THE WHITE HOLE
I have a passion for factories. They are often dull and drab on the outside, while inside the production process radiates a buzz of excitement onto the shopfloor. Though they may pretend to be nothing more than functional structures, built simply to produce a product, for me they are unacclaimed monuments. Straightforwardly, without fuss they reflect the time they were built. I'm so fascinated by them that it doesn't mean a thing that most will never win a beauty contest.
The first factories in England appeared at the beginning of the eighteenth century and developed over the next hundred years. One great example is the Linotype factory. It sits in a typically English landscape on the top of a hill. The buildings resemble meticulously maintained feudal castles. There's no sign of heavy labour, trucks or industrial activity. Lawns stretch between the buildings and there is even a cricket pitch for the employees. Linotype is known for the presses that they produce, which are all assembled in fairly small rooms. Each worker is given responsibility for the entire production of a machine from start to finish. He develops a genuine involvement in the manufacturing process, and you could actually see the factory as a collection of workshops. The heavy pieces of cast iron and innumerable mechanical parts that are produced elsewhere, are neatly stored in nearby warehouses. The machines seem indestructible and the factory emits an air of tranquillity and thorough craftsmanship, apparently relying on old traditions that could not be improved.
Conversely, the factories built at the beginning of this century evoke an image of mass production, hard work, neglect and squalor. The appearance of the buildings is irrelevant to the process, they all tend to be quite tall with sawtooth roofs. Today, they seem neglected, scabby and unpainted.
A penetrating yet romantic scent welcomes you - even before you've caught sight of the chamois-leather factory. The façade is a mess - the name of the factory in thick black letters, an ill-defined hall, a porter's lodge in front of a dilapidated brick building. Barrels and crates full of brined sheep skins sit in the front yard - the raw material for the production of the chamois leather cloths. Inside - rusty machines rest on their last legs. Water is everywhere - it's filthy. Here the sheepskins are washed and soaked in in chemicals baths. Once saturated, they swell and are then split in two.
The combination of chemicals and water slowly corrodes the machines. In the rear of the hall, the skins are treated with train oil in gigantic vats, the smell permeating the entire building. The workers are clad in dark blue overalls with shiny rubber aprons and Wellington boots. The combination of the product, the noise, the people, and the neglected buildings feels like a factory from 1923, though the reality is that many of the machines are now computer controlled - so much for romance. In the dry spaces, the final product is chafed and sorted by size and quality. These are places sinking under the weight of piles of chamois leather, with all the workmen covered in dust. Yet the chamois leathers are so beautiful you immediately forget the decay and the dirt. Their wonderful yellow colour and unbelievable softness seduce you into believing the acrid stench has become a sensuous scent. Their sheer quantity keeps alive those romantic dreams crushed by the computerised control. A single object, repeated ad infinitum, always appeals.
To visit a brick factory is a completely different experience. They are always situated near a river and resemble nothing so much as an automated farm. From a distance, the low buildings look like barn houses and animal sheds. In the centre of the complex is an open court filled with bricks on pallets waiting to be shipped out. Alone in the landscape, an old dragline digs up the clay. A small trolley brings it to a large mixer where it is then squeezed into moulds and set to dry in one of the buildings. The buildings are full of holes to let the wind whip through and turn the clay into bricks. Inside, the pinpoints of daylight create a secretive, dusky atmosphere. After a few weeks, the clay is removed from the moulds and the bricks are put into one of six narrow, deep ovens.
The entire site is very rural, there are few labourers and it's a simple process. It is not hard to imagine that these factories will still be exactly the same in a hundred years time.
