Zizlau dreiundachtzig

About the residential area:

In 1933 parcels of land on the outskirts of Linz were given to unemployed, unprivileged and socially deprived people. With the aim of self-sustaining those people built up their own houses and cultivated their land. The simple timber houses constructed with the method of the „Schafferschen Plattenbau“ accommodated two apartments in one building. At that time the area consisted of 60 buildings. As such it was the first example of a welfare project in Linz which included housing possibility.
A few years later, in 1938, the construction of the „Hermann Göring Werke“ (currently called voestalpine) began near the estate „St. Peter-Zizlau“. St. Peter had to give way to the industrial area, but the idyll of Zizlau was sustained for a short time and the residents got jobs in the surrounding manufacturing companies, especially at the voestalpine. Partially the residents had and still have lifelong loan agreements.
In the 1980s some property was sold due to a financial crisis. To some extent the people of Zizlau were displaced in order to clear the buildings and use the territory as a stockyard. The districts Zizlau, Auwiesen and solarCity are located in the south of Linz and are strongly affected by the direct proximity of the voestalpine and other industrial companies. Whereas the solarCity is still in its early development, Auwiesen has previously faced some major changes. Zizlau, however, is about to reach the end of this process and its dissolution is not far off. Currently the land is used for stockyards and parking lots, which is why the passing of the people
still residing there is being waited for.

About the project:

On the premises of the suburban settlement Zizlau, a precise timber house is listed for demolition. It is one of ten semi-detached houses with a big garden that still exists. Each side of the building will be attached with a certain category of value. The formal condition led to a choice of four categories. These are: HISTORY, ARTS, MATERIAL, EMOTION.
Visitors can therefore choose one of the existing values and the group of artists cuts out a piece of the respective facade, which can be taken home. The cutting with power saw takes

place every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The four categories of value establish a decision-making process and demand the participation of the visitors. The decision represents the temporary response to the search for meaning. A choice will be made and therefore an individual relationship to the gift is expected to be established. Thus the facade fragments get a new meaning and, in a new context, occasionally a new role as well. The decision process will be documented in a written and photographic form.

We do not wish the project to be seen as a destructive act, but, on the contrary, as constructional work. The specific and careful extraction of parts of the facade is a means to an end – the aim is to distribute the fragments to the visitors. The house passes through a transformative process – the former purpose as a livingspace is transformed and little by little it will become an object.

Concept & Realization
Sabina Köfler, Kristina Kornmüller, Stefan Messner, Petra Moser, Ulrike Seelmann, Felix Vierlinger

Dieser Beitrag wurde vor am Donnerstag, 30. April 2009 um 18:17 Uhr veröffentlicht und unter ALLGEMEINE INFORMATIONEN gespeichert. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Sie können einen Kommentar hinterlassen oder einen Trackback von Ihrer Website hierher setzen.