POSITION STATEMENT

Collision of Governance and Capital (Nachtrab, 2020)

Following the decision in the contentious Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission—which secured corporations the right to spend their money on political interests—a critical turning point occurred, leading to the rise of Super PACS and a general trend towards increased political corruption1. What this thesis posits is a near-future alternate reality where the nation’s most powerful corporations wield the already large amount of control they have, seizing land and resources that best serve their specific needs. For investigative purposes, ten existing corporations from ten industries are speculated upon.

The ten corporations selected for inclusion are provocative in the different ways each exerts dominance. Remarkably, in some cases, the corporation is successful because of strategic alliances with other corporations. This thesis would explore the corporations as heads-of-state in geographically and climatically different portions of the present United States. As of now, the United States contains eleven growing “megaregions”, as recognized by the Regional Planning Association2; these megaregions lay the groundwork for the territories explored in this thesis. The thesis will also posit the massive changes that would be wrought upon these megaregions, through the means of “megaprojects”. Megaprojects are not confined to a strict list of defining qualities—an important distinction is megaprojects do not have to be architectural or “built” things—and as such the possibilities with the corporations’ megaprojects will be just as varied3. The megaprojects will be conceived of as means for each corporate territory to further their agenda/goals, whatever they may be. This thesis is multi-disciplinary; architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, cartography, economic theory, politics, graphic and branding design, all informing architectural speculation for futures both near and far. In general, this thesis is concerned with all things of the “mega-” scale, and seeks to speculate on the effects of megascale architectures and corporate interests on the American urbanscape and landscape. Corporations are not neutral; they have a bias and they mine specific resources that may be territory-specific. The thesis argues that there is a fundamental connection between specific corporations and specific territories/urbanisms where they flourish.

1. “Citizens United v. FEC,” Wikipedia, accessed December 5, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC 2. Yoav Hagler, “Defining U.S. Megaregions,” America 2050, https://rpa.org/work/reports/defining-u-s-megaregions 3. “Megaproject,” Wikipedia, accessed December 5, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaproject