MAJA winter 2019 (95)

The stocky fieldstone columns of Viljandi County sometimes form a part of a romantic landscape of ruins, sometimes a utilitarian agricultural complex. Although built more than a hundred years ago, they form architecture with a strong presence in the here and now. They are a framework that can be either filled or let alone as needed.
The monument dedicated to Lydia Koidula and Johann Voldemar Jannsen near the Arch Bridge in Tartu may be discussed primarily in two respects – in terms of sculptures and landscape architecture. The memorial square strives for the human-scale but how successful is it?
Gothenburg's Jubileumsparken is being designed with an open mind and all changes are welcomed with open arms: it is still unclear what kind of spatial disruptions will be implemented and where these manipulations will come into play. This depends on the parties involved and their reactions to the process.
The capital of Germany is a maze of rules where imagination flourishes in the underwood. Although Berlin may come across as the capital of tolerance due to the various forms of diversity, it also has its controversies.
When looking at China with an open mind, there are quite a few lessons to be learned.
The order of nature is complex, interesting and beautiful. However, mankind’s understanding of order and beauty tends to be somewhat primitive and thus we are increasingly losing the sense of balance that could direct our activities. Green areas are meant for public use, but in reality they have become neatly mowed lawns that people never walk on and that we have consequently made unsuitable for other living organisms.
Spectrum thinking has freed him from the constraints of the black-and-white view of the world: drifting in semitones allows him to choose only the topics that fire him up. Everything you start with must be finished, the process is facilitated by the main tool of concentration that to outsiders seems deceivingly chaotic.
Space is not something straightforward and given, it emerges from transposition and transformation. Actual space is never uniform, but contains prioritised directions that are bound to our agential needs. However, postponing the individual needs creates possibilities for rethinking and redesigning the space. This yields powerful results, although one should not get overly entangled in admiring them. These results are just fulcrums for further transformations.