Grindbakken
Exhibition by Rotor:
Tristan Boniver, Renaud Haerlingen, Lionel Billiet, Maarten Gielen.
Renovation of the site by Sarah Melsens and Roberta Gigante
Exhibition from 21/9/2012 till 21/10/2012
Dok Noord 7, Gent
Introduction
A masterplan has been designed for the docks of Ghent. Some buildings
have to disappear while
concrete will be po
ured somewhere else, waterside dwellers will
meet new neighbours and
yesterday’s practices will
make way for current activities.
Following this plan, the concrete structure of the Grindbakken – used in the past to transfer gravel
and sand between ships and trucks – was about to be
transformed into a multi-purpose area
accessible to the public, supplied with water and electricity and painted white as an empty canvas
for future activities.
When we were asked to present a first intervention in this space, we chose to interfere in this
painting process. We selected and documented specific areas of interest, and 36 frames were built
on-site to protect these areas during the cleaning and painting.
Pigmentation
No one painted this frame; the red colour came about another way. As a rule, these depots were only used to store gravel and sand. But they were once also used in an emergency to stock iron ore. The brief presence of this substance left a bright red colour in some of the depots. But this still only explains one of the many shades visible on this concrete wall.
Construction joint
A seam runs across the entire wall. The pouring of the concrete for this wall happened in two stages: the first part has set or even partially hardened before the rest of the formwork was filled. The surface above the construction joint is in a worse condition and contains more gravel pockets: it seems the second pouring was of a lesser quality.
Heaps of materials
The gravel depots were designed for bulk transport logistics: materials were stocked in heaps. The biological growth patterns here reveal the presence of such heaps. Since the diameter of the white lichens on this wall grew at a rate of roughly 3 mm per year and since the largest instances measure 5 cm, it can be estimated that the heaps were here for 15 years.
With the support of AGSOB
Thanks to the ones who helped for the content research:
Geert De Schutter, Wouter Van Landuyt, Maurice Hoffmann, Gilbert Velghe, Michel Procès.
Special thanks to:
Lieve Van Damme, Yves Deckmyn,
Yves Trenson, Patrick Van De Gehuchte en hun teams / and their teams,
Lola Bazin, Matthijs Fieuws, Daniel Van Drimmelen, Muhammed Karabelen.
