No city: A declaration of the city in the digital era by Thale Kangkhao

NO CITY A DECLARATION OF CITY IN DIGITAL ERA

Thale Kangkhao Words Count: 6,264 Tutors: Hannah Corlett UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON ARCHITECTURE AND HISTORIC URBAN ENVIRONMENT

THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE 2

CONTENT 5---12

KINGCROSS STATION

13----18

19----22

SOMERSET HOUSE

INSIDE SOMERSET HOUSE

23----28

29----34

INSIDE SELFRIDGES

35----38

BROADGATE CIRCLE

39----42

43----84

BANK OF ENGLAND

RESEARCH PART

85----94

SELFRIDGES

APPENDIX

ABSTRACT After the fall of the berlin wall, the capitalism has become the only alternative for our society. Capitalism has invaded into every aspect our life from politic, economic, and society. The growth and existence of capitalism have created many catastrophes in our society from the collapse of the ecosystem to extreme inequality between rich and poor. Our society is witnessing the impact of capitalism and the financial crisis in 2008 has revealed how fragile the capitalistic system is, and yet capitalism has survived, because we cannot escape from it since capitalists have already merge into all kinds of activities in our daily lives. Even Architecture itself is unable to escape from capitalism. The existing of architecture space has been occupied by all kinds of technology to ensure the architecture would be able to keep up with the flow and circulation of capitalist society. Centre Pompidou could represent the evidence of change to the position of architecture, after the modern period. It represents circulation, storage, and flow. Thus, we can conclude that capitalism has reduced the importance that architecture has in society. As Jean Baudrillard mention ‘Architecture is enslave to all these functions of circulation, information, communication, and culture’. The crisis also reconfirms by Rem Koolhaas ‘Now, it has become an entire factory of equipment that enables us to exist, a space so deep that it begins to compete with the architecture. It is a domain over which architects have lost all control, a zone surrendered to other professions.’ However, in 2019 the rise of covid-19 has become the thread for capitalism, it creates a problem to circulation and flow of capitalism which lead to fall of economy in a global scale but capitalism did not defeat. This situation has become acceleration for capitalism to transform from physical into the digital realm. The digital transaction, online delivery, or WFH (work from home) have shown how the activities of production and consumption have adapted to the new technology and it would seem to transform our behavior from the past. Capitalism goes digital, many businesses transfer into digital cloud and leave existing architecture behind. London, global capital city has faced with this condition while many areas occupy by super expensive condominium, but local people unable to afford the price of living condition and force to move to the end of the city. A city is no longer a place for anything, architecture has become a danger of becoming a useless function and unable to serve the digital era. This has become a research question for the project, questioning the existing city and the fate of architecture that used to serve capitalist activities, and investigating the possibility of city and architecture to escape the capitalist system. The project started to focus on the case study from many radical projects to see how architecture has been reimagined or investigate in the 20th and 21st centuries

No-stop city (Archizoom) investigates the possibility of creating an endless interior that allows production systems to be pushed to their limits. Stop City (Dogma) seeks to frame the city and limit the spread of capitalism in the city with architecture. Both projects have coincided character of each other that there is no quality in architecture and projects did not tackle with the capitalist directly. Therefore, can architecture regain ability to serve society in the digital capitalism era. For the above reason, this project has rethink to the impact and possibility for Architecture in late capitalism. Two strategies combine together, producing a strategy to challenge the urban fabric: [1] Through an understanding of the rapid changing state of cities in relation to advances in technology and the consequences of living with perpetual global pandemics, we question the logic of typologies. Instead we look at how to break down past typologies into less prescriptive forms through parasitic interventions designed to spatially mutate. In the same time Typology concept can contribute to creating architecture form without external shape. As a consequence of capitalist rule, a style has become a part of the logic of capital and is used to serve the consumerism of modern society. Typology of architecture would be the possible way to create architecture without interfering with shapes. [2] Celebration of the void. With an emphasis diverted from architectural form we understand the potential of the void to create anticipation and nostalgia. The void becomes the new programming tool for the city and a strategy to disrupt and challenge capitalism in 21st century Both idea combine together, produce a strategy to challenge the urban fabric, void become new program for city. No City is not a design project, but an investigation into the possibility of architecture in the late capitalism era and the predictability of architecture within a city. No city project represents a series of provocative images of London’s attraction and famous place that has been transformed to serve the UK economy. The city is not a place of desire to live, but rather a place that serves the overall interests of the country. This has become a new purpose for its existence in this century. Furthermore, No City is not an anti-capitalist manifesto, but rather a means to use capitalism to reanimate the city and bring it into the 21st century. 1970 No-Stop city purpose a total urbanization, 2020 Stop city purpose a plan against the urban fabric. 2021 No city imagine the future city without a need of architecture, a strategy to disrupt and challenge capitalism in 21st century

We are living in the late capitalism. Capitalism has invaded into every aspect of our life from politic, economic, and society.

