B 55/02
Colofon Bnieuws Volume 55 Issue 02 December 2021 Contact Room BG.Midden.140 Julianalaan 134 2628 BL Delft bnieuws-bk@tudelft.nl
CONTENTS 04
Louder than Words
07
A Reflection on the Materialistic You
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Cheap Queens and Real Queens
10
Astral Conversations
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Cheap Labour...?
15
Bootleg Paradise
19
Cheap Absurdity
Cover Editorial Team
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Cheap or Priceless?
Printed by Druk. Tan Heck
22
F*ck Black Friday
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The Richness In Living Cheaply
27
High and Low
31
Artefact: Lost & Found
32
BKINO Poster: The Day of the Wacko
Editorial Team Inez Margaux Spaargaren Robert van Overveld Oliwia Jackowska Jonas Althuis Alessandro Rognoni Tuyen Le Contributors Vineet Dhall Minh Anh Nguyen Carmel Verhaeghe Daniel James Keeffe Ksenija Onufrijeva
© All rights reserved. Although all content is treated with great care, errors may occur.
Bnieuws.nl
Editorial
CHEAP Have you ever started a conversation with friends bragging about how little you spent on your new bike, or how good was that Chocomel discount at Aldi, or how cheap was Prague when you were there to visit your friend? Maybe not, but probably yes. University students simply love advertising a cheap lifestyle, it is inherent to their behaviour, and to their social skills. It is also true that so much of the world strikes us with the possibility of spending less, enticing people with their low-cost strategy, sales and super crazy deals. Fast-fashion, German supermarket chains, Ryanair, shiny gyms with annual discount plans, and Bouwpub beer; our life is a hunt for the most affordable things. Some cheap buildings, as well, have their own fashion. Who doesn’t like a facade of corrugated steel, or a fully-plywood interior. Very trendy indeed. However, cheapness doesn’t just relate to money or finance. Whether a cheap shot, a cheap person or a cheap thrill, it is a term that connects to wider images, of things of lower nature, of everything-tacky or, sometimes, of coolness and nonchalance. In truth, we are attracted by cheapness in all its forms and weirdness, and we sometimes fancy escaping its negative connotations. In this edition, we attempt to draw these connections by bringing you stories from the realm of the very cheap (and the very expensive). We offer you anecdotes about Delhi markets (pg. 4) and bootlegged items (pg. 15), stories of high and low fashion (pg. 27) and low-budget films (pg. 19), reportage on barely-paid internships (pg. 11), the world of drag queens (pg. 8) and much more! So, while you deal with your Christmas presents’ headache, we encourage you to lose yourself in this cheaply printed edition. Forget about money or style, sit back and enjoy!
#Bnieuwd
To do / Berlage Keynote: Architectural Inventions, Urban Restructuring by Kayoko Ota This lecture of Kayoko Ota will present the changing attitudes and values of a younger generation of architects in Japan in relation to the country's current social and environmental conditions. Through few exemplary works, she will discuss how these architects are expanding an architectural repertoire through urban restructuring. Kayoko Ota is an architectural curator and editor based in Tokyo. 13.01.22, 18:30 till 20:00 at the Faculty of Architecture - Berlage
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To do / MVRDVHNI: The Living Archive of a Studio This exhibition explores the archive of architecture office MVRDV. Het Nieuwe Instituut displays the MVRDV archive as a living entity in an office context, rather than in a museum gallery context. As a working environment, after all, the office is the place where ideas and projects move fluidly back and forth between present, past and future. 06.11.2021 – 04.09.2022 Opening hours: Tuesday — Sunday 10.00 — 17.00 Het Nieuwe Instituut, Museumpark 25, Rotterdam
To read / NEUE NATIONALGALERIE: THE MUSEUM OF MIES VAN DER ROHE A book published about The Neue Nationalgalerie, which was erected in 1965–68, is the only building by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in Germany from after the Second World War. With its steel roof over the glass-walled exhibition hall and its reduced design vocabulary, it is regarded as an icon of modernism and as the legacy of a visionary master builder. Following the restauration by David Chipperfield Architects Berlin. Editors: Joachim Jäger and Constanze von Marlin Publisher: Deutscher Kunstverlag (DKV), Munich Publication year: 2021 ISBN: 9783422986510 (English)
#Bnieuwd To watch / Metropolis (1927) Metropolis is a silent science-fiction film from the 1920s directed by director Fritz Lang, where a story of robots and class war takes place in a sinister city of skyscrapers. Art directors Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut and Karl Vollbrecht created a visually arresting city for rich buisenessmen, powered by underground machines manned by oppressed workers. Buildings in art deco, gothic and the Bauhaus style are layered to create an arresting vision of the future. Metropolis is available to watch on Youtube and Google Play
To do / The International VELUX Award 2022 Every second year the VELUX Group invites the students of architecture to participate in the International VELUX Award competition on the theme “Light of Tomorrow”. The 2022 competition will be 10th edition, which so far has received thousands of exciting daylight projects from more than 5000 students of architecture around the world. Organizers: VELUX Registration Deadline: 01.05.2022, 11:30 PM Submission Deadline: 15.06.2022, 11:30 PM
To listen / The Open City podcast Launched in a London on lockdown, the cerebral Open City podcast puts the city's past, present and future under the spotlight. A rotating cast of hosts from the Open City team take on topics like transport, public art and the politicisation of architecture, as well as diving into upcoming urban projects with experts in tow. A discussion on the housing crisis with former Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad is a particular highlight. Listen on Spotify or open-city.org.uk/podcast
Latest / BNIEUWS.NL Don't forget to check out our website. You'll find all the old issues in the archive, for hours and hours reading pleasure! And follow us on INSTAGRAM for updates :) @bnieuws on Instagram / bnieuws.nl
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Pen Pal
LOUDER THAN WORDS Words and Images Vineet Dhall
Do our body parts come at a price? Well, let's negotiate. Negotiation and bargaining is an art form. Every art form has its distinct mediums and tools. Alternatively, can these tools be our body parts? This article highlights a bargaining form existing in the fruit market of Delhi, India, where a distinct non-verbal style of negotiating the price, commonly known as the Azadpuri style, takes shape.
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Human hands can paint Sistine Chapel, pluck a bass guitar, manoeuvre surgical instruments, forge metal, type this essay, pull out the Excalibur, or strike the pose of the thinker. They can grasp, hold, poke, give you the middle finger, evaluate, mould and hold the world around us. They are extremely expressive assets, can sign for the deaf, read for the blind, help to tell a story, or reveal our innermost thoughts. No other species has appendages with such remarkable capabilities. It is an involuntary non-verbal communication and an important sponge for cues in what we call 'the body language'. Handshakes can be our first form of dog butt-sniffing (getting an essence of things); it may seem trivial but can leave a lasting negative impression if you get it wrong. Get it right, and you can score some good brownie points. But this synchrony is perceived differently all across the globe. During the current pandemic, it also mutated into an elbow shake. But much before the current pandemonium, stories from 2003 reported that the US troops in Iraq were greeted or acknowledged by the locals with a 'thumbs up'. Was this an act of disrespect, or simply the middle eastern way of offering westerners support? HOWEVER, the US defence institute reported that the middle east has widespread western influence, and, after the Gulf War, this was their way to show support. But the gestures are not really universal throughout. Even in the West, the use of the thumbs up is not universal. Scuba divers use it to say that 'I'm going up'. But our gestures and their adaptations are complex. Some attribute it to decisions on life and death in gladiatorial battles. Nevertheless, It seems that the use of the thumb has survived more than spoken languages. From life and death to 'everything is okay', we can see how meaning might not survive over time. Toby Maguire also demonstrated how hand gestures and the right combination could lead to web-slinging from hands. Keeping that aside, a handshake is a prominent form of agreement. 'It's a deal', a contract, a decision of sorts. In the deep forests of concrete labyrinths of Delhi, one can
The hand gesture for 0 or Deal.
