Designs

Transition

The Bargeman_

The Bargeman’s 28 day round trip was the starting point for my design process. I thought about how he lives in a constant state of transit, a continuous flow of the same routine. I saw this as a journey of solitude for him, where he reflects back on his well lived life. To put this in a visual sense i drew his journey like a timeline, starting a point A with his wife and ending at point B with his mistress. The middle of the timeline was circled as a transition stage, in which the Bargeman reflects and adapts to which ever life he is headed too.

To replicate this transitional phase i designed a series of bridge houses as a symbol of constant movement from one point to another. House 1 is a collective of units below the bridge with a mirror tower protruding up through the surface of the bridge. This is kind of the iceberg metaphor in the fact that the protruding tower is just the tip of the structure below. A teaser of what is hidden below, like the bargeman and my first impressions of him. He turned out to be a much more complex character then i first perceived.

House 2 plays on the notion of the Bargeman’s double life, hence the mirror image of the East and West wings. Only separated by the mirrored tower which is used as a transitional symbol. However the two wings can only be accessed at the same time when the barge is docked in the tower. Therefore the barge becomes the bridging mechanism just how the barge is the man’s connection between his tow lives.

Again using the bridging idea House 3 uses the expression of his linear travel. I started to wonder if along his travels he took a right turn or a left, where that would end up taking him, guiding him onto a different tangent of travel. This is why the spaces are slightly disconnected and very snake like. In house 3 the tower is the entry point where the occupant transcends from public to private or vice verse.

Finally house 4 took a different turn on the bridge as well as the tower. A circular tower was inspired by his cycle or constant routine. Down stairs the tower is avoided as the occupant must walk around while the upstairs mezzanine level cuts through the tower. This adds excitement of the unexpected in what seems to be a dull form. Just the same as one would see the Bargeman’s life, dull and going round and round.

Keeping with the transition theme the interiors are all rather free flowing and open. Hejduk’s 12 units all interact within these spaces creating a constant flow of movement and never stationary in one spot. Just like a man’s life on the water.

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words.

The Bargeman

Reflections.

Water lapped over the edge as the whispering winds whistled around me. They spoke of voices from where I had been and where I was heading. These voices and my thoughts are all I have to comfort me on this journey. A journey of solitude.

The morning sun peeks over the horizon, tickling my back and I hear the first of the morning birds sing. The melodic tune reminds me of what lies ahead. Lavinia. I picture her sitting in her chair resting her cello on her shoulder. Her face has that silent smile, the one where only the eyes do the talking. A smile I know well, Agnes used to smile that way too. Lavinia’s urban hair is similar to the colour Agnes’s was also. In a lot of ways she reminds me of the way Agnes was.

I contemplate the thought as I walk over to the railing of the barge. My reflection skims the surface of the river. That’s all my life seems to be, a constant reflection. It sounds deep and meaningful, but it’s rather the opposite. I unload the goods from the train in Berlin onto my Barge. I don’t know what’s in the crates I haven’t bothered to ever ask. I just transport it and unload it at Poznan in Poland, in return for farming products. At 65, this is what my life has succumbed to, for 28 days of the month I’m stuck in transit. I’m lost in a state of transition.

I let my mind wander to my favourite painting back in Berlin, a lone black seagull flying between a green and brown stripe. From the moment I saw it I had to have it. I found comfort in the fact that someone out there understood how I felt.

Felt. Feelings. Feel. I long to feel the warmth of Lavinia’s embrace again. The thought of her brings me back to my skimming reflection which now smiles back. She always brings that out in me, that young man I was when I first met Agnes. Thinking of Lavinia gives hope to this endless journey and reminds me of distant memories. Memories dear to my heart. All of a sudden I don’t feel so alone anymore, I am comforted.

The sun has risen in the sky and I feel anxious, it’s only a matter of hours now. I reach over the side of the Barge and pull some lilies from the mangroves as I glide by. Lavinia loves lilies. I used to pick a lily and give it to Agnes when we walked by the river, she would slide it behind her right ear and say “looks like I’m taken.” She’d then flash her dazzling smile and my heart would just melt.

The dock comes into view and I can see a figure of a woman standing at the end. Her hair blowing ever so softly in the breeze. Squinting into the sun Lavinia shields her eyes with her hand. A warm tingling begins in my toes and slowly creeps up my body. It’s Lavinia standing on the dock but I see my wife, Agnes, when we were 25.