KINGCROSS STATION

In 2019, The capitalism start to transform from physica ities of production and consumption have adapted to t

al to digital realm. The activthe new technology.

Capitalism goes digital and leave existing architecture and the city behind. Development of new technology replaced physical space like office, shopping mall, and Education.

INSIDE KINGCROSS STATION

The consequence of this phenomenon has reduced the tecture has become under the thread. After physical act by digital activities and virtual space.

important of the city. Architivities and space are replace

Natural resource crisis and climate change has become a major threat to this century. London and Architecture inside the city found a new purpose to serve UK economy.

SOMERSET HOUSE

Agriculture and Livestock remain as a few important our society. Courtyard of somerset house transformed

physical production within into fish farm.

Walking through the busy space inside the Somerset house. The Fish farm market surrounded by trading and selling seafood products. A place of art has become a place for production , consumption, and reproduction. It became part of capitalism mechanic system.

INSIDE SOMERSET HOUSE

Remaining evidence inside Somerset house inform th gallery exhibition and preserve arts collection. Crowd came a crowded space for trading. A place of art has be tion and reproduction. It became part of capitalism m

he history of the place for a ded space for art visitor beecome a place to for producmechanic system.

In the early of 21st century. E-commerce are completely replaced the shopping activities in physical space. Shopping mall found it new function to serve society. The Roof top of the Selfridges became a place for Green house space.

SELFRIDGES

Mostly people are working class, refugee, and homeless. People who live inside the city is only worker who work to serve the UK Industry’s economy. Other are refugee and homeless. City is not a desire place to live, but a place to force people to live in.

INSIDE SELFRIDGES

The complex inside the space recreates its own society occupied for housing unit.Other floor space area becom like local pub and restaurant. Several minority workers established to entertain people inside.

y and culture. Area is mainly mes a place for local business s likes’ sex worker or Casino

A leisure space of Broadgate circle located in a commercial and business district in east london. A circle space converted to become a complex storage with large container for a purpose of logistic and storage industry.

BROADGATE CIRCLE

Large cooperation like Amazon or Alibaba became inve for delivery service and manage the storage inside. Th part of the major gross value of UK economy.

estors. Drone are mainly use This economy sector stand as

Digital transaction replaced the important of banknote in a modern system. Bank has become unnecessary in modern society. However, the crisis of natural resource around the world has cause the value of natural resource are highly increased for government around the world. From this reason, Mostly of the Bank space transform to become a place to keep variety of valuable resources.

BANK OF ENGLAND

Bank of England is not a place to preserve only gold, it’s to reserve natural resources. Metal, Copper, Wood, and different method and mechanical system. Natural res crypto currency, art collection, or land asset. Natural r for exchange between large government and private se a nature’s currency.

s using their space for a place d salt are separately kept with source has more value than resources became a medium ector. A new era of currency,

RESEARCH PART :

A RESEARCH BEHIND THE NO CITY PROJECT

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Introduction

Fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of capitalist The project begins with the idea that capitalism has realism

On 9 November 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall signalled the end of the Cold War. It represented a new period in human history and a loss of the communist regime to the free world1. We are currently living in a time of capitalist realism, which Mark Fisher, an English writer, cultural theorist, and philosopher described in his book Capitalist Realism : Is There No Alternative? that Capitalism has become the only alternative to our society or it could clarify that the idea of post-political which the fall of the Soviet Union left capitalism as the only effective economic system. It is the ideological framework of capitalism that affects and influences all aspects of life, political, economic, and social. This associate with the statement of Slovaj Zizek and Fedrick Jameson ‘it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism.’2 Capitalist realism does not describe capitalism as a perfect system but as the only system compatible with human nature and economic law.

