Ozymandias Picturesque
Ana Skrebic
In the first part of the paper I have tried to examine the urban development and the phenomenon of modernity in the city of Zagreb, which occurred as a reflection of social processes and historical events. The specific qualities, major categories, features and purpose of the existing object were analyzed with the aim of discovering and learning the object's own qualities, finding the way to deal with them and ultimately emphasizing and affirming these qualities. Due to their specific qualities, the ruins give us specific feelings of finitude and generate a reminder of the transience of human works. Accordingly, the aesthetics of ruins are present in the construction of the new buildings as a phenomenon of imagination in the present. The significance of found objects is changed by the use and that which is created by the new use, produces monumentality serving as a means of producing new significant contexts. My main objective in this project is creating new substantial contexts by confronting the existing situation and its elements, examining the situation from a new perspective, reviving it and giving it a new meaning. The crucial role is played by not only the object itself, but also its relation to the newly established context. The presented scenography of the project merges three seemingly contradictory actions – destruction, restoration and transformation – reflecting the way that the ruins standing next to it also have a past and thus a future.The master thesis Ozymandias Picturesque was supervised by Hans Gangoly (Institute of Desisgn and Building Typlogy).