It's all about attitude

Let's double back and take another look at Junkspace but this time alongside Margret Crawford's concept of Everyday Urbanism. Both Koolhaas and Crawford are grappling with human interaction but with very different attitudes. Koolhaas' notion of congestion mirrors Crawford's thought that "These places where differences collide or interact are the most potent sites for everyday urbanism". It seems like the biggest difference between them is Koolhaas attempts to force this interaction and push it indoors while Crawford recognizes the organic nature of interaction within the city. Even the terms used to describe essentially the same observation; "Junkspace" versus "everyday", "congestion" versus "interaction" gives us a glimpse to both individuals outlooks on not only urbanism, but their own place in the world as a designer. Koolhaas has a somewhat cold, dystopian view of the world and gives the impression that he seems himself above the common man. 

"Lefebvre pointed out that although experts and intellectuals are embedded in everyday life, they prefer to think of themselves as outside and elsewhere. Convinced that everyday life is trivial, they attempt to evade it. They use rhetoric and metalanguage as 'permanent substitutes for experience, allowing them to ignore the mediocrity of their own condition."

Ouch.

It's almost like Lefebvre and Crawford were specifically calling out Koolhaas. He fell right into the "modern architect's urge to design an ordered and controlled urbanism as if it were a functional building". Or, in the case of Koolhaas, controlled urbanism literally as a building. Crawford seems to have a more humbled outlook on the world, giving her a different lens than Koolhaas. Where he sees junkspace, she sees the same space as "a zone of social transition and possibility with the potential for new social arrangements and forms of imagination. For me, this difference in attitudes was one of the main reasons for my interest in urban design. In my opinion, the quote above applies to so many architects. Design is about design, the creative process, the icon, not about the people that it will impact. While this gap between the Architect and the everyday person has slowly been closing, there is something different about the way that urban design, as a profession, views the world. Like Crawford, the tone is softer, more humble. This is a huge generalization, but one that I believe needs to continue to be addressed.