The hand gesture for 1.
The hand gesture for 2.
The hand gesture for 3.
The hand gesture for 4.
The hand gesture for 5.
find the Azadpur mandi. This is an area that I used to associate with Super Mario as a kid; you never know when you might have to jump. But it's the money earning plate for my family, and I wish to unveil to you the hyper complexities of the place. It's an interesting organism: a chaos of words, calls, smells and a system that exists with a million overlapping layers. The term overwhelming barely touches the surface of what we may consider as first impressions. In principle, the Azadpur mandi is where the fruit supply from primary suppliers of half a nation comes to be resold to the 'Jumbo's and Albert Heijn's of India, including the low scaled mobile local resellers. You can hear the medley of 'laat, maal, khareeddar' echoing through the metal warehouses while one is entangled with trucks and carts. The place is where the wholesaler and the reseller meet in a harmonic chaos that just somehow works. One of these complexities is the price negotiation aspect. People constantly talk, shout, bid, and shake on prices deduced through rather impressive ways. Before I get into details, I just would like to mention the cloak of invisibility that hides this agreement. Got your attention? Good, now let's shed some light on it. Bargaining is a common theme for many open marketplaces in India. Words such as 'the best price for you..' echo through the streets. Although, the Azadpur mandi is not for the weak bargainers. It presents warriors at their peaks of business intellect, constantly spiking the graphs of prices. The system works on simple supply chains. The wholesaler or the seller acquires fruits in large quantities from all across the country to then sell to further resellers or customers at a negotiated price, depending upon the weather, quality of fruits and the bulk of quantity. This seasonal business has multiple negotiations, including verbal bidding and the closing handshake. As exciting as verbal bidding might be, I'll stick to the handshake with the cloak of invisibility. Part of the business intellect is to understand the kind of buyer they are dealing with. The body language, the quantity he wishes to buy, and the quintessential handshake give both parties a read for the bargaining process to begin. This
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process in itself is an engaging one, where both parties resolve to a handshake that is hidden under the formerly mentioned cloak of invisibility, commonly known as a handkerchief. The prices for the resellers are usually tailor-made for each individual, and the market's competitive nature thus fits with a certain sense of secrecy and deception. These market prices are decided by a language of hands, a play of fingers under the cloak where a final decision is made. This language can basically be deciphered by which fingers are clutched in a particular order. It's a clutching dialogue between fingers where the price is detested. The dialect of this language is purely based on digits, and depending on the price range, varies upon the placement. For instance, a price of 450 would be discussed by suggesting each digit through signs or clutching gestures, starting from 1000th, to 100th, to 10th, and so on. In the case of 450, the party suggesting the price would clutch 4 fingers to indicate the digit 4, followed by clutching the thumb for digit 5 and a full handshake for 0. Following figures suggest the gesture and the digits associated with them. To make it even more complicated, there is the element of speed. What to do when you want a digit between 6 and 9? This is when the mini addition game of lower digits comes up. So, in the case numeric 7 has to be conveyed, you can play around with fast gestures of 4 & 3, and the seller can decode through the Morse code of gaps.
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In essence, the wholesaler dictates their desired price, and the bargaining with the clutching dialogue begins. The framework of this setup is purely based on bias, a business bias, of course. Depending upon the relationship, buying capacity, the buyer's loyalty, the current quality of supply, and intellect, each individual market price is determined through negotiations under the cloak. This individual touch to this intrinsic network gave birth to these negotiating powers and dialects. Amongst many complexities that we should uncover later, this hidden mute decision of prices is one unique being. It exists as a common agreement on decisions and seems to work fairly well in an independent price system. The life of this dialect is currently being tested. Due to the pandemic, physical contact is losing its edge, and we are yet to see how resilient this language might be. We shall see if the current system withstands the strings of time or gives birth to a new system able to engage us in new methods of negotiations.
Vineet is a student doing his Masters degree in the architecture track at our faculty. He's originally from New Delhi, India.
From the editors
A REFLECTION ON THE MATERIALISTIC YOU Words Robert van Overveld
The "greenest" material is the material that was not used, and the cheapest Black Friday deal out there was the deal that was not bought. It's surprisingly hard not to do or buy something as humans who happen to live in a materialistic and growthoriented society. Since self-development seems to strongly relate to the things we own or participate in, we constantly fall into the trap of the marketing machine. Where, in the end, we become a salesman to ourselves; "This would actually help me improve my health", or "the new version does have features that I miss in the current version". The result? We buy.
First things first, why is this important? Although buying less definitely saves money, which attributes to today's topic "cheap", it is much more. I would mainly like to address the personal, therefore, cultural implications. Let's start with a question; do you think your happiness depends on buying things? Probably not? Do you think you would be able to not buy anything for a year, besides the absolute essentials; food, shelter and perhaps things like toothpaste? Not buying anything anymore is a bit extreme; not all things bought are bad or unnecessary after all. Alain de Botton makes an interesting point by saying that material things are transubstantiations of things we believe in, in other words, symbols of what we are trying to become, think to be or believe in.1 This implies that much time and money is devoted to religion in some cultures. In other cultures, this is spent on clothing, for example. By wearing certain kinds of clothing, we change the way we see ourselves, how we think other people see us, and how other people see us. Therefore, all the things we possess or do not possess are attributing to our identity. This implies that the things we own can be of great value for understanding ourselves and reminding us of things we find important.
For example, the plant that you bought for your living room becomes a symbol of your love for the world around you. Trouble arises when your identity becomes too interwoven with your possessions, and buying becomes a distraction from who you are as a person. Being materialistic isn't good or bad per se, but whether something contributes to who you are should be part of your decision making. Not restricting yourself in that way can definitely lead to unhappiness. So, what are you planning to buy at this moment? Will you get closer to yourself by buying it? If it does, is it also possible to buy it second-hand, reducing costs and waste? If not, doesn't it feel like a victory? We all know the forces of the marketing machine are strong… A machine made by people who try to get rich by tempting other people to buy stuff, only to buy things for themselves that will probably not make them happier. It's quite ironic. At some point, I made a list called "things that I want to buy as an impulsive person". I wrote down everything that I thought I really needed. The result was a wish list of products that I would seldom buy in the end. It helped me greatly to stop buying things. Please, feel free to try it out as well.
