Ferdinand Rubach

LOADED CONCRETE

The deliberate ruinization of a war heritage.

Located in Vienna’s oldest Baroque garden, this project addresses the gradual degradation

of the Flak Tower in the Augarten. The tower, a 132,000-ton concrete monolith, has cast an

oppressive and inaccessible shadow over its surroundings since its construction. Decaying

and unusable, it paradoxically endures as a preserved piece of heritage, despite its

controversial history.

The project criticizes this rigid conservation by reimagining the interplay between

preservation, deconstruction, and creation. It seeks to radically contrast the relationship

between past and present—not as mere conservation, but as an active process confronting

its historical meaning and the question which objects are worth being listed as historical

monuments.

Central to the project is the idea to carefully take apart the crumbling tower in a way similar

to how stone is cut in a quarry. This process generates temporary spaces within the tower’s

intermediate deconstruction stages while repurposing the extracted blocks into new

architectural objects for collective gatherings throughout the park and the city. The reuse of

cut-out pieces opens up the question in how far concrete as a material is historically loaded

and wether its possible to “wash” it.

The once-intimidating tower transforms into an accessible ruin, ready to be conquered by

nature. Its degradation symbolizes a shift: from a controversial war memorial to a

monument of peace. Fractured into a ruin it contrasts the former oppressive appearance

and shows a new critical approach to deal with the sturdyness of undesired war heritages.