The Future of Junkspace

 The Future of Junkspace

"Architecture disappeared in the twentieth century; we have been reading a footnote under a microscope hoping it would turn into a novel; our concern for the masses has blinded us to People's Architecture." - Rem Koolhaas, "Junkspace"

One of the first thoughts I had while reading Rem Koolhaas' "Junkspace" was his non-acknowledgement that Junkspace doesn't further user safety, health, and comfort; some Junkspace may not be architecture, but a variation of it meant to help the public, who are the primary users of any built project and who architects must design for. Personally, Junkspace is an understandable notion when referring to technology in relation to architecture; billboards, neon signs, shopping malls, etc. are all portions of Junkspace that I can agree upon, however, like Frederic Jameson, I can believe in a solution to the problem, or at least eventual change in the form of successful architecture. 

"The problem is them how to locate radical difference; how to jumpstart the sense of history so that it begins again to transmit feeble signals of time, of otherness, of change, of Utopia. The problem to be solved is that of breaking out of the windless present of the postmodern back into real historical time, and a history made by human beings." - Frederic Jameson, "Future City"

Is there a way to morph or alter Junkspace into a true architecture? We may be years away from a solution, or a time away from the public caring about the presence of Junkspace, but I believe there is a way to combine Junkspace within architecture to create a harmonious environment, so that Junkspace isn't really Junkspace anymore.