a musing anarchitect

“IN THE END, THERE WILL BE LITTLE ELSE FOR US TO DO BUT SHOP”


This is the core of what our capitalist consumer society has to offer. If left to grow in the Petri dish, our surroundings become more and more clearly defined as a mall. The only real inhabitants, the only real participants, the only true beneficiaries, are consumers. It you’re not shopping, you are not only not welcome, you don’t really even exist.

Is shopping your favorite activity?

What activities do you enjoy which do not require shopping?

If ‘shopping,’ which we can define as buying or exchanging goods for any goods or services, is your primary objective / most pleasurable or important activity, then you must be interested in obtaining buying power, or capital. Capital is your ticket to the show.

If you have a day off from work, what do you do? Do you get some shopping done? What else would you do?
What if you had a week off from work, and all of your shopping was done?
All of your chores are done. All of your bills are paid.
There is ALWAYS something else to buy. Shopping is never done.
The accumulation of capital is never done, either.
The system grows, continuously.

I outright reject, at times violently, the idea that the primary direction of society, and subsequently, the main objective of urban planning and architectural design, is shopping.

When I enter a city, via freight train covered in soot, or by airplane with no bags checked in, or by bicycle, I do not enter my name on the list of shoppers. 90% of my time in the urban environment is spent not shopping.

What, then, am I doing here?

Here is a list of things I ‘do’ in the city:

HERMES TERM SHIFT

Hunt
Explore
Read
Map
Exercise
Sight-see
Trespass
Escape
Recreate
Meditate
Surrender
Hide
Fall in love
Interpret
Transcribe

ADDITIONAL

Reclaim
Communicate
Fight
Defend
Rebuild
Recycle
Design
Ride
Run
Smell
Learn
Absorb
Laugh
Enjoy



Most people would look at this list and laugh, or at least find many things that they wouldn’t qualify as actual activities. Are these items programmable in urban design or architecture? Are these programs as independent and viable as “shopping?” My suggestion is that the very idea that these programs are disputable in comparison with a program like “shopping” is an indication that we are in trouble.

I want you to know that right now, in your city, there are walkers and bicycle riders who are out here for no other reason than to participate in some of the above programs. Next time you see someone walking against the grain while you are on your way to work, imagine that ‘she’s on her way to escape today’ or ‘he is out in the name of absorption alone!’

It happens. I know I do it.

We live in a city that was designed for living and shopping, with the occasional industrial complex here and there, and maritime commerce structures lining the waterfront. The row housing on commercial streets are designed to house people over a ground level of commercial activity that requires capital to ultimately participate in (I do recognize window shopping and browsing with empty pockets as an activity or program). When I think of re-programming a city commercial strip like those in old Brooklyn or parts of Manhattan, that fact is overbearing due to the repetitive shape of the buildings. In an environment designed and built with the absence (or underscoring) of shopping as precognition, the streetscape would look very different ~ at the very least, there would be little necessity for the strict uniformity of design we see in our current city streets.

This is crucial ~ being that we are proponents of architectural recycling, we express distaste for the idea of constantly tearing buildings down & creating construction waste (the vast majority of waste tonnage excreted from the city is from demolition/construction), health hazards, and disgustingly cheap & efficient new designs by architectural whores and greedy investors who care little for / have no grasp of what real design could be ~ we are working within the pre-existing skeletal structure of a relatively efficient capitalist design, and our design constraint is to take the former houses of commerce and imagine new programs and activities within these walls.

In the spirit of “Woodsian” reclamation & paradigm shifts, I am also expecting design elements to begin to grow and expand beyond this skeletal frame, as new programs demand. Changing society ~ ripping from its tight grasp the very foundation upon which all of our surroundings were built (shopping) will undoubtedly revolutionize the way we walk through the city, the way we greet each other on the street, the way we approach architecture.

I have engaged a number of individuals in argument over why I think the sequel to the film “28 Days Later” was a disgusting flop and did its predecessor no justice. After writing the previous paragraphs I feel like I can more clearly articulate my answer. Aside from being more intelligently paced and showcasing a more graceful approach to cinematography in general, the first movie presents us with a glimpse of what this undeniably evocative urban/architectural condition might be like to experience in periods of transition: every service previously offered by London’s architecture, every building designed with an express purpose in mind, every pedestrian ritual practiced verbatim every day as a result of the workweek ~ as a result of capitalism ~ is vanquished. We watch as one pedestrian walks through a city stripped of its life and program (and unfortunately most of its inhabitants) and experiences the empty shell of what once was. This moment, much like the opening ‘dream’ sequence of “Vanilla Sky” lends us some insight into re-programming existing space. What happens to the shopping carts when the cash registers are vacant? What happens to the fitting rooms when there are no retail stores?

What would we do, should we discover a city completely deserted, if we were under no obligation to pay for food and rent? What would we establish? What would become of all of those ground-floor commercial spaces lining the empty streets? If this wasn’t the result of some saddening catastrophic event or war, if this was a choice made by communities (and here we get REALLY wishy-washy – it’s hard to imagine this condition taking place willingly on such a huge scale), what would our wildly creative minds invent? And what would the architecture that cradles these inventions, societal experiments, new ways of living, look like?

This idea is what really drives my interest in architecture. I spent four years attending design classes at the University of Florida’s college of Architecture as a student of design, and every project where I was allowed to take liberties with the programmatic elements of whatever I was encouraged to propose, I started here, at this idea:

In a state of real freedom, where our consumer society is somehow abolished or radically amended ~ in short, where architecture and program is not the slave of capitalism ~ What programs do we demand?

And from here it gets really interesting ~ What would the architecture of these programs look and feel like? What role does regional diversity play in the re-shaping of pre-existing architecture? What happens to the architecture we have when we factor in our demands for food, the necessity to clean up after ourselves, the changes in communication infrastructure, transportation, family life, neighborhood life, community life? What would the programs of love, lust, exploration, community outreach, education, sharing and mutual aid look like? How would they differ from state to state, mountain to valley, Oceanside to lakefront, flatlands to canyons, city to city, block to block? Would cultural and language barriers solidify and draw more distinct lines on the maps without the smoothing-over of commerce ~ our current ‘come together’ factor?
Or would other elements of life outside of this system take the place of buying and selling and trading, perpetuating the cultural exchange?

Would this be an outright nightmare?

If so, why was it always my architectural dream?



This was an interesting read concerning gentrification:
http://sunsetparkzone.blogspot.com/2007/10/commentary-by-nyu-student-living-in.html#links