1 Getty, East Berliners climb onto the Berlin Wall to celebrate the effective end of the city’s partition on 31st December 1989, 1989, Photograph, Germany, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/fall-berlin-wall-timeline-year-wonder-when-unthinkable-became-unstoppable-9821984.html 2 Mark Power/Magnum Photos, The scene at the Berlin Wall in November 1989, 1989, Photograph, Germany, https://www.nytimes. com/2019/11/08/opinion/berlin-wall-anniversary-germany.html.

become the only alternative for our society. It has invaded every aspect of our lives including politics, economics, and society. The rise of digital capitalism has transformed the physical activities of production and consumption in our daily lives, placing them in the digital realm. Digital transactions, online delivery, and remote working have shown how production and consumption have adapted to the digital age. Now that capitalism has gone digital, the question becomes whether physical space is still relevant. This question forms the basis for an investigation of the No City project to seek possibilities for architecture in the era of late capitalism and to predict the future of architecture within the city. A major part of the investigation took place in London, which represents a global capital city. The evidence from this research can be used as a foundation to behind the idea of a No City project.

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The problem of capitalist society and its foundation in a fragile state

5 Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com, Unemployed men line up outside a soup kitchen , 1931, Photograph, Chicago, USA, https:// www.britannica.com/list/5-of-the-worlds-most-devastating-financial-crises

4 Rich Carey/Shutterstock, For better or worse, humans are the dominant force shaping Earth’s ecosystems, and have been for a lot longer than you might think. , Photograph, https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/the-human-epoch-when-did-the-anthropocene-begin

Based on this reasoning, there is no escape from capitalist realism; it does not allow rethinking or inventing any new system which could reveal that we are living in the loop of capitalism. Mark Fisher describes the state of being unable to escape from the capitalist system as hauntology. Under the logic of capitalism, creativity must be profitable. For this reason, many times it forces us to focus on borrowing design or success elements from the past as a guarantee of success without risk of loss. Cyberpunk is a good example of hauntology: the character of cyberpunk represents the late stage of capitalism as the aesthetics of capitalism show the past with a retro-futuristic character; this shows how we are living in the loop of capitalism in the present as well as in the future vision of society. This forces society to maintain the capitalist system even though we understand that this system is currently in a fragile state.

3 Edward Burtynsky, courtesy of Admira Photography, Tyrone Mine #3, 2012, Photograph, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Silver City, New Mexico, USA, https://www.lifegate.com/edward-burtynsky-anthropocene-human-epoch

Capitalism has significantly impacted society, for example by increasing income inequality between rich and poor in many countries, bringing the world to the point of extreme poverty. The Oxfam report shows that the world’s richest 1% have more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 million people around the world, and almost half the world’s population (3.4 billion people) are living on less than $5.50 a day.3 The capitalist system not only creates problems in human society. It also has a great impact on the environment, especially in aggravating the natural resource crisis and climate change that millions of people around the world are experiencing. All these problems have a strong connection with an economy driven by the capitalist system. Capitalism is not only the cause of these issues; it has revealed problems within its own system. An important event which brought the problem of the capitalist system onto the global sage was the financial crisis of 20084. The collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers was at the time the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. This event caused a wave of impact throughout many financial firms on an international scale. However, although many private and governmental entities have witnessed the problems of capitalism, it seems that society is still unable to reject the capitalist system. This is the theme of capitalist realism: capitalism has become the only system for today’s society. The ideological framework of capitalism influences many human activities and merges into every move of ourselves as Jean Baudrillard says, ‘We have reached the point where “consumption” has grasped the whole of life.’ 5

Architecture of capitalism As discussed above, in the 21st century capitalism has played a vital role in society. Architecture has also come to serve the logic of capital. There is much evidence that architecture has become part of the capitalist system. A good example is Centre Pompidou, designed by Richard Roger and Renzo Piano. The building not only represents the rise of technology and communication in the 21st century; it demonstrates that architecture itself has become a medium to serve the capitalist system. Characteristics of contemporary architecture are represented as transparent, flexible, and interactive. This has forced architecture to become a medium to serve other purposes; as Jean Baudrillard says, ‘Today Architecture is enslaved to all these functions of circulation, information, communication, and culture.’6 Rem Koolhaas also expresses a similar opinion as to the current state of architecture in the capitalist era. Koolhaas observes that the role of architecture decreased after technology became a vital part of building to enhance the built environment and respond to modern society. This has become a question of the necessity of architecture in the present.