1. The School of life (2017, Jan 25). Are we too materialistic? [Video]. YouTube. URL: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=24L7r7SoK_Y&t=125s
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Pen Pal
CHEAP QUEENS AND REAL QUEENS Words and Images Minh Anh Nguyen
“I’m a cheap queen, I can be what you like” – King Princess (“Cheap Queen,” 2019). “Cheap queen” is a term that refers to a “queen” in drag who is resourceful, who can make something out of not very much.
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Amanda makes a grand entrance and audience member, Abi Ewen, expresses a pleasantly impressed look. (Jacque's Cabaret, Boston, MA)
Whether you’re a drag performer or a college student putting on an outfit to go out to a bar on a low budget – nobody wants to be called “cheap.” “It means you look tacky, like a cheap prostitute,” as one outdated answer from an online user on mumsnet.com in 2011 defined it. In popular culture, the consensus is that looking “cheap” is synonymous with having bad taste. But in recent years, we’ve moved towards an era of post-ironic aesthetics – which I would define as “looking cheap, but with intention.” Consider this: a woman in Vietnam wears a t-shirt that says “Supromo,” a near-missed spelling of the brand Supreme; a traveller captures an image of it as she drives past on her motorbike and puts it online; people love it. Awareness sets the distinction between “trendy” and “tacky.” Like most post-ironic fashion trends, it is considered ground-breaking when executed by people with means and “cheap” when executed by people who can’t afford effortless classiness. In drag, the idea of “realness” has reigned supreme. The term derives from the ballroom scene at its height in New York in the 1960s. It is a space where queer people of colour
express themselves and find community. It is a source of radical freedom from the oppression of mainstream society – an area where people get to be whoever they want to be and believe that it’s possible. If you were walking a category at these balls, you needed to be “real” or “believable” to get high scores. But for all its creativity and freedom, realness is also a complicated category because it upholds heteronormative standards. If the goal is to look believable as a cis-gender straight person, two sources of privilege may help afford this: the ability to be “passing,” not to be questioned of your gender expression – and wealth. Wealth in this sense means richness in resources, experience, and cultural capital.
Amanda puts on her wig as Crystal prepares to get dressed. (Jacque's Cabaret, Boston, MA)
The ballroom scene centres on defying social norms, but it can also get tricky to consider how internal policing of a safe space can be detrimental. “Art from
drag queens born into wealth doesn’t hit at all. Honestly, any art from rich people is gross. Your expression means nothing, and I don’t want to see any of it,” said Miss Pangaea Kitty in a tweet. While I can’t fully resonate with this message because all art should be valid, regardless of background, it touches on a meaningful sentiment that is at the core of drag culture. To some, art is not just a passion but also a means of survival. When art is a necessary form of expression that helps a person reconcile with their identity, they will pursue it at whatever cost. In 2019, Mikaela Straus, known by her stage name King Princess, released an album that included “Cheap Queen.” In the song, she talks about “doing the same shit [she’s] always liked.” In an interview with BAZAAR.com, she said: “When I do makeup, it’s performative. I don’t wear makeup, but I use it as a tool to talk about gender and sexuality.” How “successful” one’s expression is seems difficult to measure – especially on the spectrum of “cheap” or “real.” While drag’s primary purpose has been for performance, competition, or entertainment, it is also a source of celebration and pride. I think it’s time we put the power back into being “cheap.” Ask ourselves: what does it mean to be cheap when the word “cheap” in the context of a “cheap queen” is only synonymous with “resourceful”?
Minh Anh is an undergraduate student studying photojournalism at Boston University in the USA.
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Astral Conversations, by Carmel Verhaeghe I was walking around the Earth last night and I saw the Moon talking to the Sun. "Something's wrong with Earth," Moon said. "It’s those humans I told you about," Sun replied. I sat down underneath Moon and Stars and I listened to the astral conversation before me. "How can we save Earth from humans?" Moon asked. "I’m afraid we can’t, darling," Sun answered. I was invested in this dialogue, of which I was not a part and I started thinking about the meaning of their words. "Why?" Moon asked. "Because humans only care about themselves and money," Sun said. I was sad to hear they thought so little of us and still, I couldn’t find the words nor reasons to disagree. "No, they must realize how precious Earth is, right?" Moon said in disbelief. "Well, what have they ever done to show they care?" Sun replied. I was about to interfere their dialogue, but I decided not to speak of things I don’t understand. "All I know is that Earth needs help," Moon said. "But human money is only a cheap remedy," Sun answered.
"So what? They’re just going to let Earth die," Moon said in frustration. "All I know is there isn’t a lot of time," Sun confessed at last. I was repeating these words ‘cheap remedy’ in my mind over and over until I realized they were right.
ASTRAL CONVERSATIONS
We can’t buy something that’s priceless like Earth with cheap money, we can only counter Earth’s priceless life with human willingness to change our own.
BK Report
CHEAP LABOUR...? Words Jonas Althuis
The infamous internship, you've heard the horror stories: a gruelling period of hard work for little to no pay. Tireless hours spent on minute details in Revit models, endless sun-studies and Lumion renders that few people will ever see. The implicit expectation to stay at the office late, working unpaid overtime. Work that you spent hours on, disregarded by your supervising architect, who has already changed their mind but not yet informed you. Perhaps not the exciting and inspiring reality of architectural design you hoped it would be. But those are just horror stories right? Just the exception? One bad experience among a plethora of good ones? Right?
"At the time, I thought it was a fair amount", a fellow student tells me, reflecting on an internship they did three years ago, "it was my first time getting a salary, so any amount of money was exciting. Looking back on it now, I would really find it too little." A different student tells me how frustrating it is not getting paid at her current internship, "my enthusiasm decreases by the day", she says. I know she's joking, but I also know there must be some truth to what she tells me. These and many more messages like it are what I received when I asked a number of my peers, all students at our faculty, for their thoughts and feelings about the internships they have done. Despite internships being a nearly integral part of our current education, it seems we haven't reached common ground on what they should really be. For all the potential an internship has on paper, it seems my fellow students are often disappointed and disillusioned by the reality. Numbers In the vein of 'Cheap', the central question I asked was: 'how much did you get paid per month at your internship?' The follow up question: 'did you find this a fair payment for the work you did?' Across 61
different internships done in seven different European countries by 46 students, the average pay, adjusted for number of hours worked per week, was €477 per month. Of these 61, five internships were completely unpaid, though for one of these travel expenses were compensated. Of course, cost of living varies per country. In the Netherlands, where 51 of these 61 internships were done, the average salary was €498 per month. Rounding this up, I think it's fair to say that a large portion of internships that students at our faculty do pay €500 per month for a 40 hour week. To put that into perspective, in the Netherlands, the minimum wage is calculated based on your age; at the age of 21 or older, minimum wage is €9,82 per hour. Assuming you work a full-time, 40 hour per week position, this means you would earn approximately €1700 a month before taxes. If you're over 21, €500 per month is 29,4% of the minimum wage, less than one-third. Say you work an average of 21 days per month rounded down, which is the case for everyone that works a standard 40 hour week, that means you theoretically work 168 hours per month. That comes down to €2,98 per hour, a
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measly sum of money no matter what type of work you are doing. And then, €2,98 per hour doesn't take into account the reason I say 'theoretically'; many students told me that they were expected to stay beyond regular hours, especially when deadlines were nearing. Were they compensated for this overtime? Of course not. If you're lucky, the office might compensate you for your travel costs or provide you with a nice lunch every day. This is a bonus, but not necessarily the norm. It's clear that you don't do an internship for the money. I don’t think that was the idea of doing an internship in the first place, a sentiment many of my fellow students probably share. Despite this, many problems arise from the way we currently do internships.
