Junkspace for our Guilty Pleasures

 

    One may argue Koolhaas's analogies to Junkspace could be interpreted through our guilty pleasures. Guilty pleasures aren't healthy, we all know this. But we will still submerge ourselves in our vices. When guilty pleasures take importance over our health, we give in to our pleasures and ride the train that overstimulates our mind with no long term benefits. To me, junkspace is the direct dividend of our guilty pleasures and our desire to let these pleasures take control over our own true health. 

    In architecture, we seem to have given up on the difficult and innovative for the stimulating and easy. Every day people decide what they want, and the consumer market wanted shopping malls, huge high rides buildings with Oyster bars and boxing, flashing neon lights, etc. The consumer market also wants to watch tv for 6 hours a day, drive to every location no matter the proximity, eat the cheapest yet most unhealthy food, obviously we can not kick our dirty pleasure's very easily. The human race is addicted to instant pleasure, disorientation, and constant stimulation. I.e. children using iPad for 8/hr per day every day. 

    Once glorified historical architecture does not give these feelings we have become accustomed to, but doesn't mean there can't be a middle ground. I think it's pretty safe to say since the invention of  the television everyone will not be strictly reading books simply for the benefit of reading, so there must be some middle ground in which we utilize technology to bridge this gap of our guilty pleasure and living in a healthier manner. Maybe this solution entails using elements of technology to enhance architecture. There are plenty of bland pieces of architecture that use distorting elements such as neon lights for example, but that does not mean a pleasant middle ground has necessarily been found (I'm sure there is interesting architecture out there that utilizes neon lights, yet maybe not to the same scale of  Vegas) for I'm sure you can work with technology. 

I'll end on a side note away from my main synthesis. 

Side note: I did not understand Rem's distaste with exposed structures. You'd imagine even if the structures are steel, that exposed structures still page homage to the vernacular in some way? I guess anything that supports modernization has become of disinterest?