Koolhaas’s idea was represented at the Architecture Biennale exhibition in 2014. ‘Now, it has become an entire factory of equipment that enables us to exist, a space so deep that it begins to compete with the architecture. It is a domain over which architects have lost all control, a zone surrendered to other professions.’7 Similarly to Jean Baudrillard in his view on the role of architecture, Rem Koolhaas describes that technology applies to architecture not only for the sake of operating the building but also to ensure that consumption and production activities take place within the building. A good example of how technology takes over a place is the shopping mall, where the escalator is the most significant innovation in the retail market. The escalator enables a seamless transition from upper floors to lower levels. The consumer needs little effort to move from one floor to another. This results in an increase of circulation to the maximum level and creates a maximum of sales volume which influencing people to purchase more products.8 For the above reasons, architecture in the present is unable to operate without technology. It can be summarized that not only our activities have merged with capitalism; architecture itself has been possess by technology and other media to serve the capitalist system.

Covid-19 and the disruption of architecture

This has become a turning point for capitalism: since physical space has more obstacles and multiple factors to address, a digital landscape becomes a significant opportunity for capitalism to endlessly expand its potential and ability to survive. This is a sign that capitalism has merged with the digital landscape while leaving architecture and the physical space of the city behind.

Research question as to the future of the city The rise of digital capitalism has left architecture and the city behind. This has become the main research question for the No City project in rethinking how architecture should operate in the digital era. The project begins with case studies which focus on the idea of how architecture relates and reacts to capitalism. The two projects No-Stop City from Archizoom and Stop City from Dogma represent suitable case studies for this project. These radical projects represent how capitalism is both activate and inactive in the capitalist system. The projects are described below, and London city will be used as an investigation site to respond to the needs of the 21st centuries.

6 G. Meguerditchian, Centre Pompidou, Photograph, Paris, French, https://www.surfacemag.com/articles/centre-pompidou-renovation/ 7 Nico Saieh, Elements of Architecture, 2014, Photograph, Venice, Italy , https://www.archdaily.com/515571/a-biennale-of-knowledgerem-koolhaas-on-the-importance-of-the-archive 8 Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images, Pedestrians walk past a sign alerting people about high numbers of COVID-19 cases in central London on Dec. 23, 2020 , 2020, Photograph, London, UK, https://abcnews.go.com/International/covid-19-uk-variant-advantage-underlying-mechanism-unclear/story?id=74876919

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly impacted all government and public sectors. Increasing numbers of infections and deaths around the world have led many countries to try to decrease the number of Covid cases through diverse strategies like social distancing, self-isolation, and national lockdowns. Although these strategies have resulted in positive outcomes, self-isolation and lockdowns have created problems for economic sectors. Especially logistic and trading industries have suffered from obstructions in the production line; trade disruption and decimation of the tourism industry have also occurred. This has resulted in enormous losses for the economic sector and the capitalist system in many countries around the world. Much evidence shows that even after almost two years of the pandemic, the economy has not recovered to its former level: the global gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to be 3.2% below the pre-pandemic projection9. Similarly, the UK’s GDP declined by 9.9% in 202010. Capitalism has been challenged by one of the largest disease outbreaks in human history. However, capitalism has not been defeated by this issue; instead, it has become a catalyst for capitalism to adopt technology as a medium to transform activities of production and consumption from physical space to digital scape. In recent years we have seen how technology has adapted our working landscape and leisure activities to digital through ideas like working from home, online delivery, digital transactions, online shopping platforms, and so on. The growth of digital capitalism has been prove by the shared of value large companies like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook, which has reached 20% of the 500 largest U.S. corporations as the rest of the economy collapsed during the pandemic11.

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No-Stop City: Expanding production into the urban fabric

No City has shown the potential in architecture for the working class to reject the power of society in the development of the capitalist city15. Archizoom creates a model by occupying the whole urban scale with high technology. The urban space is transformed into an infinite interior through the mechanics of the industrial system. The city becomes part of production, reproduction, and consumption adapted within this infinite space. ‘Archizoom imagined this isotropic plan as finally liberated from the various traditional figurative and spatial forms of bourgeois ideological representations of the city, and prepared for an “ultimate” crash between the workers and capitalism.’16

9 Archizoom associati, no stop city, 1970, Drawing, https://www.designboom.com/interviews/andrea-branzi/ 10 Archizoom Associati, No Stop City, 1970, Drawing, https://www.artribune.com/progettazione/architettura/2016/07/libro-architettura-pier-vittorio-aureli/attachment/archizoom-no-stop-city/ 11 Studio Andrea Branzi, Archizoom Associati, 1968, Photograph, https://somethingcurated.com/2020/10/12/what-archizoom-associati-taught-us/

