Junkspace (Public shaming post #3)

Rem Koolhaas cobbles 7,500 words together in a rambling diatribe on “Junkspace” – the evil offspring of Modernism and modernization that has transformed the built environment into a seamless network of false realities, creature comforts, entertainments, and pseudo-spaces that infiltrate our entire existence.  The idea that life and the city, commerce, socialization, nature, and even travel destinations can be canned into a single shopping mall is an interesting and disturbing thought.

Personally, I despise shopping malls, big-box stores, cookie-cutter suburbia, and even grocery stores.  However, I am a complete slave to the Internet.  I do most of my shopping online for practically everything except groceries, toiletries, and household consumables.  I look to the Internet for media entertainment, exploring new places, restaurant reviews, social outlets, inspiration, historical and cultural information.  I don’t watch cable TV, but I watch the hell out of some Netflix.

Is the Internet the new virtual Junkspace? How does this fit with reality and the built environment? Will we all work from home one day?  Will brick and mortar commerce cease to exist? Will instant gratification become the standard of gratification?

Having vast knowledge and consumption within the click of a mouse is liberating but extremely overwhelming, tiring, and numbing.  As good architects I think we must reach for tangible and real experiences to enrich our work.  Take a hike, take a trip, try a new restaurant, read a book made of paper, sit in a park, visit an art gallery, talk to a stranger, and walk through your neighborhood.  Koolhaas ends his writing saying, “The cosmetic is the new cosmic”.  Perhaps the cosmic has been there all along, it’s just hidden under some junk and we need to do some house cleaning.