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Parks & Passages
Only 1-1/2 miles West from where you stand lies a modern ruin -- a former streetcar station and 75,000 sq. ft. tunnel directly beneath Dupont Circle. Built to alleviate circle traffic in 1949, this underground passage functioned only until 1961, sealed up along with the collapse of DC's unwieldy streetcar system. Since then, attempts to re-open the Dupont Underground have revealed the pitfalls and possibilities of re-purposing this infrastructure, and today it has once again captured Washington's imagination through a culturally-driven revitalization effort.
Meanwhile, in Berlin, artists, designers, and developers have brought an experimental ethos to the resurrection of a formerly divided city -- adapting modern ruins for creative ends. Public and private initiatives are re-claiming abandoned spaces, outmoded bureaucratic complexes, and industrial voids as social landscapes -- growing culture from places where collective histories can neither be wholly preserved nor quickly forgotten. Pioneering sustainable design, temporary use, and progressive intent, Berlin's adapted architectures provide a common space for remembrance, sharing, and play, layering pasts and futures to heal a torn city.
In summer 2012, Provisions Library sent a group of DC-based researchers to Berlin to source inspiration for reviving the Dupont Underground. Artists Edgar Endress and James Huchenpahler, architect Pam Jordan, and scholar Paul Farber witnessed two capitals in parallel transformation, two cities full of parks and passages, two expressions of urban reclamation, state power, and human intervention. They found where the plaza meets the labyrinth, where lost time meets the now, where amusement becomes transportation without destination. In uncanny reverberations of politics, economic, and cultural exchanges, they saw each capital revealed in the other.
This display of creative research, and accompanying public events, investigates the subliminal architectures, mythical stories, and urban destinies of modern ruins. Join us in imagining future movements from the underground. |