‘A Public Convenience’ was a design project conceived in the first year of the Masters degree I am currently reading for and focused on the emergence of illusion as a reality within contemporary life. This surfaced after an analysis of the character of Annalise Keating in How To Get Away with Murder and parallels were drawn to the hyper commercialisation that dominates the economical context we live in and the cultural, social and political realities of post-truth life. My work was set within the framework of Qawra as a city that rejects certain undeniable truths and absorbs the illusions that people find it convenient to relate to. The project developed the notion of convenience as a currency within modern society. All that we crave is that which is easy, that which is convenient. It is to the drivethroughs and public toilets that we worship most faithfully because it is these which guarantee the instant gratification we so seek. My project spoke about the need we have to constantly have more and the ambitions we pursue to be the greatest, “harder, better, faster, stronger,” as Kanye West himself very well put it. The project questioned the idols we today worship and what the aesthetics we have conformed to, say about us. It investigated the power of materials like plastic and neon and what they say about the generation constantly seeking to stand taller, shine brighter, be better and get richer, faster. An obsession on the 24/7 culture that we has taken over, guided my process; whilst the anthropological implications of political processes like Brexit and the election of President-elect Trump shed light on the realities of the millennial. It was this numbness to reality that had taken over all news items and that resonated with the built fabric around us that interested me.
Annalise Keating’s empathy within her job, and the facade that her career is for her, shed the light for such a project to materialise. In the courtroom she is bold, and every job she takes she is passionate for, however this is drawn by a subplot ridden with heartbreak, despair, discrimination, domestic violence, infidelity, and racism. This woman is broken and she echoes the commonality of this trait within 21st century women. Keating borrows from ‘whiter’ aesthetical references (a wig, heavy make up, eyelashes) because these take her further in her career than if she were to remain honest to her African American roots. The story that surrounds Annalise Keating feels so close to home because the balance between ‘absolutely fine’ and ‘train wreck’ is so volatile, and this is a trait many a millenial can relate to. The work I created used references from popular culture everywhere, and sought to understand the parallels that can be drawn in the lyrics we repeat blindly, the images we consume comfortably and the architecture we flock towards automatically. The scope of the project was not to propose an architectural typology of sorts, but rather to expose as much as I could about the context I am living in, to understand what architecture is required. I spoke of ‘an architecture’ that manages to convince people that that which they are coming across, is true, by projection of an illusion of it alongside it. For it is the illusions of things that we believe, and it is the truths of this world we are finding it hard to stomach. This phenomenon interested me and this project was particularly local but rooted very genuinely in the global, because the two can no longer be considered in isolation. The references we draw are innately worldly, and the obsession with the fake illusion of truth rather than the genuine truth, is resonating the world over.
It is hard to draw parallels to any other project because here I did not speak about a materialisation but rather of a logic that can inform ‘an architecture’. However there is great depth in the supermarche’ that Karl Lagerfeld created for the A/W ready-to-wear Chanel collection. There was far more to this than an artificial staging ‘for the effect.’ Lagerfeld is not after an effect but rather played very brilliantly on the mood of the moment, one dominated by commerciality and safeness. The anesthetized illusiveness of the supermarket offers us solace; here we feel refreshed, we are in power, we are buying. Lagerfeld was a genius at that year’s Paris Fashion Week because this was a statement that clearly echoed the realities of the times he was designing in. In the same way that designers drag their shopping cart through the history of fashion and shop around for references they can mimic, copy paste and reinvent, so do we cart around our most prized possession (our spending power) in the supermarket that has become contemporary reality, and purchase. It might be overwhelming once we first make it into that much excess and repetition, but over time it becomes comfortable you know which aisles your toilet paper and tinned peas are in and you pick and choose. This was playing on the same idea: Chanel has evolved and the fashion house has all that they want on offer for us to pick and choose from. Rather than rejecting the reality that consumerism and convenience and commerciality have taken over us, Lagerfeld embraces it. He understands that in the excess and the amplification of these notions, we are able to question the realities we are in, and in the hypernormalisation of such realities, we find the tools to move forward.
Models are consumers strolling across a catwalk, whilst fashion editors take photos with rows of ‘Gabrielle’-branded items, in a nod to the fashion house’s founder. The extravaganza was Warholian in proportions and created an ‘experience’. This is what interests me. Rather than remaining static, and there for the investigation of the audience, they played the role we take to daily, and the audience became people-watchers understanding the actions they undertake without realising, whilst the clothes “created within the tough remit of incorporating the house codes such as the tweed suit and large pearls – felt relevant and urgent”. 1 This was Lagerfeld’s most democratic show in that even the stiletto did not feature. The trainer was glorified as that which offers what we most seek: convenience. This particular notion is very strong in my study. Items were priced at 30 or 40% more rather than less, exposing how this was where the high and the low came to meet. Vogue’s Tim Blanks discussed how “As a piece of conceptual art, as a critique of pop culture, as a fashion show, it offered the juicy meat of an academic thesis.” 2 This is where I found particular relevance because the subject being discussed is so diverse and yet so very contextual and relevant. Similarly architecture and fashion can be used as devices for investigation into the deeper meaning behind the behavior that is defining us. What was great about this moment in fashion’s history was that this brought about an understanding of the mundane. High fashion is usually a trip to somewhere fantastical, it is the stuff of dreams in a world of gloom. A fashion show such as this is usually so far removed from the reality of things that no one even tries to question its theatricality. This, on the other hand is overbearingly real, and it is in the amplification of the real that Lagerfeld manages to convey the illusiveness of our actions. This was brilliant, and fashion has had moments like this where concepts where used to disseminate the identity crises that had taken over this, and every other art form. Understanding the brilliance of Jeremy Scott, for instance, correlates to understanding the power of fashion today in relation to the immense abundance of information we are consuming daily and the effect this is having on us. These processes all work to get people talking and discussing contemporary reality, and similarly ‘A Public Convenience’ spoke of a notion that is rooted in self-discovery.
