Doppelgänger
Cuidad de México, Mexico
May 2023
Project Description
Ines Weizman, in her text “Architectural Doppelgängers” in the 2012 AA Files #65, establishes that with “no powerful institution to protect the original” architectural copies “emerge out of a condition of distance”1. This is the liminal condition in which many buildings in the historical district of Mexico City currently exist. The social and political construct of modern preservation standards outlined the need for the conservation and restoration of the historical district. Still, it failed to generate change due to bureaucratic inaction and a lack of financial incentives. Urban stagnation arrived instead, resulting in contemporary issues of vacancy and decay. Given this context, how can a system of doppelgänger production devalue the original and reconsider architecture preservation as a discursive field? How can we use the “power of the double” to generate urban renewal that works under preservation laws?
Projective Future
In this project, the potential of doppelgänger as a preservation tactic is the reconstructive act of doubling existing city fragments as a method to maintain tangible and intangible heritages. The intangible includes commercial activity, building practices, and construction techniques while the tangible includes building typologies and materials. With the Doppelgänger defined as a ghostly (or imperfect copy), the tolerance of reconstruction allows for change, establishing the temporal possibility of evolution within its cyclical process. Three parts of the urban scheme phase out the process of doppelgänger production. The demolished sites are vacant, uncatalogued buildings that provide raw materials and create space for development. The new institutional building catalyzes the process by working within a technical and political domain as a “machine” for architectural reproduction. Lastly, the doppelgängers duplicate the material appearance of existing city fragments while reconfiguring the interior composition and social program. Through the institution, modular housing is developed deep in the city block as an extension of the new, duplicated structures.
The adaptive cycle from Panarchy, C.S. Holling and Lance H. Gunderson
Considering the Panarchy adaptive cycle2 as the current preservation paradigm, the coexistence of the original and the doppelgänger hopes to break the cycle in favor of a systems-based preservation that allows for concurrent growth, conservation, and destruction. Deployed at the city scale, these architectural agents of reproduction hope to generate a radical urban renewal and preservation framework that tolerates decay, change, and the new.
Footnotes1: Weizman, Ines. “Architrectural Doppelgängers.” AA Files, No. 65 (2012): 19-24.
2: Holling, Crawford Stanley. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems (2002): 34.
Captions
389: Collage describing the potential psychological effect of a “machine” of architectural reproduction. Uncanny copies with their chirality remind of the original, inciting nostalgia while revealing the inherent potential of vacant spaces in the city
390: Catalogue of underutilized and dilapidated city fragments with their material and spatial potential
391: Catalogue of city fragments to be copied with their programmatic potential
392: Site plan of the city block in Centro Historico
393: New paradigm of preservation, illustrated through three parts of the block and in three phases
394: Large model view of the North face of the city block
395: Interior model view of the new institutional building, the “machine” of architectural reproduction
396: Model of the new institutional building situated in a new gap in the city block resulting from the process of urban destruction and reconstruction
397: West end of the new institutional building with a new vacant space serving as material depot. The rear of doppelgänger housing for block No.1 can be seen in the background
398: Model of the doppelgänger housing for block No.1 in the catalogue
*Winner of the William Ward Watkin Award for best senior design
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