L'architettura di Auschwitz

Auschwitz represents a unicum in the immense geography of sites of mass destruction established by the Nazi regime in Europe. The Auschwitz II - Birkenau extermination camp (1941-45), in particular, is the outcome of a complex project, developed over the years, both at the level of its general layout and through the process of architectural definition of its most tragically relevant elements. Despite the hasty demolition of the unusual extermination complexes at the hands of the Nazis themselves in January 1945, photographs of their original appearance together with the consistency of the ruins and the footprints they left in the depths of the ground testify to a tectonic component that makes the specific identity of these objects not reducible to merely technological and functional reasons. These complexes, the so-called Zentralsauna and other camp buildings were in fact united by forms and a language that recalled the characteristics of a 'civil architecture', which seems to represent the dramatic paradox of the purpose behind their design. Today, the ruins of Birkenau leave open, among others, questions that have an immediate disciplinary relevance: is the architectural form itself blameless, or is it always the outcome of a political act? Were these buildings merely atrocious 'stage sets' made to conceal what was happening inside them, or did they reflect the destructive ideology that produced them? Critically re-reading what remains of the Auschwitz Vernichtungslager from within its architecture cannot, however, be a way of providing unambiguous and 'definitive' answers by attempting to trace the ambiguous perimeter of an alleged 'Nazi architecture'. It means re-proposing the question of the architect's responsibility and ethical duties in the face of this extreme symbol of the Shoah: a place of the wiping out and loss of all cultural achievements, of the very capacity to think and, ultimately, of the end of history and human civilisation.