla.
This proposal sounds a bit cynical, but I do not mean it that way. To me, this would be an ideal sort of museum. The institution of the museum has evolved over the last 100 years, and it is becoming more and more clear that in addition to providing physical interactions with objects, and unique continuing non-traditional educational opportunities, the best museums also provide an incredibly valuable emotional experience. Museums are becoming more and more comfortable with their role as a community coming together place, and in many cases this coming together serves a memorial function. The Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. is a good example of this trend. It is a museum with artifacts and facts, but more so it is a place to contemplate, a place to consider, a place to mourn, a place to be inspired to action. Museums like this create a special sense of community.
I think Iceland, post 2007, could use a place like that. And I am wondering if that isn't part of the appeal of Besta Flokkurinn, also.
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