Industrial Alchemy: Kinesis State of Memory
Reconstructing cultural memory of Üzülmez Valley through innovation

Cultural Identity

The city of Zonguldak has an identity that is defined as “the city of coal” because of the valuable coal reserves underneath its earth. The city was formed by coal production practices and the activities parallel to this production. The project area is located in Zonguldak Üzülmez Valley, an industrial area that has historical value for coal production in Turkey. The valley contains natural vegetation alongside industrial settlement, sitting on valuable coal veins and old mine tunnels.

Discussion – Urban Artifacts

Aldo Rossi redefines the architecture of the city with a concentration on urban artifacts: a city’s monuments, routes, neighborhoods, and geographical features that define the city’s particular culture or locus. He defines them as indispensable parts of the city based on lived experiences. Urban artifacts can have different functions over time which are independent of their form, and they can shape the city. They are affected by time and space, but their primary characteristics are never changed. In this way, the form of architecture in the city is revealed in its various monuments, and each monument shows us the sequence of the city, and finally, it shows us the history of the city (The Architecture of the City, 2012, para.7).

With reference to Rossi, the research redefines urban artifacts through the concept of kinesis state of memory: the condition of an urban component that sympathizes with the origin of its habitual memory.

To be able to read the kinesis states of the valley, the research proposes the opposite condition of memory as the fantasy state of memory: the condition of an urban component that has lost the origin of its habitual memory. These components imitate the original urban characteristics by creating fantasies. While the museum of mine objects represents a state of fantasy, the continued use of the old railway line as a logistics axis today creates a state of kinesis.

The research aims to preserve the cultural memory of Üzülmez Valley by creating kinesis states of its habitual memory through the monuments of architecture. It benefits from the experiences and micro-narratives of the valley. It uses innovative technologies of bio-energy production while engaging the traditional production methods of the field.
“The form of the architecture in the city is revealed in its various monuments, and each of the monuments shows us the sequence of the city...” — Aldo Rossi

The research proposes a classification:
If architecture conserves cultural memory, it creates the kinesis state of memory. The memories are active, used, alive, produced, shared, and increased.
If architecture only imitates the monument, it creates the fantasy state of memory. The memories are inactive, unused, dead, consumed, alone, and lost.

The project envisions an architecture that not only preserves monuments of memory, but also cultural methods, habits, activities, feelings, senses, and products.

Üzülmez Valley has a unique urban memory constituted by the industrial environment, which created a living settlement. People worked in the mines, lived in workers’ housing, used the social facilities of the Coal Institute, and created a cultural memory of the valley for decades. However, today the valley is at risk of losing its cultural memory. While the natives attempt to protect the identity of the valley, these efforts remain insufficient. The imitations of memory are unqualified and ineffective. The monuments are partly conserved, but the habitual memories are lost. The imitations only produce fantasies.

The project focuses on three main states of memory that belong to the cultural identity of the valley:
Topographical Subsidence: the landslide and deformation of soil over old mine tunnels due to underground cavities.
The Soundscape of the Valley: environmental sounds originating from the institute, river, excavations, fauna, wind, and heavy rains.
The Underground Coal Formation: the coal formation cycle in the valley from fossilization to carbonization.

The soil represents an indispensable part of the culture of Üzülmez. It contains the production habits of society, the authentic vegetation of the territory, the historical underground formation of the soil, and the memory of the earth, the people, and life. The texture, form, and color of the coal structure change over time according to fossil plant species. This structure rises in the valley as an urban sculpture made of cultural memory. It grows, changes, and reveals the sequences of time.

The aim of the project is to reconstruct cultural memories by using architectural tools and transforming them into spatial senses.