Reading between the Redlines

A common practice in architecture is the process of redlining. Redlining helps correct designs and drawings, in addition to eliminating the unnecessary. I found “Junkspace” so loaded down with… well, “junk” itself that I found it difficult to read. I understand that Koolhaas authored this text in a way that reflects the chaotic, multi-layered nature of the junkspace he is describing, but I think that there is still meaning that can be extracted. As you can see from the photo I uploaded, around half of the example page of writing remains after redlining; this is the substance of what Koolhaas is trying to say. In much the same way, I think that junkspace does have substance to it. I do not believe that every built structure has to be a work of “Architecture” with a capital A. There are plenty of non-architectural spaces and programs that function just fine, even though they clash with architects’ design sensibilities. Junkspace derives from a need or desire. By delegitimizing this kind of non-architecture, we delegitimize the needs that created them: functionality, efficiency, rapidity. These are very real issues that have to be satisfied. We cannot simply ignore them because they have spawned non-architectural junkspace or out of some desire to return to an archaic form of practicing architecture out of misguided nostalgia. Much in the same way that I found meaning in Koolhaas’s writing by eliminating the noise, we must find the meaning in junkspace. There is, somewhere amidst the chaos, a lesson to be learned.