The soap factory is a non-descript building. You can't tell from the exterior about what is produced there. Even inside it is not very clear how the process works as there seems to be no logical order. The building is divided into two sections. One, a laboratory where the scents, colours and shapes of the soap bars are determined. Here are the usual array of test-tubes, bottles, bowls and shelves for chemicals, essences and pigments tended to by a few employees in white coats. The other section - three huge interconnected halls - is the actual factory. A maze of pipes runs everywhere. The main ingredient is an already prepared and solidified oil that resembles slices of lard. Vast quantities of this oil are mixed in huge tubs, transported through pipes into other tubs and then forced through a series of different treatments. Eventually the viscous mass ends up as a thick paste on a conveyor belt, from where it is squeezed into moulds and made ready for packing. The soap residue around the moulds is returned to the beginning for another run through the process. Several labourers control the machines and whatever happens along the conveyor belt. It is all very boring, the only seduction being the final product in use. It seems as though the factory is nothing more than a tool, left outside for too long - rusty but still working.
The most surprising thing is that the factory buildings acutally change their appearance. By the sixties the sawtooth roof with its regulation height and style has dissappeared. Factories become more sophisticated with a fountain in front and, eventually, a 'turd in the plaza'. A similar story can be told about the development of machinery. Before a certain moment, the working parts of cars, trams and industrial equipment were visible. Then, in the name of safety and aerodynamic efficiency, everything was hidden behind protective shields and colourful skins. Even the workers become completely unrecognisable in their anti-dust clothing. It's also becoming more difficult to visit a factory. Supposedly out of fear of the competition, all the formulas, processes and tricks of the trade are now stored behind locked doors.
Contemporary factories have been unable to resist the threat of standardization. They all look the same. Europe is overrun with anonymous, grey boxes standing along the highway. Each company has its standard design, red or blue window sills and plenty of dark glass in the office area. Supposedly standardization serves our convenience but I find it hard to believe it was meant to lead to this overwhelming uniformity. Especially when you consider that this same standard has limited our choices to such a huge extent. For instance, if I want an odd- sized steel bar with an particular diameter, it can only be ordered in vast quantities and at great expense. I am punished for wanting something different.
The time of the palaces of production is long past. A different era has emerged, led by ergonomics, efficiency and sustainability. Products, particularly from heavy industry, are needed less and less. Shipyards, steel factories and coal mines have all virtually disappeared from Europe. Factories have now become the subject of nostalgic photographs - a sure sign of history having run its course.
In Duisburg, however, an attempt has been made to close that circle. In the heart of the industrial Ruhr area, a factory has become a contemporary cultural site in its own right. A bankrupt steel factory has been transformed into a park - without the removal of any of the original buildings. The imposing towers, heavy machinery, cooling vats, rail tracks and hangars have been interspersed with new trees. Rather than using the standard wooden poles, the saplings are supported by rusty iron beams. The whole area has been declared a sculpture park and the designers have remained very conscious of the quality and beauty of the industrial buildings. They created a park in which the steel and iron ruins are respected for their own sake and the site is left for us to explore.
Eighty-one cast iron slabs form an immense 'lawn', surrounded by an apparently traditional border. It's hard to believe human hands ever built this. As a visitor you can go places where once only workers were allowed to enter. Great heaps of electrical wiring can still be found in the hangars. The scale of one pipe here is like 100 pipes anywhere else, its size is simply incomprehensible. The same can be said for the buildings. They are extraordinarily complex because of the enormous amount of mechanical machinery they contain. You can't even discern their contours, they appear to be gigantic pieces of coral. You need more than one pair of eyes.
In the centre of the park is a tower, 60 metres high, from which you can see the entire layout. The tower is also full of machinery and is a museum in itself. The only thing you miss is the sound of clanking machines - a silence made all the more obvious by the birds singing outside.
The trees are not yet fully grown, though I can imagine what this park will look like in 20 years. Trees will start to compete with the enormous iron structures, which will eventually become sculptures supporting and decorating nature. Perhaps this 'garden' might turn into an impromptu Generalife.
The original casting floor is now the stage of a simple open-air theatre. The only thing added is a concrete terrace and some theatre lights, as if you are sitting in the Colosseum. This park is on a par with any ancient Greek or Roman site and could also be easily mistaken for a work by Piranesi. The difference being that history has been fast-forwarded. Only three years ago, the machines were brought to a halt, and already the park has become an unacknowledged monument. There seems to be no time between one state and another anymore. The end of an era merges with its revaluation.