In 1968 the radical architectural group Archizoom Associates (Andrea Branzi, Gilberto Corretti, Paolo Deganello, Massimo Morozzi, Dario, and Lucia Bartolini) introduced the project No-Stop City to the public. The project began with the idea of operaism, also called workerism; this Marxist theory was introduced in Italy during the 1960s by Italian philosopher and politician Mario Tronti. Operaism focuses on the independence of labour and social struggle regarding the capitalist economy12. This concept was the premise for Archizoom’s No-Stop City, which focuses on the labouring class; as Pier Vittorio Aureli mention Tronti’s note in The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture within and against Capitalism, ‘Since Adam Smith political economy has chosen labour as its principle. 11 Labour is thus political economy absolute measure . . . that is its own abstraction.’13 As No-Stop City represents through the logic of the industrial system, there is no style or characteristic of Archizoom believes that as if society is fully controlled architecture inherent in the project. It is a city without by the network of production and reproduction, It architecture, a project without architecture. The archiwould create more possibilities for the working class tectural quality is reduced to air-conditioned space to have power and the ability to refuse fundamental and a bathroom every 50 metres 17. of power mechanisms inside labour and work. As described by Pier Vittorio Aureli in the book The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, ‘The more society was totalized by the network of production and cooperation, the more possibilities there were for the working class to exercise a decisive political sovereignty over all of society by simply refusing society’s fundamental power mechanism: the organization of work.’14

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Stop City: Limiting the fabric of the city

Stop City proposes a limitation to the expansion of the city as our society cannot separate production and reproduction activities from labour. Instead of providing growth and extension to the city, they propose limiting the possibilities for growth of the city, stating that ‘architecture is not the design of everything but rather which release everything from being designed.’18 Aurelli and Tattara believe there is no alternative but to limit the expansion of the city.19

12 Pier Vittorio Aureli, Stop City Topview, 2007, Dogma - 11 Projects (London: AA Publications, 2013), 11. 13 Pier Vittorio Aureli, Typical plan and elevation of a unit for 60,000 inhabitants, 2007, Dogma - 11 Projects (London: AA Publications, 2013), 15. 14 Pier Vittorio Aureli, Stop City Perspective, 2007, Dogma - 11 Projects (London: AA Publications, 2013), 18.

As No-Stop City by Archizoom expands the production and consumption process into the whole urban scale, the Stop City project by Dogma (Pier Vitorio Aurelli and Matino Tattara) takes a completely different approach. The project creates a hypothesis from the idea of an Architektur ohne Eigenschaften: architecture without qualities. They believe that production and consumption have merged with all kinds of activities. It affects all spectrums of activities, especially in post-Fordism society where an object is not the only product: labour itself has become a product of the system. ‘Labour power’ describe as anything that exists in our present society must be productive and put to work. Aurelli and Tattara believe that this complex subject cannot be addressed through architecture alone; they believe that architecture can provoke the theme to emerge and take a position.

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How No-Stop City and Stop City coincide

Secondly, neither architectural project directly addresses the capitalist system. No-Stop City uses technology as a means to enhance production and consumption in dealing with capitalist society, while Stop City believed that architecture cannot address the complex character of society in the post-Fordism era and proposes that architecture be used to limit growth. As a result, architecture is applied as an indirect strategy to limit the growth of the city fabric. The above description is illustrated through a Van Euler diagram

15 Pier Vittorio Aureli, Stop City Topview, 2007, Dogma - 11 Projects (London: AA Publications, 2013), 11. 16 Archizoom associati, no stop city, 1970, Drawing, https://www.designboom.com/interviews/andrea-branzi/. 17 Author, Diagram 1, 2021, Digital work, The Bartlett School of Architecture.

The study and analysis of these projects show that they both represent unique characteristics and different approaches to responding to the city. However, there are several coincidental characteristics represented within these projects. Firstly, neither No-Stop City nor Stop City have quality of architecture. No-Stop City represents the city through the logic of the industrial system. Style and characteristics are eliminated, creating an infinite interior of a mechanical system of production, consumption, and reproduction. In Stop City architecture represents a frame to limit the expansion of the city; it has become a monolith of architecture without qualities.

No City: An investigation into architecture and the city in late capitalism. The coinciding characters of the projects constitute the idea of this investigation. Instead of creating a similar approach to the case studies, No City investigates several important factors that will directly impact the capitalist system in the future. These include labour, the power that has been the key to capitalism’s structure since its establishment. Karl Marx states that labour is the main source of maintaining power in society20. Meanwhile, other problems such as global warming that have significant impacts must be included in this investigation to understand the possible city in late capitalism.

