JunkSpace for $19.99
Why is it that we have been demoralized as a society to the point where a Mall is the center of life for many people? The place to go? A "cool" place?
We have been industrialized, dehumanized, and yet we can't get enough of it. Our foods are processed, genetically modified, synthesized yet we eat them more than ever. The Mall, which in my mind is synonymous with junk space is sterile, heterogeneous, predictable, stagnant, generic, etc. yet we find it convenient. Are we not just in another cycle were we find ourselves afraid of change, the hangover after a century of exponential modernization ? A last gasp of air to stop the unstoppable. Our society doesn't even control the financial markets anymore, they seem to have a life of their own. How is our tiny profession supposed to control the built environment?
I might just be a pessimist but it feels like we are swimming against the current. We criticize junk space yet more and more there's little we can do as a profession to control the proliferation of it. How do we fight against the $19.99 and create architecture that is compelling and has character? More than ever before our profession needs to be in tune with the forces that create our built environment. We need to work with what we have, make junkspace our thing? After all, I did think that the mall was "cool" when I was younger.
We have been industrialized, dehumanized, and yet we can't get enough of it. Our foods are processed, genetically modified, synthesized yet we eat them more than ever. The Mall, which in my mind is synonymous with junk space is sterile, heterogeneous, predictable, stagnant, generic, etc. yet we find it convenient. Are we not just in another cycle were we find ourselves afraid of change, the hangover after a century of exponential modernization ? A last gasp of air to stop the unstoppable. Our society doesn't even control the financial markets anymore, they seem to have a life of their own. How is our tiny profession supposed to control the built environment?
I might just be a pessimist but it feels like we are swimming against the current. We criticize junk space yet more and more there's little we can do as a profession to control the proliferation of it. How do we fight against the $19.99 and create architecture that is compelling and has character? More than ever before our profession needs to be in tune with the forces that create our built environment. We need to work with what we have, make junkspace our thing? After all, I did think that the mall was "cool" when I was younger.
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