Old Ditch — New Water

Abstract

The following keynote was presented at the 12th International docomomo Conference that took place in Espoo, Finland, in August 2012. The title refers to the lecture given by an American artist James Turrell at the symposium Permanence in Architecture organized by Virginia Tech in 1998. In architecture and in all arts the new is eroding the old earth and slowly reforming tradition. “Survival of Modern” could be seen as an effort to use the built “modern” environment in a sustainable way. Mikko Heikkinen believes that our challenge is not only to make iconic masterpieces of the Modern Masters to survive but even more what to do with the vast mass of contemporary buildings not found in the architectural guide books. In his presentation, Mikko Heikkinen listed five different cases – five different strategies to make modern to survive: 1) recycling, 2) preserving and restoring the historical milieu, 3) creating a historical and functional collage, 4) preserving a historical fragment and 5) contradiction.