Factors directly impacting the transformation of the city in late capitalism Through the research for this dissertation, it was found that there are several direct and indirect factors that significantly impact society and the way architecture and the city will change. The three main impacting factors are immaterial labour, remaining physical reproduction, and climate change causing a natural resource crisis.

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As already described, labour has always been the foundation and important key to the way capitalism has operated in society. However, labour in the present society has become completely different from the past. The development of technology has created a significant effect and transformation of work from Fordism to the post-Fordism era. Labour has been transformed into immaterial labour. Maurizio Lazzarato, one of the originators of the term immaterial labour, defines it as ‘the labour that produces the informational and cultural content of the commodity.’21 The product has become digital and requires not physical skill but the ability to create a solution and a creative product. For example, in start-up businesses, code design, analysis solutions, etc., the product has become labour itself; as Douglas Spenser says in the Architecture of Neoliberalism, ‘The post-industrial capitalism goes further deeper into the core of the human, to mind its very essence. Capitalism is not content with our bodies; it now demands our minds, even our souls.’22 Leisure activities, communication, ideas, and emotions, all these activities have been transformed to generate value under capitalism.

18 Original uploader was Christopher Sunde at en.wikipedia. - Original unknown, Luddites smashing a power loom in 1812 , 1812, Painting, UK, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-loom_riots#/media/File:FrameBreaking-1812.jpg 19 Hulton Archive/Getty Images , People at work in a factory, making vices, 1771, Painting, https://www.ft.com/content/cf12eeb07231-11e8-b6ad-3823e4384287

The effects of the immaterial labour of post-Fordism in late capitalism

As described above, it is unable to find the origin of immaterial labour that rise from a top-down or bottom-up process. However, it can be concluded that the rise of immaterial labour provides more advantages to the working class than to the bourgeoisie. Antonio Negri, a Marxist theorist, questions capitalism in the era of post-Fordism. He maintains an interesting position regarding the future relationship of post-Fordism work and governmental power. Labour has become a power over itself, showing that workers can independently deal with the working system within society. ‘Today workers can actually “do” without the governance, surveillance, and control of managers; they can organize the production process within and through the common by using their means of interaction, collaboration, communication, cooperation and so forth. Workers, in other words, have all the capacities for reversal and creating alternative forms of producing and living.’24

It can be said that in post-Fordism, it is not the large companies or the capitalist system that controls labour; labour has regained the power to negotiate with the system. This demonstrates the power of post-Fordism labour over capitalism, the working class over the bourgeoisie. The power of post-Fordism labour has been exercised through many characters such as flexible working hours and space. This influence results in the labour force being distant and divided from the working space, especially inside the city, which is a place for work and economic activities in 19th to 20th century. Throughout the world, the concept of working everywhere is becoming increasingly popular; the city is no longer an essential place for work and business.

20 Robert Propst, a brilliant designer working in the 1960s for the office-furniture firm Herman Miller, invented the cubicle, Photograph, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304885404579549800874319342

The immaterial labour character has created both advantages and disadvantages for capitalism. There have been many discussions about the origin of immaterial labour in the 21st century. Some believe that the rise of immaterial labour began as capitalists were eager to yield more profit by introducing new needs and new ways to meet them. Improvements in technology also contribute to the different character in the present and answer this change through immaterial labour, multiple jobs, and flexible working hours. This modern working character has been established to respond to the Post Fordism system and capitalism. While others believe differently, that immaterial labour comes from people need (Bottom up process) based on an idea of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt: ‘First, that part of the impulse that drives the process of the transformation of work are people’s needs and desires, which multiply in direct proportion to the amount of work that is needed to fulfil them (in other words, needs and desires are introduced by capital together with the necessary means of satisfying them).’23

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From digital capitalism and remaining physical reproduction in 21st century: The city as a mechanism to serve physical reproduction and the UK’s economy

Many architectural spaces in London have a high possibility of representing part of production in physical space. Since Brexit, there has been a food resource problem, and the Covid-19 pandemic has brought to light the problem of food in the future.26 This could be a solution with which the UK could address the issue of food crises that might occur due to other external and internal factors. Other space could be used to serve other aspects of the UK economic system such as logistics, energy, storage, etc.

