BORDER isLAND CYPRUS

This work focuses on border spaces. Through five border essays, I develop a thesis for each border: EU’s external borders - BORDER AS COMPRESSION; EU’s internal borders - B. AS A MIRROR; The Berlin Wall - B. AS A STAGE; Airports - B. CROSSING AS A RITUAL; Haus Wittgenstein - B. AS A LANGUAGE. Via these thesis I analyse and intervene on the island of Cyprus.

Studying cross-border between France and Germany, I was fascinated by the border space, the “glue” of the EU. I elaborated on concepts of „borders“, a basic foundation of architectural space. As part of my theoretical research I have dealt with the complexity of architectonic, urban and territorial boundaries. Via this project, I´m aiming to illustrate a change of strategies to transform the frozen border land in a vitalise heart of exchange. Referring to Georg Simmel’s definition of territorial limits as a “neutral zone for the exchange and other traffic” I suggest in accordance with the applicable UN statutes for a radical recoding of the Buffer Zone, the dead-zone, in a free trade area: The result is a project that oscillates between guerilla tactics and Dubai. Three existing commercial forms that can flourish in the buffer zone of Nicosia are implemented architecturally: a marketplace that is accessible from both the Greek and the Turkish neighbourhood, a FLAGSHIPSTORE for Immigrant Investor Programs for Residence and Citizenship, and a cluster of MAILBOX companies. Thus, the existing economic model of Cyprus will be taken up. The three interventions encode the space of the border by a particular architectural element and show a scenario for a change of the border space, from the dead-zone to a zone of exchange.\nI am conscious about the critical moral aspects of the programs, which are in fact existing. Owing to the debate about todays global financial politics and the architectonic curiosity of translating them spatially, I went to the limit.