Villa Vals

Villa Vals in Switzerland.

SeARCH & Christian Müller Architects

Photos: Iwan Baan

Swiss Emergency Call Services

Absolutely gorgeous. AND it's an Emergency Call Center. Hurrah for creating beautiful spaces for workers in demanding and intensive services.

The historic merit of the space and surrounding buildings led to it's largely underground placement.

Architect: Santiago Calatrava Valls

Image Source (top): unidentified

Photo Source (bottom): galinsky.com

Underground Helsinki

(Image: Temppeliaukio Church, Helsinki, Credits: Jon Hicks/Corbis, Source: Scandinavia for Design Lovers)

It makes perfect sense that my interest in the underground was born while living in Scandinavia. Stockholm has been referred to as a "swiss cheese" city (due to the plethora of carved out, underground facilities and spaces there) and other Scandinavian cities are host to an impressive range of well designed subsurface spaces.

I have a plethora of articles from the past few decades relating to all things underground...but for here and now, a link to one Finnish based architect posting on "Subterranea Helsinki." The Finnish capital is apparently the first city on the globe to have created an 'underground master plan, so it is one of the most obvious places to look to for pioneering and interesting architectural and planning concepts placed underground.

"Theater in the Rock"

Theater in the Rock, Tadao Ando

"Valkenburg"

I quite unfortunately have no source info for the above image. If and when found I will add it. The sole info I currently have attached to the graphic is "Valkenburg"(and it's not the Valkenburg in NL). I suspect it is from an article for a conceptual design for a building in Norway.

Nights with Berliner Unterwelten

One of the most memorable evenings in my life was spent in the refurbished bunker space of Berliner Unterwelten's headquarters at the Gesundbrunnen subway station. Since it's inception in 1997, the organization has done a tremendous amount of work including: documentation of underground historical structures, conversion of war time bunkers into museum and association headquarter space and guided tours, which have proved very popular. As a "Society for exploration and documentation of subterranean architecture" they are a model organization- definitely for groups dedicated to researching underground space in their city, as well as for a preservation societies. They've honed in on a very specific niche that also does tremendous justice to the extensive underground architecture of Berlin. The organization is prolific in publication and prodigious in activity.

While living in Berlin, attending their meetings was an absolute highlight of my week. To be in a room, for regular meetings, filled with people as passionate about the underground as I was, albeit in different ways, was a great thing.

It's difficult, and not very fun, to imagine being crammed with scores of other people in the bunker space that Berliner Unterwelten's tour guides take you through. The guide will paint a portrait of what this bunker space was like during wartime- a visual that needs to be heard as indeed, that is what the buildings stand as a testament to.

But on a celebratory New Years eve, with candlelit dark spaces , wine, charming music and good company, the atmosphere was just right. In fact, I wasn't terribly keen on leaving. I have clearer appreciation for the bunkers-converted -to-home (or underground "mansion") movement partly due to this time spent at Berliner Unterwelten's headquarters. It's very pleasant, if you're the type who likes this space, and you're there out of your own will and interest.

Fantastical Underworld

Fantasy and science fiction films are fertile breeding grounds for the imaginings of how the 'Underworld' appears and how humans make use of the underground in, typically, near and distant futures.

My jaw dropped several times in seeing Pan's Labyrinth for the first time. Not only is the film absolutely gorgeous and disturbing at once, it is compellingly dense with mythological allusions. Some of Ofelia's (the main character) key moments- both harrowing and exhilirating, occur in the underworld. Her first challenge of finding a key occurs in the earthy root system of a tree. Her second challenge brings her to the banquet which she must not touch (and possibly before one of the creepiest creatures ever depicted on film). Like Persephone, who having been taken into the realm of Hades, was permitted to leave under the condition that she ate nothing while down there, Ofelia is under similar instructions. Both fail, Persephone with the fated pomegranate seeds and Ofelia with the allure (and consumption) of the grapes. Yet Ofelia's fate is not quite sealed yet and her escape is necessary to bring her full circle to the space of her true belonging.

In the end though, Ofelia's efforts, and apparent rebellion, result in a tragic and quick departure from Earth, as she knew it. They also culminate in her arrival home. She is reunited with those who she descended from and the depiction of this underworld "kingdom" is truly breathtaking.

I for one would like to request a Part II. Ofelia's Beautiful Dark Kingdom.