21 Hollie Adams/Bloomberg , A worker sweeps the floor between tomato plants inside the greenhouses at Valley Grown Nurseries in Nazeing, U.K., Photograph, Nazeing, U.K, https://www.bloombergquint.com/businessweek/having-your-very-own-greenhouse-is-notfor-the-faint-of-heart 22 Jim West/Alamy Stock Photo, Factory farms confine many hundreds or thousands of animals such as dairy cows or pigs, or millions of smaller animals such as chickens, on each of their properties, causing not only an incredible amount of suffering, but also a staggering amount of urine and feces, Photograph, https://blog.humanesociety.org/2019/06/epa-gives-factory-farms-a-free-pass-ontoxic-air-emissions.html 23 Article by Tracey Davies, Chickens at Saltbox Farm, 2019, Photograph,UK ,https://www.granthamjournal.co.uk/news/extreme-animal-suffering-exposed-on-moy-park-chicken-farms-9074481/

A huge transformation is highly possible as digital capitalism has moved many activities of production, reproduction, and consumption into the digital landscape. Digital technology also changes the pattern of the way we work. As the effects of architecture in the city becomes less important, the question is raised as to how we can replace the existing architecture. Analysis shows that there are several areas of physical production and reproduction that are still required in our society. Natural resources have always been a necessary part of human history, and the economics of human society rely on the natural resources of production and reproduction. Obsolete physical spaces like shopping malls and traditional office spaces can become places of production in areas such as agriculture and livestock. This would respond to the great need to resolve issues of hunger and overconsumption. The characteristic of capitalism that represents order, structure, and efficiency would be the only system that could response to this enormous need in human society. Urban agriculture and livestock could be incorporated within the design of the city for ecological, aesthetic, functional, economic, and environmental benefits.25

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Climate change and natural resource crisis Climate change and threats to natural resources have become primary issues in this century. Catastrophe is closer than we expected as the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has reported a ‘code red’ for human-driven global heating, expecting global warming of 2°C during the 21st century.27 Government and private sectors have begun to develop strategies and provide plans to address climate change. The architectural profession needs to participate more in this effort as the profession has a greater impact on the environment and climate than generally believed. For example, around 36% of global energy is devoted to building and construction, and 82% of global energy consumption in buildings is supplied by fossil fuels28. Given these facts, it is inevitable that the architectural profession will engage as part of society to solve the problem. London has experienced the impact of climate change through events like flooding, heat waves, and sea level rise. This and other global capital cities will need solutions and the ability to adapt to this major threat in the 21st century.

The complexity of the current crisis faced by humans cannot be addressed with one-size-fits-all solutions; it requires strategies from micro and macro scales to tackle this issue. Many architects and architectural firms have begun to develop solutions and incorporate them in architectural designs for cities. This has raised the question of how architecture can become part of the solution in addressing this issue. Dealing with the complexity of the problem is beyond the ability of architecture itself, but could architecture become a catalyst for change in this 21st century? A strategy is needed to enhance the ability for architectural space in cities, especially London, so that it can become part of the solution and maintain the importance of architecture in the future.

24 Photo used under public domain via Wikimedia Commons, A dust storm buries a car and machinery in Dallas , 1936, Photograph, Dallas, South Dakota, USA, https://www.riceswcd.org/category/conservation-history/ 25 Unknown, One of the first cooperators in the Prairie Creek Conservation Association, farmer R. C. Mulliner plows on the contour and picks up the plow for the grassed waterway , 1937, Photograph, USA, https://www.riceswcd.org/category/conservation-history/ 26 Rob Arnold/Alamy, The existing wind turbines of Walney & West of Duddon Sands Offshore Wind Farm, Photograph, UK, https:// www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/05/queens-property-manager-banks-huge-windfarm-windfall

Could Architecture become a catalyze to answer the need of the future in London?

