B1|A40 THE BEAUTY OF THE GRAND ROAD
DIE SCHÖNHEIT DER GROSSEN STRASSE 2014 EINE AUSSTELLUNG IM STADTRAUM DER A40 VON DUISBURG BIS DORTMUND 14.06.2014 – 07.09.2014 MAP MARKUS AMBACH PROJEKTE URBANE KÜNSTE RUHR (HG.) WIENAND
DIE SCHÖNHEIT DER GROSSEN STRASSE 2014
EINE AUSSTELLUNG IM STADTRAUM DER A40 VON DUISBURG BIS DORTMUND
14.06.2014 – 07.09.2014
MAP MARKUS AMBACH PROJEKTE
URBANE KÜNSTE RUHR
(HG.)
WIENAND
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RECONSTRUCTING A LANDSCAPE At first<br />
glance, the district of Dortmund-Schönau does<br />
not embody any sort of problematic, questionable,<br />
or bizarre situation along the A40.<br />
Schönau is like an idyllic village of single-family<br />
homes and mansions. Its locale, in the hilly<br />
area just before the monumental Schnettker<br />
bridge, seems practically luxurious. Now, after<br />
being renovated, the bridge provides enough<br />
protection from the noise of the A40 to give the<br />
town – which, until recently, resembled a large<br />
construction site due to the construction traffic<br />
– a little bit of peace and quiet. In this nearly<br />
village-like idyll, the restored Emscher River<br />
and the Rüppingsbach wind their way past villas,<br />
gardens, and flood-meadows through Schönau,<br />
the Emscher Valley, and beneath the A40.<br />
Along a two-hour hiking trail, <strong>B1|A40</strong> questioned<br />
today’s notions of landscape. While some consider<br />
it the epitome of nature, land here has actually<br />
long been a cultivated landscape subject<br />
to the fashions of each era. 1 It articulates an omnipresent<br />
theme in a region with a significant<br />
history of exploiting natural resources – one<br />
that is currently in great need of renewal.<br />
The recently completed restoration of the Emscher<br />
here underscores this. During the postwar<br />
era, the economy demanded progress in<br />
the form of the straightest river possible, where<br />
water, clean or not, would flow as quickly as<br />
possible. This was especially true of the Emscher,<br />
which served as a sewage canal for the<br />
entire region, transporting poisonous industrial<br />
waste to the Rhine. Of course, it’s understandable<br />
that this concept of open waste disposal did<br />
not include the notion of anyone spending much<br />
time around the contaminated waters. The Emscher<br />
was transformed into a ramrod-straight,<br />
high-speed channel. Today, and for thirty years<br />
prior, people have been trying to turn the Emscher<br />
landscape back into what it once was. The<br />
Emscher Park International Architectural Exhibition<br />
(IBA) and its successors certainly do<br />
their best, but every once in a while they convey<br />
an impression of omnipotence. Where humans<br />
have destroyed the landscape, humans<br />
should once again recreate a fertile river that<br />
will meander westward in the future. Here in the<br />
Schnettker Valley, where this future has already<br />
begun, the river actually flows in a curving bed<br />
surrounded by water lilies, cattails, and reeds.<br />
What you no (longer) see is the sewage canal,<br />
which is still there, placed below the restored<br />
river with a great deal of effort. An ambivalent<br />
situation in which landscape is reproduced with<br />
clever technology.<br />
Whether the artful artificiality of this landscape<br />
will have to remain hidden, as it currently is, or<br />
whether the historical facts about it should be<br />
recorded, remains to be seen. The pretense, the<br />
falsification of facts, certainly makes the current<br />
situation easier to live with and should not<br />
be denied. The history of the landscape as a site<br />
of ambivalent developments, however, is disappearing<br />
behind the patina of reconstruction.<br />
On the trail, you encountered various forms of<br />
the reconstruction principle. The path led from<br />
the village to the fork of the Emscher and Rüppingsbach;<br />
beneath the mighty bridge it showed<br />
one of the A40’s striking breaks in the landscape.<br />
Underneath the massive steel structure,<br />
Christian Odzuck’s work of art, Polytopos<br />
Dortmund* employed minimal means to compete<br />
successfully with the bridge. The structure<br />
systematized the view of the valley, as well as<br />
the bridge and the site between the village and<br />
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