What goes up must come down / Soil archive
Invited public art competition, 3rd place, TEAM TAU Tina Born & Enrico Niemann
‘Berlin Postblock Süd, new building for ministerial use and residential purposes,’ Berlin, 2025
Similar to a reversible image, in which a different, new image statement is created by rotating it 180 degrees, we turn an exact architectural model of the Postblock South upside down. On top of this, following the dimensions of the scaled-down building, we place a second, shaped (construction) body made of construction sand. This was taken from the excavation of the Postblock South site. The sand (construction) body, now ‘on top’, symbolises the conceptual structure we want to create: it raises the subsoil, which under normal circumstances is not visible, to the level of the viewer and the viewing experience. At the same time, the ‘reversal of circumstances’, beyond geological transformation processes, stands for universal change and transformation.
Within our artistic concept, it is our aim to connect the new building with the specific history of the location. Likewise, the act of building, displacing and erecting is a starting point for universal considerations. There are various indicators and methods that can be used to make statements about the history of a place.
We have chosen the ground beneath the building. This gravity-driven foundation not only supports the ministerial block, but ultimately supports, binds and grounds us all.
When a new building is constructed, excavation is the first step. The material that is moved for this purpose is the comparatively thin, fragile and vital layer that we commonly refer to as soil, which is interspersed with living organisms, water and air.
What site-specific markers can be found in the soil beneath the new building?
Which aspects within our field of observation extend beyond the site?
Soil has a high capacity for memory.
Influences from human intervention or climate change are stored in it. Soil provides information about the cultural development of humanity as well as current and historical processes.
Given increasing densification and sealing, land, space and building plots are becoming increasingly scarce and hotly contested commodities worldwide. The amount of earth that an excavator digs up in one minute took many centuries to become ‘soil’. On average, it takes 15,000 years for one metre of soil to form. We are losing soil.
We are thinking about our design concept in two ways: on the one hand, we want to take a very concrete look at the soil beneath the building and what conclusions can be drawn from it about current and past events. On the other hand, we consider it important to anchor the architecture, the office and residential block, i.e. what will be visible on the surface, in the soil, to embed it and to give it depth, weight and significance through reflective consideration.
The field is relatively small for this purpose, with 50,000 m² of usable space, but we quickly touch on geological time dimensions that put human activity and endeavour into perspective and at the same time make the (urban) ground beneath our feet, which is not necessarily the focus of our everyday perception, sensually tangible.
