This site-specific project consists in bringing the inside of the former hotel California, which is now a squat, out into the open by exposing large photographs of the rooms' interiors on its front.

Rue Abraham Gevray 1, 1201 Geneva
21. 6. 2004 – 30. 8. 2004
Project conceived by Veronika Klancnik
Photographs: Veronika Klancnik, Li Weingerl, Fabien Pont

The disposition of the façade allows for pictures of 1 square meter to be fixed under the windows. Next to the entrance a notice-board announces closing down of the squat at the end of August – the exposed interiors are thus about to disappear or are already gone at the time the audience sees them.

The installation will addresses the voyeur in all of us, always interested in seeing other peoples' apartments, be they friends and acquaintances we visit or total strangers from across the street whose interiors we are able to observe in the evenings through their lit windows. Le Kalif, as the squat is now called, with its community of inhabitants, who mostly know each other and often do not close the doors of their rooms, offers a unique opportunity to examine the personal spaces of nearly a hundred individuals who have found the same empty rooms and by equipping them according to their own tastes and possibilities have made them their home.

What makes this installation especially interesting is the history of the structure in question and the fate that awaits it. Both are emblematic of the way things are going lately in Geneva. On a bigger scale, they underline the unsteadiness of the places that we inhabit or see every day. The building once was a four-star hotel rather ridiculously named ‘California’. It was opened in the sixties and was closed down and sold in the nineties whereupon it was empty for about six years, probably playing a part in some kind of a real estate speculation. All the while the housing situation in Geneva steadily declined. As a result of the lack of affordable apartments many squats have arisen, one of which has been, since 2002, Le Kalif. It was occupied mostly by foreign students and young families. Joined in a cooperative, the transitory inhabitants soon regulated the situation by signing a contract with the owner, binding them to move as soon as the work on the house started. This will happen in September and the rooms must be empty by the end of August.

Besides the historical context of Le Kalif, its location within the city allows this project to become a statement in and of itself. It is situated in the Paquis, the quarter of Geneva with the biggest density of hotels, many of which are five-star extravaganzas (only one building separates the hotel California from the Noga Hilton). The diversity of its exposed rooms are in stark contrast to the uniformity and glamour of the fancy hotels accommodating the richest guests in the world. This contrast critically underlines the housing situation in Geneva where, following the general direction of local and federal politics, many squats are closing down and with them the venues for a vibrant underground culture. At the same time, while rents are going up, a multitude of buildings still stand empty and useless.

The project title allows the audience a more playful approach to these problems. The old denomination of the hotel and its connection with the legendary song of The Eagles, with its eerie lyrics, is a link to the empty buildings of Geneva. In addition, the title is deliberately written like an introductory line to a scene in a film script. This follows the idea that the exposed interiors are perceived as scenes to be inhabited: in all these rooms so many episodes of so many lives have been lived and in the mind of someone who only sees the rooms and not the inhabitants, so many more potential stories can spring up even if only vaguely outlined and unarticulated. These real life scenes without the actual human presence are meant to divert passersby, making them question the apparent stability of the surrounding structures and the commonplace notion of home.

Veronika Klancnik, July 2004

http://urbanfields.net/hotelcalifornia/index.html