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"I found 200 Euros a month very little for the work they had me do. They didn't give me any challenges, I pretty much just made plans and [3D] models, the chores that they didn't have time to do." Concerns For starters, it's easy for architectural offices1 to abuse an intern. Students looking for an internship are in a vulnerable and impressionable position, especially if it's the first one they're doing. If it's your first time working a 'real' job, you don't know what to expect and you don't know what's normal. You may not recognize when you're being mistreated and you don't have a voice to speak up with if you are. You probably don't know what your skills and time are worth, and you have no bargaining chips when you're setting up a contract; you don't have the power to negotiate your pay because if the office doesn't like what you say, they will just go to the next person in line. In other words, you can't really fight for your rights, and no one else is going to do it for you. As a student, internships are something you constantly hear your peers talking about; "wow, they
got an internship at this office, they got an internship at that office." There's a certain excitement surrounding it, a need to prove that you too have what it takes to do 'real' work. Soon enough, you're suffering from FOMO, afraid you will miss out on an opportunity that could make or break your future. So you take what you can get, even if that means doing work you didn't want to do, for an amount of money you don't think is fair. Yes, there are great offices that offer great internships focused on learning, personal development, making connections, building your skills not only as an architect but also as a functioning team player. To these offices I say, keep doing what you are doing, this is the kind of internship that architecture students want to do, and are probably happy to do for €500 a month. But I've heard from too many fellow students that all they did during their internship was make Revit models to believe that the majority of architectural offices operate this way. That should not be the job of a student intern, that's the job of a BIM-modeller, a position that usually pays many times more than €500 a month. Food for thought?
"At the time I found it fair, because I compared it to what other students were getting paid and they were getting a similar amount. If you calculate it though, it was something like €2 per hour." Little pay for hard work perpetuates the norm that architecture students must struggle for their craft. A norm that does enough damage to mental health as it stands does not need to be made worse by architectural offices that expect interns to work long hours outside of their contractual obligations. Working architects, ask yourself this: even if you yourself had to struggle hard to make it to where you are today (perhaps your boss had to struggle hard before that, and their boss before that), is this what
you want to pass on to the next generation? If you ask me; the late nights, the stress, the unhealthy habits, the pressure to perform, the non-constructive feedback, the ego, these are things we should leave behind. Call me a snowflake, but I don't want to have a burnout by the time I'm 30. Don't make an intern you're already paying very little work more hours than contractually obligated, deadline or no deadline. Because they won't say no, they don't think they're in a position to be able to.
"The first place I worked at, I usually had to work 1-2 extra hours per day. The second place was worse, 2-4 extra hours per day." So, how do you afford to live on €500 per month? Well, there's a few options; spend the savings you've been building up for years. Or, be fortunate enough to have parents that support you financially and can pay for a large part of your living costs while you do this internship. Alternatively, work a separate job on the weekends that pays a living wage. This means working 6 or 7 full days per week, certainly not a healthy thing to do, neither physically nor mentally. Another option; borrow the money from the government via a student loan. If you want a student loan, you need to be registered as a student, so you have to pay tuition, about €1000 per semester (also the typical time frame of an internship). That's already a ridiculous paradox; you can't afford to do an internship so you need to have a loan of which a portion has to go to paying tuition to an institution you're not attending so that you're eligible to even get this loan in the first place. An added benefit if you're Dutch: you can now travel for free on public transport, another thing that the office where you intern can abuse and deduct from your already measly salary. Say that your living costs are €1000 per month; rent, food, purchases, everything included. The office you intern at pays you €500, half of your
monthly living costs. Your parents can't financially support you, so you have a student loan to cover the rest of the costs, another €500 per month, from which the €167 per month for tuition has already been subtracted. What this factually means is that you literally need to go into debt, about €4000 over a six month period, to be able to do an internship. Now, if you see the internship as another part of your studies, you may be fine with this. If you ask me though, this is an abominable injustice; if this is your situation, you're not getting paid €500 per month by the office you are interning at, you are paying to be able to work there in the form of debt, debt that you have to pay back once you finish studying. You are generating revenue for the office while you yourself are going into debt. By now I hope you're thinking, "this is terrible". Well, to make it worse, companies that offer internship positions can request a subsidy of up to €2700 per year per position from the Dutch government.2 If that's not the most backwards part of the whole situation then it's probably the fact that you're expected to have done of these internships if you want a decent job after your studies that would enable you to pay back this debt. Is doing an internship a privilege only reserved for students with caring parents that support them financially? It kind of seems like it…
"I really had to fight for the travel cost compensation, because they just wanted me to use my free travel product as a student." Solutions? In their current form, it starts to look a lot as if internships are a means for architectural offices to abuse students to their own benefit under the guises of 'education' and 'experience'. This needs to change. Architectural offices, I implore you to consider what kind of internship you are offering
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students. If you give your interns only the monotonous tasks that your regular architects don't want to do; building 3D models, doing sun studies, making Lumion renders and the like, if you expect them to work extra hours with no compensation, if you're too cheap to provide them with lunch and pay for their travel costs, and if you're not going to give them the chance to share their thoughts and do some designing of their own so that they can learn something, then perhaps it's better that you don't offer any internship positions at all.
"I did find the payment fair at the time, I think especially because I was getting more than all my friends. But also I had no idea how much a normal salary was. That was never something discussed until I became good enough friends with working colleagues to talk about it." 14
As important as internships have become for our education, I think some responsibility from the faculty starts to come into play as well. Having done the Bachelor at our faculty myself, I think more could be done to prepare students for doing internships, and by extension preparing them for working in the field at a later stage. Practical lessons about how to negotiate a contract and what to expect at your first internship could be a start. A support system for students that are struggling during their internships, perhaps in the form of someone that can guide them through difficult situations could also help. This does exist for Bachelor students doing an internship during the
Minor semester, but could be expanded to offer support for students doing internships between their Bachelor and Master, or during their Master. Additionally, a fund or grant for students that can’t afford to do an internship could help to level the playing field and equalize the opportunities we all have. Finally, to my fellow students, know what your time and skills are worth. Do your research, and go into an internship with realistic expectations. Be reasonable, work hard to get the most out of it, but don't let them mistreat you.
