leergut | empty good

Leeres Haus | Empty house
Leergut�literally translated empty good is a returnable container used in Germany for products such as water, beer, and yoghurt. The idea that architecture could be, or even should be, an empty good may seem at first surprising. Many architects, after all, would claim the opposite, that it is their role to find meaning for the emptiness of modern building. A developer, on the other hand, can probably easily see a parallel between rentable space and the empty good ; the creation of empty space is inseparable from the process of contemporary city production. What is needed now is a shift of view : for architects to stop pretending that this emptiness does not exist and see it rather as a 'good' which is capable of containing the full complexity of the city. Once seen in this way, it will perhaps be possible to make the buildings better suited for this task.

Leihflasche | Returnable Bottle
Our example of a Leergut is the bottle used by many water companies, not just for mineral water, but also for tonic water, lemonade, and juices. The label is the only distinguishing feature. The bottle has pleasing visual and tactile qualities. The constricted waist is inviting to the hand, and the lumps on the glass echo the effervescence of the contents. A slight thickening of the glass above and below the label acts as a buffer to protect the surface of the bottle and label from getting scratched ; the surface wear is concentrated around these rings as a ground line. The returnable bottle is made with thicker glass than a throw-away bottle, particularly the base that must withstand being dropped into cases, and this heaviness lends it a certain quality that a throw-away bottle lacks. These visual and tactile qualities including the acceptance of signs of wear, are surprisingly close to those qualities which we may hope to find in a good building. The rational of the design, however, can only be understood within the context of the system of which it is a part. The design is a response to the long-life expectancy of the bottle; it anticipates the wear and tear that it will receive, which might break a less well-made bottle. Unlike the throw-away bottle, the cost of making the bottle is not related to the marketing of the contents. Its high quality is simply necessary for the system to work.

Stadtmodell | City Model
The full potential of the model is only discovered when we put the object aside and recognize that there is a social component to the system : it is not only good business. Likewise the city, the system with which we are concerned as architects, is an interweaving of social and built form rather than the production of buildings alone. The principle of Leergut�to borrow the container against a deposit, rather than buying it along with the contents�is simple. This is one of the strengths of the system : it is transparent, understandable by everyone. It goes back in principle to a time when containers were not mass-produced and disposable, but valuable objects. That the system survives, in an age of cheap containers, is perhaps attributable to a memory of an earlier frugality, and the survival of small local breweries and water companies�overlaid by contemporary feelings of environmental responsibility. There is a will in society for the system to work : this common will is one of the conditions for the successful functioning of such a system in the city. Is a similar will required if buildings are to work as empty goods ?

500 Sorten Bier | 500 Sorts of Beer
Although the principle of Leergut is simple, the result is complex. The complexity of the system can be measured through the network of movements which it sets up within a local field, unlike the one-way flow of the throw-away system. With these movements comes social contact, the life and bustle of the city. The crossing points of these movements become events in the city. Such a place is the sidewalk outside the shop 500 Sorten Bier in Schillerstra�e. As there is insufficient space within the shop for sorting out the empty bottles, it expands its business outside onto the sidewalk. A delivery truck parks at the curb, cases of empty bottles are stacked on the wide pavement, and the bottle are sorted : the space between shop-front and truck becomes an extension of the shop. Customers can leave their empty bottles there too, saving the trouble of taking them inside. In this modest and unspectacular pocket of activity we have a sense of how the whole matrix of the city could work.

Bar
( from Shifting the View : Documentation of the Commonplace [ Los Angeles : Public Access Press 1999 ] ) aai lecture on 11 November