Casa Caminada. Guesthouse in Fürstenau - Gion A. Caminada

Farms have changed a lot in the last few decades. Cows are no longer stabled in the villages, and the old barns are empty. Those cows are not going to come back, and there is much debate about the future of local farms. The question often boils down to two conflicting solutions: some want to demolish them to make way for new buildings, and others want to keep them for idealistic or aesthetic reasons.

Our view is that doubts about how to deal with empty structures cannot be resolved by dualistic or schematic approaches: neither blind demolition nor preservation at all costs do justice to what these buildings represent. Turning them into mere stage sets seems to us just as disrespectful as demolishing them, simply because even if a building has lost its functional utility, its construction represents much more than its specific use. The buildings are there: they were built stone on top of stone, wood on top of wood, and it is their significant presence and potential that should be emphasised today.