To any architectural offices reading this, the student perspective on this topic that I've shared here is important, but only half of the story. I invite you to respond to this article and share with us the other half. The quotes throughout this article come from the conversations I had with fellow students about their experiences, who I want to thank for their insights and motivating comments. Notes 1. For the sake of brevity, I mention only "architectural offices" throughout this article. In doing so, I do of course mean the offices of all the different directions we have at our faculty. 2. This subsidy works via the 'practice-based learning' program, called the 'subsidieregeling praktijkleren' in Dutch. More info at: https://english.rvo.nl/subsidiesprogrammes/practice-based-learning
From the editors
BOOTLEG PARADISE Words Tuyen Le
The good, the bad, and the bootleg. What does it mean to own a bootlegged item? I am inviting you to dive into the alternative world of goods, spanning across the globe. This is the underbelly of our consuming culture that we are not dare enough to be proud of.
Bootleg as Illicit Alcohol The term rose to popularity during the Prohibition Era in the United States (year 1920). The 18th Amendment imposed a federal prohibition on sales, consumptions, and distributions of alcohol (hence the Prohibition Era). Bootlegging was an act of concealing flasks of illicit liquor in boot tops, an act that was deemed to be criminal during this period. People could not resist the thrilling taste of liquor, so the demand for it reached an all-time high. More than just a simple cover-up, the term bootlegging entered its reigning period as a secret operation to distribute alcohol, make moonshines, open speakeasies, and smuggle foreign liquor into the States. As ridiculous as it sounds, the federal law was short lived due to its poor reinforcement and the rise of bootlegging operations. Eventually, the Prohibition ended in 1933, just 13 years after.
Bootleg as Unofficial Recordings As the music culture flourished, in the 1960s, bootleg re-entered the scene as informal audio or video recordings of the originals, usually unknown to the artists/record labels. In this era, bootlegging meant making and distributing these unauthorized recordings. Bootleg culture parted away from being illegal, and became the signifier for unofficial releases, studio out-takes, and demo recordings. For instance, if you found yourself at a Rolling Stones’ concert, you could decide to record the audio of the entire concert, and distribute the CD to fellow Rolling Stoners, wanting to relive the moment or not able to see them live. There you go, you just distributed some bootlegs. It is not authorized by the artists, but at the same time, it is still legal in a certain sense. A bootleg should not be confused with counterfeits or unlicensed releases, but rather, it is a category of its own . A counterfeit is an item that has directly copied an authentic piece and market itself as an original product, as a way of scamming the buyers, making profit off the high demand or the success that such item brings in. Whereas bootleg are objects that do not try to replace the original design, but rather claim to be an off-beat interpretation of them.
Bootlegging - Woman taking flask from her Russian boot. (1922)
Kum Back, The Beatle's first bootleg before the official release of Let It Be. (1969)
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Bootleg as Ignorant Bliss Today, bootlegging entered its current limbo state of existence, with many criticisms towards the operation’s authorship and legitimacy of bootlegged items. Bootleg culture persists through high demands of movies, shows, cartoons, and iconic landmarks in places where original owners haven’t yet reached their audience. Sometimes the local demand is not enough for the supplier to venture out and sell their works, so without the original owner’s acknowledgement, bootlegs slither their way into the unregulated trading markets. This must sound quite shady, however, fear not, it is more innocent than one would think. I did not even register my first bootleg item. For my 6th birthday, I received a Sailor Moon paper doll booklet, and it was one of the toys that truly jingle the artistic bells in me. The moment I realized that it’s a bootleg was when I saw that Sailor Moon on TV had blonde hair, whereas my paper doll Sailor Moon had green hair. As a kid, that moment of realization was devastating, some yelps and tears were involved, as I began thinking less of myself because I owned a bootleg, making me some kind of imposter. However, coming to terms with the diverse markets of demands for goods, entertainments, or simply comedic reliefs, I realized that bootlegs are everywhere, and how they are able to turn fantasy into reality. With people making their own variations of the original through referencing, the aesthetic choices of this artform are usually… questionable. There is always a touch of campiness and tackiness to the bootlegging attempt, with wrong colouring, different names, and completely different storylines. Within this context, bootlegs almost detach themselves from the original work, but still leave traces that resonate to consumers/buyers with its iconic original. In this category, bootlegs are carefree knockoffs. With that said, there are various version Bootleg Paradise around the world, from < toys to architecture wonders. Source: tumblr [bootlegheaven] and Architectural Digest.
of poorly-shaped Winnie the Pooh, Pink Batman, and the abundance work of bootleg brands such as “Bolencioga” “Adiads” and “Guccy.” As this creations roll into the hand of the markets at a much lower price, what is your conscious choice as a consumer? Another way of recognizing a bootleg is to look out for its notorious shamelessness. Bootlegs that are in this category own their proud title as parody, and they are willing to co-exist with their original. This created a sensational market for the masterminds of hijacking and alternating the original work. The mainstream US audience , who do not have the financial backing to see the real Eiffel Tower in Paris, can check out a bootleg version of it in Las Vegas, Florida, Paris of Tennessee, and Paris of Texas. The motif of this route is humorous and joyous, creating a hilarious spin on the original. Bootleg as Counterculture Bootleg is in the DNA of our endless consuming market, undercover, secretive, but now, it is time to shed more light onto its quirkiness attributes to the world. It brings in a counterculture to the existing capitalistic giants through their beautiful and tacky art of spin-off and remake. Bootleg continues to spark joy to those who cannot afford the real deal, those who cannot care less about the item’s authenticity, and those who want to proudly wear a “NEKE” shirt as a statement. There is room on the table for everyone, and the existence of off-beat design makes way for a revolutionary thinking about what is appropriate, what is proper, and what is good in the creating and designing.
Are you comfortable telling people that you own bootleg things? Where else can we find another bootleg version of the Eiffel Tower?
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From the editors
CHEAP ABSURDITY Words and Images Oliwia Jackowska
“You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!” is a quote which is nothing short of iconic. The delivery of the line and the senseless surrounding storyline of The Room makes for the absurdity of what is happening on-screen. The Room, Birdemic: Shock and Terror and virtually anything by Neil Breen are films that are just bad, yet something still draws us to watch and cherish the moments of these disastrous flops.
The enigmatic persona of Tommy Wiseau and the making of the worst movie ever made was attempted to be explored (and monetised on) in James Franco’s The Disaster Artist. This kind of elevation of failure to the status of art could be seen as pretentious, but it also tells us something about ourselves.
provides the viewers with honesty that is rare to find. Even though The Room has a very simple concept and the set, as suggested in the title, is a limited space itself, the shots are confusing, and the movements and dialogues abstract in the weirdest of ways.
