Translator: Tatjana Jevdjic Reviewer: Mile Živković
Good afternoon everyone.
I am one of those people who went around the world
only to find out that what I was looking for was right where I started.
And what I found is called earth architecture.
When I say that earth architecture is my occupation,
people usually think that I'm a landscape architect
or an archaeologist or they really don't understand
what it's really about.
Let me clarify the concept of earth architecture.
It is an architecture that
uses earth for the construction as the main, or one of the main materials.
If it is still not clear what I am talking about,
let me try this. Have you heard about "rammed earth"?
That is earth compressed in a wooden or metal formwork.
Or maybe about "adobe" - unbaked brick dried only in the sun
or "wattle and daub", where earth is used only as a filler of a wooden structure.
Now that you understood clearly what earth architecture is,
why did you first think of this,
instead of this?
Not only you, but most people both here and in the world
have a very negative image of earth architecture,
connecting it with primitive, outdated and obsolete constructive forms,
something you see in developing countries,
associated with poverty, moisture and bad odors.
However I'm sure some of you nostalgically recall
how your grandparents' homes were warm during winter and cool in the summer.
Since not everything is black and white, today I'll try to open a door
for earth architecture that you perhaps did not know existed.
Did you know that 3 billion people today live and work in homes made of earth?
Or that the Chinese wall, when there was no stone, was built with earth.
That the first skyscrapers in the world were built 500 years ago
in the city of Shibam in Yemen, and they still stand there,
their height is between 15 and 40 meters.
Have you heard of the city called Djenné, in Mali,
95% of which was built with earth?
Or of the Peruvian pyramids made of earth? And the city of Lyon in France
is also built with earth.
And not only that. Earth is a building material today as well.
As an example, Martin Rauch in Austria. One of his projects,
the Chapel of Reconciliation in Berlin, which was built on the site
of the former Berlin Wall. It had built-in parts of the wall itself.
Or Marcelo Cortés, who combines steel structure and earth as a filler.
Then David Oliver and his work in Australia with stabilized rammed earth.
Then, Anna Heringer and her METI school in Bangladesh,
which combines earth and bamboo
for which she won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
Or let's say, the Cultural Center in Canada which is built with
12 earth sorts from 12 neighboring Indian territories.
Earth has always been a building material.
In some areas they never stopped building with earth,
they only adjusted it to the demands of modern life.
However, after the Second World War
after industrialization and need for quick building,
most have turned to using other, artificial materials.
For the last thirty years,
the environmental, economic and identity crisis
have turned us to alternative solutions.
And earth is one of the most remarkable ones.
What are the advantages of earth? Earth is a healthy, warm and kind material.
It is ubiquitous and easily accessible.
It has been used in this region for centuries.
It has the thermoregulation environment ability.
It does not require any strength to build except human strength.
To mention some of them, it has a high acoustic comfort,
enormous creative and social potential.
Why do I love earth? Because it is unpredictable and magical.
Because there are no pre-set rules, each sort of earth is a story of itself,
each sort has to be tested in advance.
How did I end up in this Wonderland tale?
I was to be an artist,
I chose architecture just because I heard the admissions had freehand drawing.
I was drawing at night for 3 years and at the last minute
I wondered whether it was the right choice.
Still, the ecology and heritage classes, as well as student practice
I had in Syria and Colombia, somehow confirmed my choice and desire
to deal with local materials and improved building techniques.
A month after my graduation project, I found myself in East Africa --
don't ask me how.
I only remember the aircraft landing over Kigali,
orange coloured countryside and green fields of bananas
and I thought, "What am I doing here?"
Yet I spent three years there, working on modern architecture projects,
and in the small town of Butare in south Rwanda,
I found a poster for CRAterre, the only postmaster,
the only specialization in the world for the earth architecture,
both laboratory and the UNESCO chair of earth architecture.
In 30 years of the program's existence, I was the only person from Serbia
and they eagerly anticipated my earth architecture presentation.
Unfortunately, I introduced myself with the earthen architecture of Rwanda
because I didn't know ours well enough at the time.
One of the first classes we had, A man with his hands in the mud,
when I saw that, I thought I want to do that my whole life.
Yet there was a doubt about what they would teach us for two years.
Eventually, I realized that a lifetime is not enough.
It was a great story, a great life lesson in every aspect.
The perfect blend of theory and practice,
a great story about the friendship of 22 students
from different parts of the world, different professions and ages.
