Where Do We Go Now...?
Behind each brick that fades away, /in each remembrance that`s old and sad/ it is oblivion that shall forever stay, and it shall rule in night and day. Those are verses that I have read in a blog and dedicated to the abandoned/ subjected to restitution tobacco warehouses near bus station Yug. Oblivion is a ruler indeed if there is no one to clean the ashes. “Until recently this was one of the most beautiful places in Plovdiv for me”, the blogs` author states, because of the incredible atmosphere - abandoned, grim, depressing, industrial. (dr. Alu)
Similar industrial, old, abandoned stations and warehouses were turned into art places in France, Germany and other western European countries. The warehouses are empty now due to the decline of the tobacco industry in Plovdiv and the restitution. There are examples of the positive too, i.e. delicate interventions in the old architecture, but also examples of the excessive – out of context. Private companies have bought some of the places and turned them into offices: Capital City Centre, Total Sport, Furniture salon Galero, the ex-dentist faculty, B.A.S… Once, in the 1980s, the deceased director and manager Vasil Apostolov wanted the Koudoglu warehouse into Puppet Theatre but the attempt was unsuccessful. In 1983 the Territorial Design Association announced an open call for a complex cultural centre in Plovdiv. The assignment was to be an adaptation of the tobacco warehouses located on the street Capitan Andreev together with those located on Ivan Vazov str. and the corner of Ekzarh Yosif str. for art needs with the façades unchanged. If this project had been implemented and not remained just an idea, some important aspects regarding the cultural infrastructure would have been solved and we would not now be suffering the decline and ruin of these beautiful buildings. In 2008 the entrepreneur Irina Batkova, daughter of the journalist Batkov, placed the annual exhibition of M-TEL in the former warehouse of Ivan Vazov street and 16, Ekzarh Yosif str. over 2000 sq. m.
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Article about a possible future Бутиков хотел дава нов живот на 130-годишна тютюнева фабрика в Пловдив - Арх. Радко Тодоров, Славена Русева | 24 Септември 2019