We create relationships with the spaces of our home, office, school, shop or… rooftop and understand how we position ourselves within them. But when this relationship, both with space and reality in general is translated into a two-dimensional storyline by somebody who has not understood the art of filmmaking, something amazing happens. Everything is twisted, turned upside down, and most of all seems like an absurd fever-dream. But this absurdity in cheap understanding of space brings something more, it brings the simple honesty that we long for. The Room ‘s budget was Wiseau’s self-raised 6 million US dollars, which covered the set, actors, equipment and obviously the enormous number of takes, as the creator could not be satisfied with his own performance. The low budget does not mean that the film is doomed to be bad, considering that around the same time, the beloved Little Miss Sunshine was made for 8 million US dollars, and a legendary Brazilian masterpiece City of God was completed with only 3.3 million. Low budget is one thing, but the amateur way of translating space into a moving picture, presented two-dimensionally
Inevitably, these kinds of works are born from the lack of self-realisation and seeing oneself as a genius beyond the currently understood borders. The 2010 Birdemic, for instance, warns us about the effects of climate change and we could argue that these days, it is more relevant than ever. Neil Breen, the undignified master of green screen, tells us about the threats of government corruption, and provides us with unforgettable performances. As a result, the commerce, the iconic value and status that follow these films proves that they bring a certain prowess. Does it tell us something more about the cinema or the human understanding of space in general? Now, with the world becoming full of amateur filmmakers, new ways are emerging, and they are changing the way we think about spaces, images of it and our own presence within it. To enter other people’s heads and visions without the army of producers, set designers and consultants presents the vision as being pure and raw, straight from the conscience of the ‘genius’ mind. We all want to be like them. To do our thing against all odds.
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Pen Pal
CHEAP OR PRICELESS? Words and Images Ksenija Onufrijeva
Empty window holes watching greedily as you pass by. Paint on the façade, once bright and smooth, now burnt-out, embroidered with countless cracks. We all know those, and we wonder what secrets they are keeping behind the dusty doorknobs — the abandoned. The legacy of the second part of the 20th century that brought countless factories, warehouses, once-bustling industrial areas into silent pieces of oblivion. And so they stay. Empty.
Once I grew up, I realised, how many of these abandoned are all around our city. Riga used to be an important centre of production of all kinds of wares that would be massively exported, with whole neighbourhoods built around clusters of factories. Now, after a rapid de-industrialisation that took place in the 90s, all of these places, which currently officially account 11911, are mostly underused and deteriorating. And there probably are more. Not only in my country. 20
There is always an intrigue in the forbidden, hidden and closed. There is always a mystery in the untouched, forgotten and old. Such places attract, hypnotise, impress. They raise curiosity. They expand the regular borders of the city, offering new viewpoints and letting us think of alternative perspectives. In 2013, a group of enthusiasts established the bottom-up initiative Free Rīga to shout out for a change and let a new breath into the abandoned buildings around the capital. Free Rīga collaborates with other international projects such as Refill and URBACT2 that aim to detect and acknowledge the potential of the vacant urban sites and encourage their redevelopment all around Europe. The main strategy for doing this is temporary uses of abandoned sites, which are often offered for a very low or even no price to the young entrepreneurs, creative start-ups, and artists. Thus, becoming a priceless chance for both youngsters to develop themselves and the abandoned sites to get redeveloped. Recently, such temporary events were actively organised in the former industrial areas of Rīga, introducing unexpected way of using the old factories and port storage houses - as exhibition centres for contemporary art. The vast open spaces of the industrial structures perfectly accommodate various types of artworks – from tiny paintings to impressive
Exhibition Točka, Sarkandaugava, Rīga, 2020. Photo by Ksenija Onufrijeva.
Abandoned sites as (con)temporary art museums, collage by Ksenija Onufrijeva.
sculptural elaborations. They even allow young artists use the space itself to create interactive experiential exhibits by manipulating the light in the halls, blinding windows, flooding parts of the rooms with water or covering the whole halls’ surfaces with crumpled paper. A pile of smouldering ashes or theatrically arranged interior from the 80s may be part of the exhibition as well. The artists are free to express their ideas through all dimensions of the space, thus immersing the exhibition’s visitor into the performance-based storytelling and turning the observer into the protagonist. The historical context of the sites start a dialogue with the exposed artworks and allows visitors to jump back in time to reinforce the issues addressed by the exhibitions, such as the dissonance between generations and the changing post-socialist society. A factory, in the past symbolising a practicality and effectiveness that were of a huge importance in the public’s mentality, now is serving for an opposite purpose - culture. This combination of contextual and historical layers together with interactive approach open a new dimension for the art itself, bringing it closer to people and letting people experience art in a new, more personal way. The exhibitions hosted by the abandoned sites surprised me by how effectively space worked with the art, and how well the rough, dusty, brutal space of a factory or a warehouse could complement the storytelling. The exhibitions in Rīga turned out to bring great success and gain a lot of attention, especially among youngsters. The excellence of abandoned sites as art museums lies in their visitor attracting character and the few investments they require. Young artists can use cheap exhibition spaces, while abandoned sites gain a new image and a chance for a revival.
1. Figures from the Rīga Department of Property, from: https://grausti.riga.lv/objekti 2. URBACT, Reuse of vacant spaces as a driving force for innovation at the local level, more info at: https:// urbact.eu/refill
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From the editors
F*CK BLACK FRIDAY Words Inez Margaux Spaargaren
Black Friday is known worldwide as the day when Christmas shopping can begin; this year, it was the 26th of November..
Consumers gather in big shopping malls or online to take advantage of thousands of so-called 'Black Friday' discounts. But where did this Friday get its particular name from? As the story goes, after an entire year of operating at a loss ("in the red"), stores in the US would supposedly earn a profit ("went into the black") on the day after Thanksgiving, because holiday shoppers blew so much money on discounted merchandise. Elsewhere, it has developed as the day where consumers are introduced to the buying season. In itself, there is nothing wrong with consumers having the opportunity to buy products at a discount - but we must not forget that the shocking images of mindless consumerism overwhelmingly define this day. 22
We can no longer ignore the warnings about the climate. Yet, we allow ourselves to be influenced by the short-term gratification of materialism and risk the long-term future of our planet. To blame social media and the tremendous materialistic marketing seems too short-sighted. As human beings, we don't even manage to take action. At the end of the day, it's all about consumer purchasing. Furthermore, in November, the UN climate conference COP26 took place in Glasgow. The outcome: world leaders could not successfully commit to phasing out fossil fuels. And the culture we have, the everlasting consumerism, is also responsible for emissions. It is up to our world leaders to take sufficient action to resolve the gap between the ideals set for ecological reform, among others, and shape a realistic reality of consumerist lifestyles. A stark reminder is that household purchasing habits, often driven by the desire to signal social status or keep up with trends, contribute to more than 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions.1 Try to look away from all the Black Friday emails, ads, and promotions as your first step. If we are all to reduce the impact of climate change, we must all rethink the prominence of consumerism in our lives and economies. The trend in sustainability is making us pay more attention to our consumerism, but it is not only a matter of our individual responsibility and consumer choice.
