Analyzing Passions/interest in Prora- Framing Prora and continuity

Entering the building from the outside brings you to the courtyard. In traditional Danish and German courtyards, you will have a lot of public social activities going on, either children is playing or people are using the normal small gardens for socializing.

In Prora you have this very cold and dark courtyard, which only serves as an entrance, with no interaction with anything. It should be a public place, but seems to me as very private, only to guide people fast through.

Then you see this small gab under the structure, a little passage for guiding people to the beach. You don’t know what there exact is behind the massive walls, but you get a small hint of roots from trees and grass that is growing.

Entering these small passage bring you to the backyard, which is a small field of grass, a small middle land, used for public circulation. It seems like it is the last stop before the thick growing forest, which is the next step in the landscape typology.

The forest is actually artificial made, but it has the really impressive appearance and even though it seems private and closed, but attracts people to enter and experience the nature with its tress, plants and bird life.

Here you will have activities, which totally makes you forget about the courtyard.

Last stop in the typology are the beach, which is open and public for everybody, though it is hidden away by the forest, with only a small path to guide you. 

Being inside in the building walking down the long hallways or entering the rooms all have that in common, that there is a window, which wants you to have a certain look, either against the forest or the courtyard. On the one side you really don’t feel like there are something important and interesting to observe, but on the forest side you really wants to get closer to the nature, it is like that having it in the backyard isn’t enough, and touching it becomes a desire.

What would happen if you made an intervention, which made both sides equal? Then you would have a visual/ physical connection from the courtyard to the forest, and the courtyard would starting to appear as a light place with nature in the background as one activity and the courtyard itself as another activity.

The inside space would then also starts to merge with both side, having extension of the rooms and hallway windows, which create a visual connection to the outside and view of the whole context. 

When you see the Prora complex you are soon to discover that is has a very visible grid structure written all over it.

Here you can talk about framing the view with continuity. All floors are placed in the exact same place each levels, which provides the visitors with these long hallways looks, just like in a hospital hallway. Walking down these hallways you are passing by multiple rooms all with the same shape and same windows, placed in the same position, as if a machinegun would have released a round of bullets.  The rooms have the same daylight and it seems like all rooms are equal without a hierarchy.

Even the buildings inside walls are placed in the same position, hiding the loadbearing columns, which is also place in the same grid, and is the starting point in the structure of the building.

I really liked that continuity, which occurred in the grid structure, but also started to ask question about what would happen if the grid structure weren’t that rigid all the way.

What would happen if you moved the circulation a bit from the hallways, they would still have the same function, but would be helped out by circulation from the inside space.

If you kept the hallways with its long looks, but started to play around with different room sizes you would still have that feeling of being in a really rigid place, but then you enter the rooms and its starts to opens up, whit double high rooms, rooms which connects to another room and rooms, which has been extended outside, gives the visitors a whole new experience and something they did not expected.

To me the essence of the building is its grid structure, it has this strong appearing just like it wants to frame the view for its visitors, and if you could make use of this grid, but make it a bit softer in some places, it could become very strong, with maybe just a few changes.

I was really impressed by the materiality and structure of the building.

Entering the Prora complex it seems like this heavy solid box and even if that it really are a solid box, it seems like a lightweight structure, once you strip the skin apart, and it only appears with its column structure.

Prora consist of loadbearing columns and beams, and with a skin of bricks with a layer of plastro on the surface. The floorings consist of re-enforced concrete and so does the roof.

Visiting the ruins of Prora allowed us to see how the structure would be without the bricks and only with the buildings skeleton back. This tectonic view of how the loadbearing parts are working, and how the different parts are joined, was really interesting.

Being inside the building only gives you hint of how the structure is, and not everything is visible. This visibility of the forces is something, which could be incorporated even more in the building and would have a big effect of the viewer. I really liked the brick façade and concrete column/beam system, but hiding the columns inside the walls seems to me a bit pity.

What would happen if the transformation would make the old structural systems become visible in some places? Making use of the columns and connecting them to the transformation by framing this with another material, would make the visitors experiences the materiality in a new way.

Dealing with a solid structure as this also gives you thought of bringing in the lightweight structure, with a material, which would make a contrast to the existing, and soften up the solid look. Then you would have the existing structure as foundation for the new lightweight system.

Dealing with the buildings materiality raises two sides: The man made and the nature made.

Both outside and inside of the building is starting to consume due to the weather and nature. Plastro from the outside façade is starting to crack and you can see bricks starting to crack due to water damages. On top of the rooftops trees are starting to grow, which also has a damaging effect on the building. Even though the buildings façade are damaged, it also has this tectonic and aesthetic look of revealing the skin, while nature is starting to grow on top of it.  Inside the building whole inside walls are striped from its plastro layers, revealing the old bricks. Water entered from the crack in the brick façade has started to tear the floor apart and it seems like a small landscape some places due to bubbles in the floor layer. The water had also started to make a small gab to the floor downstairs, which gives you a small view to life underneath. This stripping of the walls gives a very nice light filtering in the rooms and a certain roughness to the space due to the bare skin. The small cracks reveals small viewpoints, points which could be interesting in continuing working on. The small landscape in areas of the flooring, gives the floor a new way of movement or defining areas of sitting down. The essence of the interest in nature made damages, is that the old history in the materials are revealed and you may very well use it for a visible view.

The other side is the man made. Both on the outside and on the inside there is a great amount of graffiti tags. Inside it seems like that some people have inhabited the space and brought in their own interior design. The graffiti divides the side in two: those one who sees it as art or thinks it is vandalism. I find the graffiti as small areas of inhabitations and actually like the way of some people have made their own mark, as if this is here the live and this area is their housing and their attempt of re-interior. This rough approach to the existing could actually be turned into something beautiful if the where a certain boarder, between history and modern inhabitation.