After the first year, we got the first big job:
to plaster the four storey staircase in a building in Grenoble, after what
I had a four-month work practice, partly in France and partly in Bulgaria,
and then I was studying earth architecture of Spain and Portugal.
I returned home and started a graduation project
about the earth architecture of Vojvodina.
In the first records,
I find an incredible wealth of techniques in this small area,
and then with a colleague from Brazil, tour Vojvodina on bikes in order to see
what their condition really is.
We conclude that they are in a very poor condition, no one cares about these houses
and that there are no experts specialized in this field.
When I returned to Novi Sad, I could not find a job, I was 470th
on the list of the Employment Bureau, I applied for all possible jobs.
In the beginning just for jobs in architecture,
and later in every other field.
The seventh and last in line
was the Cosmopolitan magazine's reader of the year.
At the urging of a friend who thought my story was interesting,
I described myself and my muddy story in 200 words
and said that with the 5000 euro prize,
I would buy a house in an old village in Vojvodina
and start a Center for Earth Architecture there.
I will not tell you all the details,
just that they invited me to be in Belgrade in 2 hours,
and running for the bus, I bought a Cosmopolitan
to find out what my favorite columns were.
10 days later they called to tell me that I got the money,
and so I got the house.
The idea for this house originated in France
when I was with my teachers, a Peruvian and a Cuban,
we talked about it, and they bought a house near Grenoble, made from earth,
on a small parcel. They paid 200,000 euros for it
and then I decided, if they can do it for that sum,
and pay it off for life, I guess I can do it as well.
The other idea was that too many of my colleagues
want to come and visit me, to work with us,
and I do not have a place to put them up.
Then, I want it to be a real center
where people can get information, come to work, experiment
together with us, and the final reason is
that I want to create my home there.
Everybody's always asking, why Mosorin?
I have no one from Mosorin, in elementary school a friend of mine
took me to her grandparents, I remember watermelons, cake with poppy seeds,
the porch where we sat, and for me it was a real village.
Moreover, I believe there is great potential,
but let's leave that for some other time.
So, back to the house. We began working on it last year,
little by little, as much as my time, money and the job in Novi Sad allow me.
I had great help from colleagues who came,
eight of them are French and one Brazilian,
they helped me diagnose the house.
We concluded that it is in a very poor condition, but if we could save it,
we can help other people and their houses as well.
As a joke I often say that they came, and the house prior to their arrival
looked pretty cute, they peeled away everything they could,
dismantled the tiled stove and everything else, and they left me
to continue all alone.
A friend of mine jokes that like Tom Sawyer
I convince people to paint my fence and pay me for doing it.
Last year, I organized the first Summer School of earthen architecture
"Mora", Mosorin youth work action
and we worked on the preventive conservation of the house.
Besides me there was a local master,
we had 15 participants and about 60 visitors,
and preventive conservation
means that we protected it from further deterioration,
therefore we replaced the roof, sealed the cracks,
and closed the gables with reed.
At one point, a dilemma was born:
What will happen to the house?
In this kind of environment, everyone advised me to knock it down
and start building it from scratch, and my idea was
to reconstruct it piece by piece.
I presented this dilemma to my colleagues from France,
and everyone supported me in the idea to preserve it,
and even scolded the demolition idea.
So when I came to my senses early this year, the story got a wider context;
in order to give a healthy diet
to all the people who visit me, and to myself,
I have started organic gardening
or permaculture, thinking that it concerns agriculture only.
I discovered that everything I was doing,
the construction and recycling, and the planting,
is actually permaculture.
As I did not get funds from any of the competitions this year,
works were progressing slowly, until a colleague, Greg from France
contacted me, with an idea to come for a week,
so I hastily organized the second Summer School of earth architecture
and with a great team of young people who gathered there, we worked,
as far as I know, on the first reconstruction
of a house made of rammed earth with straw bales.
So inspired and motivated, I continued
and these are the most recent works ten days ago, where we have been working
on the development of a recycled shower and toilet
with a fantastic team of cooks from Nis
and participants from Belgrade.
I hope that the weather will help us
and that there will be more workshops before winter.
My house and the Center for Earth Architecture
will look like this one day.
If I can make something like this,
I hope that you can create from at least one wall
a door of some kind.
Thanks for your attention and see you in Mosorin.
(Applause)