Many large companies, IKEA being one example, are concerned with people's buying habits. They are trying with their new campaigns like 'Bring Back Friday' to encourage consumers to return items. They state on their website: "Now you have the chance to give furniture a second life for a small price", "Return your old IKEA furniture to us, and you will receive a part of the value of the furniture back". While this sounds promising, it is a strategy that fails to address the consumerist mentality of our society by simply encouraging us to buy the same amount of stuff - only at a lower carbon cost than before, since second-hand items are also available. But for many, this will be seen as a more accessible option for handing in still-usable items for new ones. Moreover, it is a significant improvement on many other major retailers, who are still aggressively competing to offer brand new energy-guzzling products and cheap clothing. If these retailers were serious about climate change, we would expect them to stop offering unsustainable promotions and start encouraging people to buy second-hand or clearance items. To conclude, it is a shame that this Black Friday is not boycotted by world leaders, large, and small retailers and consumers. At this crucial time, this is an attitude that no one should support in this state of our climate emergency. 23
Shoppers at an Old Navy in San Francisco on Friday. Photo by Jason Henry for The New York Times
1. Environmental Impact Assessment of Household Consumption, from: https://doi.org/10.1111/
jiec.12371
Pen Pal
THE RICHNESS IN LIVING CHEAPLY Words and Images Daniel James Keeffe
Coming from the UK, in the context of the wider world, I have been remarkably privileged. In modern discourse, that should go without saying really. But it hits you in remarkable and unexpected ways after spending some time in a place where those immediately around you have comparatively much less.
I have lived in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for 5 years now. Like all modern cities, it is inhabited by a co-existing range of social and economic classes. Since 2018 however, I have lived in a lower income apartment complex whose residents and neighbouring establishment owners I became much closer with during the city’s intermittent Covid-19 lock-downs throughout 2020 and 2021. 24
As in English, The Vietnamese word for ‘cheap’— ‘rẻ/ rẻ tiền’, can hold the same, negative implications. To be cheap can be to have low standards, to cut corners, to be somewhat sneaky or even suspicious. And in the age of massconsumerism, unethical production and excessive transportation, the scrutiny is valid. But when living cheaply isn’t a choice, the definition shifts. To my neighbours, (particularly during these still ongoing, difficult financial times), living ‘rẻ’ implied something much more positive. Resourcefulness, money-smarts and what I interpret as a more mindful attitude towards resources and possessions in general. “Save that money for beer”, I’ve been told. I obviously cannot speak on behalf of my dear neighbours. But these are some lessons learned from them that have inspired me and been genuinely character building. From my own experiences. I will follow this paragraph with sets of images and
ĐẸP & RẺ (Beautiful and cheap shop): When cheapness is goodness.
observations from within my neighbourhood during the 2021 Covid 19 lockdowns. If “cheap” is weighed down by negative associations, I’d like to hoist it back up with some counter-associations, a reconsideration of what it can also mean to live cheaply.
MINDFULNESS There is mindfulness in seeing beyond the standard function of an object. Recognition of diversity of utility is resourceful, economical and thoughtful.
Bin chair
Guerrilla gas station
Curing chair
Chairs for utensils
CREATIVITY Gather the tools you already have and do-it-yourself. The results are often far more interesting.
DIY signage using electrical tape
Packaging as milk and yoghurt
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MODESTY Casting pretence and the notion of what an object should or should-not be aside can be transformative.
Packaging as planters
Packaging as fish bank
JOY (Rough translation) Mr Cuong: Covid quick tests are common now, but can cost 200-300 thousand Dong a time. Save the money for drinking. 26
Mr Minh: My test was 86 thousand dong. Mrs Kim: Mine was 83 thousand. Haye: Play the auction! Mine was cheapest! 75 thousand!
Apartment group chat: friendly competition for finding the cheapest COVID testing station
Daniel is a senior graphic designer at rice studios in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
From the Editors
HIGH AND LOW Words Alessandro Rognoni
From Jil Sander x Uniqlo to Dior x Nike, from Tiffany x Supreme to Versace x H&M, collaborations between high and low fashion are crucial to contemporary relationships between brands and the public. On the high end, they offer an opportunity to democratise a brand’s image, de-stigmatising themselves from being exclusive. On the low end, they are a great marketing opportunity. Now part of the mainstream way of fuelling the business, the way these collaborations come together is often telling of the controversies of our society..
Off-print In the year 1982, at the age of 38, Daniel Day started his own clothing boutique in Harlem, New York City. Often working 24/7, he initially struggled to find the textiles he needed, and companies willing to do business with him. His urban position and race were too high barriers to overcome and, somehow, teaching himself textile printing was left as the only option. After mastering screen printing on leather, a material to him more accessible, Day began to stamp logos from high-end luxury brands on most of his clothes, Gucci in particular. Day, who grew up just around the corner from his shop, began to be known with his boutique name, Dapper Dan. Just a few years later, Dan’s popularity in Harlem was sky-high, and the image of late 80s NYC hip-hop royalty was one very much associated with his clothes. People like LL Cool J, The Fat Boys, Bobby Brown, Eric B. & Rakim displayed fake Gucci prints on the cover of their albums, and so did Mike Tyson and Dian Dixon when appearing in public. Simultaneously, on the other side of the Atlantic, the Gucci brand was in great crisis, seen as archaic in comparison to the fresh work of Versace and Armani. The Rombi motif print, the house’s signature, became a symbol of outdated (Background Image) - Current Gucci collab, inspired by Dapper Dan's 80s design.
traditionalism, and the Gucci family feud of the early 80s (now showing the cinema) left the company derelict. Dapper Dan's practice was, in fact, built on an image of decadence of its high-end counterpart, but also eventually brought to court in 1993 by the companies he was knocking off. As a result, Dapper Dan’s Boutique was forced to shut down, and the designer almost disappeared for more than two decades. Recently, in 2018, something extraordinary happened. Under the direction of Alessandro Di Michele, Gucci was accused of copying one of Dan’s original “copied” designs in its winter collection. Following allegations, the fashion house’s response was shocking, as Gucci pushed to start a collaboration with the now 73 years old designer, to create a capsule collection inspired by his archive. Marketing aside, something was acknowledged in Dapper Dan’s inheritance, previously ignored: appropriation was recognised legitimate creative intent, and so was the cultural, surreal but canonical position of street-wear in the recent history of design. One year later, the fashion house opened an invitation-only atelier with Dan in a joint venture, supplying fabrics for his new creations. The atelier still stands today, in Lenox avenue, Harlem.
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“IS IT TRUE?” a plump, indignant man yelled at Lagerfeld through a crowded and exclusive restaurant when he learned of the fatal connection. “Of course it’s true,” Lagerfeld appears sitting on the other end of the cafe’ (a shocking appearance for those who weren’t aware of the plot). “BUT IT’S CHEAP!”. “What a depressing word. It’s all about taste” (small pause) “If you are cheap, nothing helps.”
Off-price In the year 2004, the low-cost Swedish retailer H&M opened its 1000th store, profited 7 billion Euros, had 31,700 employees and a countless number of customers. In the same year, Caroline Lebar, communications director of the most iconic fashion designer on earth, received a call from Stockholm, asking for a collaboration.
