Is Ordinary Okay?
While I found Rem Koolhaas’ article, Junkspace, interesting,
it is hard for me to take him seriously. He criticizes the way buildings are
being “designed” today, berating them and picking apart each minute detail. He
compares architecture today to architecture through different time periods and
movements, and how the two do not even compare. However, I would argue that all
time periods have this “Junkspace” architecture. The truly ordinary,
overlooked, ill-designed buildings that make the great pieces of architecture
stand out. Junkspace highlights the iconic architecture of the time until it is
time to get rid of it and begin again. Not every building or project is carefully
planned out in an expressive way, and the ones that are withstand the test of
time. I do not encourage these Junkspace projects, but I also do not berate
them because they are a piece of the fabric of the built environment. Look at
the photos below, and I’m sure you will barely notice the ordinary buildings
surrounding the projects.
Dancing House in Prague
Guggenheim in New York
Heydar Aliyev Center in Azerbaijan
I was really interested by your comment "Junkspace highlights the iconic architecture of the time until it is time to get rid of it and begin again." I think elements of design which go out of style or obsolete is a very real problem, and one of the problems that leads to Junkspace. Like Koolhaas was saying any word that starts with "re" produce Junkspace. To answer your question is ordinary okay? Maybe it is for the time being. But what happens when ordinary is no longer okay and it needs renovated, restored, or just redone? I think that's where the real danger comes in.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree, from an urban standpoint, cities need background buildings! If everything attempts to be a showcase building, the city would just be jumbled and uncohesive.
ReplyDeleteI agree and disagree with you. Through the reading I also thought about "ancient" junkspace and how it may have been looked. Probably not with the same term but there definitely were some. Are maybe some ruins ancient junkspace that cultures that took over other cultures left intact because they considered them meaningless? Idk, but it is a great question to ask!
ReplyDeleteNow, I disagree with you in the sense that the "barely ordinary buildings" are unnoticed. I feel like as architects we have a duty to look at all built and non-built environments (non-trained eyes may differ) but just like you said, those ordinary buildings are what make the other ones stand out. Yet, those buildings serve a purpose and like Russell said "the city would just be jumbled and cohesive". Some may think that cohesiveness isn't necessary but order has always shown to create better cities. So to your question, I don't know if "ordinary is okay" as it is... but it seems to be certainly necessary.