A particular notion that echoed the need there contemporarily is to reevaluate the roles we play and rediscover our behaviour, comes from the New York Times’ Suzy Menkes who says: “When even Kate Middleton, the future Queen of England, is seen pushing her trolley around a supermarket, why not ask the same of Ms. Delevingne, model and crown princess of fashion eyebrows?“ 3 This comparison echoes what I read in two of the pieces of literature considered for this unit, namely ‘Consumption’ and ‘Art in (and of) Architecture: Autonomy and Medium’. What I interpreted from this literature was an investigation of the notion of aesthetics and the realities of consumption as a trait that defines who we are today and what we are producing or how we are behaving. In outlining Rem Koolhaas’ PRADA epicenter, Ana Miljacki defines a point at which architecture bridged a gap and played a role unlike it did before. The PRADA store merges the street with the high-end store. In commercializing and making abundantly available PRADA goods the whole idea of luxury is being rethought. From taking the inaccessibly and expensive to merging the definition of public accessibility (the street) and a luxury brand store, this was a practical experiment questioning the role that consumption, convenience, consumerism and commerciality play as influencers of society today. This chapter speaks of how different the aims of the PRADA store and the supermarket and ‘its younger cousin the hypermarket’ truly are. This is interesting because it talks of an architecture that sought to question its role in society. In understanding the multiplicity and repetition in the supermarket the general scale of things is changing, and this further reinforces the idea of an architecture that is constantly evaluating the relevance it has within the society it is in. Here, the links to Lagerfeld in Paris and my own study for Qawra are reinforced.
Personally the strongest notion of my own project was the mention of truth as an element of blurred significance within contemporary contexts. This, because of the abundance of information that is made available, almost the same bombardment we come across when walking through the aisles of the heavily stacked shelves at the supermarket. This excess of information that corporations or powerful establishments want us to believe, clothe the realities that used to be considered undeniable truths, and this has shifted the dynamic we live in completely. Reflections of this have taken shape in consumer norms, political debates, social interactions and spatial negotiation. In considering this shift, architecture also needs to understand the shift it needs to make. This debate on the identity of things and the purpose that they serve within the society they are designed for is further explored within Bart Verschaffel’s text, which reinforced my analysis explained in the first project as truly being a part of the job that is required of the architect. In putting thoughts together, in condensing my observations, in understanding contemporary realities and in contextualizing the dynamics that I must work in, I am being in architect. This text deals with the argument of architecture lying somewhere in between art and engineering, and this brings to the surface the flawed concept that we as humans have to label everything we come across. The work I described in the first is architecture because it is inquisitive yet structured; it plays on spatial distribution but understands social absurdity.
“If modernism was underwritten by the idea that progress and the arrow of time would eventually deliver things to perfection, or to a perfectly rational and organized world, today we can no longer confidently tap into the authority and certainty of that project.”
This particular statement I found very bold because of the way it exposes the progression of thought over time. The emergence of ‘non-modern’ after the development of modern and post-modern shows how the development of thought and as a result of it, design, is intrinsically tied to the social, technological and political progression of the context it is derived within.
I particularly like the comparison drawn to politicians, in that architects need ‘know everything’ and play a very social role. This is explained as an exaggeration of course, but the exposure to all diverse spheres of interest is what will constitute an architecture that is pro-active, that understands and that feeds off our humanity for further progress. It is the architecture or fashion that breaks down human behavior and studies it, that really contributes to the greater development of things. For this reason I believe the architect plays an important role in the progression of societies and the passing of time. The role that Koolhaas played when he made PRADA a street, or when Lagerfeld made a supermarket high fashion, or when Scott made Looney Tunes couture, is essential for it is rooted in selfdiscovery and inspired by a desire to understand more clearly the role things have to play. This text also deals with beauty and the notion of truth, which is of particular relevance to my project. Understanding the role that aesthetics play to expose realities of a community is vital within such a field of critical theory. John Keats wrote, “Beauty is truth and truth, beauty” and I feel it is particularly relevant to the whole argument that I am presenting. Keats here understood the persistence of time and the notion of permanence, where true beauty is found in an object’s ability to stand the test of time. In acknowledging that nothing is immortal, therefore implied that the only thing that is beautiful, is the truth. The notion of beauty, immortality, permanence and truth has been long disputed in the history of art, architecture and literature so I seek not to dwell too much on this point. However one needs to understand that the post-truth era we live in, the merging of high and low aesthetic, and the faithfulness to convenience, are all the result of an argument that has been disputed for a long time and that for a long time will remain disputed.
Of particular relevance to this study is the iterative approach with which social activities like architecture need to be understood. I find that the theory that has been studied helps ground the observations that I documented in ‘A Public Convenience’.
The pursuit of immortality is indeed immortal; in that it is powered by an intrinsic undying drive within us which ironically, is fuelled by the unwelcome reality of our own inability to ‘not die.’
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/paris-fashion-week-is-karl-lagerfeld-off-histrolley-audience-strips-shelves-after-chanel-show-9169290.html https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2014/mar/04/supermarket-karl-lagerfeldchanel-collection-paris 1
2
http://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2014-ready-to-wear/chanel
3
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/fashion/chanels-supermarket-chic.html?_r=0