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“It would have been super easy for Karl to say no. The surprise was that he said yes!” she later declared. Karl Lagerfeld’s partnership with H&M was an atomic bomb ready to be detonated in the middle of fashion world. Lagerfeld collaborating with fast-fashion was just as dramatic as Gorbachev negotiating with Reagan, or T-Pain singing with Taylor Swift. It opened up the era of high-and low-end collaborations that we still experience today in its over-saturation. The advantages for H&M were evident: being able to provide designed things for affordable prices (49$ for a blouse, 129$ for a jacket), escaping their own reputation as a cheap, low-quality brand. Reasons for Lagerfeld to participate were less obvious. The world of fast-fashion had systematically been copying from runaways, providing clothes in trend faster than Chanel. It was considered as another kind of planet, with its own rules, looked at from above by the masters of haute couture. “The future will only be high and low. Everything else in between will disappear” Lagerfeld was instead heard saying when accepting the deal. The promise of a common destiny was set up with those words, but, historically, was there really a gap?
The image of high fashion as an exclusive business is, in truth, a fairly recent one. What is now perceived as exclusive was once understood as instructive. We forget too easily how, just beyond half a century ago, copying patterns from fashion houses and magazines was an everyday practice for the majority of housewives, unable to afford a tailor or a couturier. In a time in which high-fashion’s participation in society became much less tangible, fast-fashion simply compensated for unavoidable societal transformation, including the emancipation of women from domestic work. The radical collaboration, dismantling luxury both as idea and commodity, brought this relationship to surface in witty fashion. “It’s all about taste. If you are cheap, nothing helps.”
TV commercial for Karl Lagerfeld x H&M
Virgil Abloh x IKEA. "Keep Off" rug - from Harvard GSD lecture in 2017.
Off-White In the year 2019, king of collabs Virgil Abloh launches MARKREAD, a “collection” of furniture as part of a joint venture between himself and IKEA. Head of Dada-inspired, street-wear brand Off White, the designer from Chicago, who died on Sunday 28th at the age of 41, considered the idea of collaboration not as merely strategic, but more inherent to the creative process. “Why do we need another chair?” he stated in a lecture at Harvard GSD, when speaking about his work with IKEA and his past partnership with Nike. In his view, the idea of an anonymous, unremarkable, cheap object elevated to artistic form (still, and differently from Off-White, remaining affordable) was worth more than the creation of new designs. Ready-made irony, and the irony of the ready-made, is what more strongly represented Abloh’s art. In the context of their collaboration, this can be found in its quoted words, printed on top of existing rugs, cloaks or IKEA handbags (“Keep off”, or “Timeless” are two examples). Eventually, it becomes almost irrelevant whether one buys the irony or not, against the idea for which one might be able to buy art at an affordable price, even if a sort that is self-proclaimed and highly commercialised.
Funnily enough, despite the intensely “meta” qualities of Virgil’s intentions (at least in the way these were advertised), IKEA stayed truth to themselves, avoiding any intellectual complexity, and advertising the collection in the blandest of ways: [Virgil’s work] adds a sense of irony into the products we’ve produced – perfect for people trying to build a home with a little high-fashion edge, or looking to freshen up the one they already have. (IKEA.com) However, in the context of the collaboration, even IKEA’s superficial words somehow fit in quite well. “Don’t be precious” was in fact another of Virgil’s formulas, in an attempt to “speak to the tourist and the purist simultaneously”. Nonetheless, the capacity to always exist between these two realities, through the kind of precise normality typical of normcore fashion, is the most important legacy left by the American designer. Constantly revealing the contentions behind the idea of luxury and streetwear (particularly when combined), Virgil Abloh, more than any other, managed to bring the idea of cross-disciplinary collaboration to new places. Due to this, his work was always appealing, because always controversial.
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Artefact
LOST & FOUND Words and Images Oliwia Jackowska and Jonas Althuis
‘Artefact’ is a recurring two-page spread, which features a beloved object presented by one of the BK City staff members. This time we decided to examine objects that are not loved by anybody, and did a little searching in the BK's Lost and Found. What we found out will blow your mind!
Hidden in a cupboard behind the Information Desk, there are objects that have been dropped, left, missed and inevitably forgotten. House keys, a broken bracelet and a pair of model hall protection glasses are only a few of the random objects. Many of these are not cheap at all - The North Face jacket, Acne Studios scarf, Airpods, keys and many many water bottles. Through winter and summer, in rain or sun, thirsty, cold and with their phones uncharged, the people of the faculty keep losing more and more precious objects. We can only imagine the circumstances in which these precious items were lost. Possibly, the rush and excitement of a final presentation blurred out the ability to pay attention to a treasured bracelet which caught on the edge of a finely crafted model split and fell on the ground to be written off as a loss forever. And maybe the concentration on forming that beautiful model also blurred the vision and the protective glasses were no longer noticed and transported on top of a certain nose all the way to the studio space, where they fell on the floor and never returned to the model hall after that. Do you have your own story of a lost object? And maybe you recognise any of these objects? You can reunite with the lost and forgotten artefacts and give them some love again in the Lost & Found of BK City.
111. BROWN SCARF, ACNE STUDIOS.
84.PHONE CHARGER, SAMSUNG.
121. BLACK AIRPODS CASE.
209. BLACK SCARF.
166. BLACK HEADPHONES, SONY.
88. WHITE WIRED EARPHONES.
223. JACKET, THE NORTH FACE.
198. COMPUTER MOUSE.
101. HOUSE KEYS.
132. BLACK BOTTLE.
90. LASER POINTER.
127. BROKEN BRACELET, SILVER.
161. TRANSPARENT BOTTLE.
203. DARK BLUE UMBRELLA, FOLDED.
142. BROWN SUNGLASSES.
115. METAL BOTTLE.
96. FABRIC PENCIL CASE, CONVERSE.
58. THICK RIMMED GLASSES.
106. BLACK WOOL GLOVE.
130. LEATHER PENCIL CASE.
71. PROTECTIVE GLASSES.
98. BLACK GLOVE.
132. PHONE CHARGER, AUKEY.
21. COMPUTER CHARGER, ACER.
178. WHITE AIRPODS CASE.
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BKINO Poster: The Day of the Wacko
BKINO Poster: The Day of the Wacko, coming soon! Keep < an eye on our channels of contact to know when we are screening this movie for the next edition of BKINO!
BECOME A PEN PAL! We are always searching for new voices to join and contribute to Bnieuws. Whether your talents are in writing, drawing, photography, graphic design, or you’re filled with a range of skills, we would love to hear from you if you have any ideas for the faculty periodical. If you would like to be on our contributors list, simply send an email with your ideas to: bnieuws-BK@tudelft.nl or sign up on our website: bnieuws.nl/contact
NEXT ISSUE: WHERE? As fun as it is to lose ourselves in the imaginary worlds of movies, television series, songs or stories; here and now is where you currently are. You're probably in a room; inside, warm, comfortable, surrounded by four walls, a floor and a ceiling. But you're also on a tremendously large rock, floating in an empty black void of nothingness. So tell us, where do you see yourself? Bnieuws 55/03 due February 2022.
Bnieuws INDEPENDENT PERIODICAL OF THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT TU DELFT VOLUME 55 ISSUE 02
