The personal tragedy of Rem Koolhaas

Junkspace is nowhere and everywhere, it is familiar and unfamiliar, it is easily defined and elusive. Junkspace is the home of the uncanny and the horizon of the familiar. Junkspace is you and I, but especially you. I could go on, but we just read an essay with a similar drumbeat. 

Junkspace seems to be a catch-all criticism for all the malaise in the world. Once you get past the surface level, you could define junkspace in a number of ways. It could represent “non-spaces” per Marc Auge’s definition, or it could represent ‘the virus of shopping itself” as Fredric Jameson calls it. Either way you define it, it is here, and it represents the new cosmology of life and architecture. “The cosmetic if the new cosmic…” (Koolhaas, Junkspace)

Consumerism is the new spirituality as Jameson writes, and junkspace is one of the many by-products of this. What is more concerning is that this junkspace means the direct end of public space. As Margaret Crawford wrote in her essay, we can see the inherent conflict that arose between shopping mall and public spaces. Like an unstoppable plague, shopping malls would grow to kill public places, downtown districts, and eventually come for you and your mother. Malls, shopping centers, and places of consumerism would be the vessel that would privatize public space. 

“Junkspace reduces what is urban to urbanity…Instead of public life, Public Space ™: what remains of the city once the unpredictable has been removed…Space for ‘honoring,’ ‘sharing,’ ‘caring,’ ‘grieving,’...”(Koolhaas, Junkspace)

I think this is just the precipice that we could start to look at Koolhaas’s problematic relationship with public spaces and we might say urbanism in general. Koolhaas, as Ellen Dunham Jones writes, has made his name by surfing the wave of modern capitalism; he is less of a critic and more of a silent observer and enabler. A part of this movement is the reduction of public spaces either by privatization, transferal to places of consumption, or lack of design effort. Koolhaas is guilty of all of these.

 “Instead of empower communities to envision and administer their future, he calls for ‘Lite Urbanism,’ the design equivalent of deregulation.” (Dunham Jones)

I think at this point we can start rolling out the “corporate sell-out” merchandise for Koolhaas to purchase. Because it is in this lack of concern for the public sphere that Koolhaas is guilty of his own criticism, like a Greek myth - he is guilty of his own tragic demise. 

To make this point, I think it is important to understand a simple principle: good architecture is the result of public spaces. Streets form the buildings, parks make districts, etc. But more importantly culture creates relevant forms and spaces. This sounds grossly simplistic, but I think it is highlighted when Koolhaas talks about the antidote to junkspace: a refugee who finds an innovative and non-conformist way of using a space. The more I read into this, the more I imagined someone using a train station as a place of culture, perhaps setting up a small stand to sell souvenirs or perhaps lingering in conversation a little too long. Whatever it is, it is the return of the engaged public into a space that activates it, and perhaps validates a space as architecture and not junkspace. 

One other thing I was thinking about when it comes to junkspace. From where does it come? I think you could point to greedy developers, drooling masses of consumers, thoughtless planners, but ultimately it comes at the hand of the architect. These spaces that we all hate are designed, and I think it is important to remember this. As mentioned in Crawford’s article, these spaces are intentionally designed to manipulate, to ensnare, to prey on the weakness of your senses. And so many other junkspaces are designed to be non-paces and irrelevant. 

In his own blog posts Lebbeus Woods (Bad Faith 1& 2) writes about our current predicament. There was a shift that happened in the 1970’s with post-modern architects and researchers, “architectural thought - indeed it’s ideals- began to shift from singular visions of urban space to more commercially viable projects. The real estate developer emerged as the best social agent for a burgeoning consumer society. ” “In other words, by having lots of money or access to it and therefore the capability to commission large and expensive buildings (which use massive amounts of human and natural resources), developers prove that they speak for the public - the ultimate source of all wealth - and are acting in its best interests. As recent events show, this is far from true.”

Yes, junkspaces are places funded by developers, but enabled by architects. Architects when they design the cheap, shitty buildings and places around the world are breaching the public contract between themselves and the general public. This comes about when professional behavior is one where the client/ developer is catered to by beggarly designers ( a result of a neo-liberal stripping away of fee schedules in the 70’s that thereby undermined the ethical premise that architects operate with). The result of this is that the public contract has been passed onto developers. The result of this: junkspace.

This is our current state of affairs, even more poignant is the fact that in most of our careers we will be tasked with designing junkspaces, spaces that revolt us on some level, that grate against our principles however small they might remain. I think this leaves young designers in a difficult position, crushed between market forces and idealism. I was reminded of this during this past summer, interning at an urban design non-profit whose work was to ensure quality design built in the city. It was an ironic process where an architect in our office would meet with a developer and point out urbanistic concerns that weren’t being met by their building, this developer could then go back to their own architects and decide to make necessary changes. Most never did. But it felt like some treachery in the profession, turncoats who could only raise their hands and point to a check. Much like junkspace, it leaves us in a liminal space, ironically as previously mentioned designed as one by the force of the market. 

But we might go back to the patron saint of the unbuilt and unfeasible, Woods writes a new ethical credo for us that leaves behind the pre-prodded horseshit of the AIA and might serve for a little in the space that we occupy.

“ Don’t accept a commission (or a job) unless you believe that it makes a positive contribution to your community - however you define ‘community,’ and however you define ‘positive.’

Don’t convince yourself that taking on a project you have no such belief in is just a steppingstone
to projects you can believe in. It won’t work, and never has.

Do devote as large a portion of your time as you can to independent research and experimentation about problems that you think are important to architecture and your community. Don’t wait for a client to ask for it - you are the only agent for such work. Be prepared to finance it from your own pocket. Then publish the results so they can be available to as many people as possible. 

Do keep your office as small as possible. Creating a large overhead is a sure road to taking on projects and clients you don’t want to but ‘must’ accept to pay your employees. 

Do remember that your responsibility as an architect is first to the wider community you inhabit, and only then to your clients. Don’t accept clients who do not share this understanding. 

Do remember that what you do as an architect - at whatever level you practice - is vitally important to the field as a whole and to your community. Don’t imagine that what you do doesn’t matter, or is too small to make a difference.”