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No City and a strategy for a city in late capitalism If we reject the logic of capital, we must reject the form. The system can allow architecture to operate and escape the logic of capital. We examine how to break down past typologies into less prescriptive forms through parasitic interventions designed to spatially mutate. At the same time, the typology concept can contribute to creating architectural form without external shape. Typology of architecture would be a possible way to create architecture without interfering with shapes. The diagram 2-7 represents the existing conditions inside London; all the production and consumption active from the 19th to the 20th century Typology within London is listed, and the production and reproduction programs that would exist in the 21st century There is a reason that typology of architecture has beare analysed and arranged into a graph to evaluate the come part of a strategy. if we look into architectural hischaracter of each type. tory in a specific period like modernism architecture, modern architecture is not a movement but an ideology; it represents the rise of the industrial era and the promotion of an equal society and has been supported and used by many politic regimes, including Italian fascism and the Soviet Union, to bring about equality in society. However, today modern architecture has become part of the logic of the capitalist system. An example of this can be observed in the Balfron Tower by Erno Goldfinger. The building once served as social housing, but it is now listed for Grade II* preservation. The increased value of the building has resulted in exponential increases in the price of living units.29 The inside of the building has been transformed with a modern look to serve mid-to-high income people. As a consequence of capitalist rule, history has become part of the logic of capital and serves the consumerism of modern society. The value of history is used to create profit; as Reinier De Graaf says, ‘Once discovered as a form of capital, there is no choice for buildings but to operate according to the logic of capital. In that sense, there may ultimately be no such thing as Modern or Postmodern architecture, but simply architecture before and after its annexation by capital.’30

27 Riba Collections, In 1969, Terence Bendixson wrote of Balfron tower that it was ‘perversely beautiful’ but ‘conjures up thoughts of prisons and pill-boxes’., 1969, Photograph, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/sep/19/balfron-20-how-goldfingers-utopian-tower-became-luxury-flats 28 Courtesy of The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development(in Public Domain), Pruitt-igoe collapse-series, 1972, Photograph, USA, https://www.archdaily.com/873843/13-tragically-demolished-buildings-that-depict-our-ever-changing-attitudes-toward-architecture

No City provides a strategy to replace existing physical space with the important function of providing a solution for future threats and maintaining the economy of the UK in a variety of economic sectors like agriculture, livestock, and logistics. This concerns how the program should be applied in London. The No City project rethinks the way the city should operate with two strategies that have already become important elements for the outcome of the project: typology of architecture and the void as a celebration of empty space.

29 Author, Diagram 2, 2021, Digital work, The Bartlett School of Architecture.

30 Author, Diagram 3, 2021, Digital work, The Bartlett School of Architecture.

31 Author, Diagram 4, 2021, Digital work, The Bartlett School of Architecture.

32 Author, Diagram 5, 2021, Digital work, The Bartlett School of Architecture.

33 Author, Diagram 6, 2021, Digital work, The Bartlett School of Architecture.

34 Author, Diagram 7, 2021, Digital work, The Bartlett School of Architecture.

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Void: A celebration of empty space Through the celebration of the void with emphasis diverted from architectural form we can understand its potential to create anticipation and nostalgia. A good example is the World Trade Center. Apart from the loss of the architecture itself, the absence of the building created a huge void in the middle of New York City. The void reveals the true power of architecture; as Jean Baudrillad says in reference to the World Trade Center in Mass Identity Architecture: The Architectural Writings of Jean Baudrillard, ‘The wonder of that building is that it puts on a fantastic urban show, a marvelous show of verticality, and is, at the same time, the glaring symbol of the fate the city has succumbed to; it is the symbol of what the city died of as a historical form. This is what gives such architecture its power: it is a form of extreme anticipation of a lost object and, at the same time, of retrospective nostalgia for that object.’ 31

30 29 galilca.bnf.fe/ Bibliotheque nationale de France, Exterior View of Cenotaph for Newton/ Etienne-Louis, Painting, https://www. archdaily.com/544946/ad-classics-cenotaph-for-newton-etienne-louis-boullee 30 Jeffmock, World Trade Center, New York, aerial view March 2001, 2001, Photograph, New York, USA, https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/World_Trade_Center_(1973%E2%80%932001)

The void is a new programming tool for the economy. The space within and between existing architecture can be transformed and resurrected as a production space. The void becomes the real protagonist in the space, revealing architecture’s true power. The strategy of typology and the void combine and become a foundation for the No City project.

Conclusion. No City: A declaration of the city in late capitalism This research began with the idea of capitalist realism and the transformation of digital capitalism. Based on the above research, it can be concluded that we face an unstable future in which the issue of physical space in the 21st century is vital. Architecture will become less and less necessary in our society as many activities shift to the digital landscape. This research resulted in No City, which is not a design proposal or design project but an investigation into the possibility of architecture in the era of late capitalism and the predictability of architecture within a city. No City appears to be a dystopian society from the outside, but it attempts to approach 21st-century architecture realistically. Nonetheless, it must be accepted that architecture at the present serves the needs of capitalism as it has become part of the larger system. The post-Fordism era makes it difficult to reject or prevent the capitalist system since capitalism merges with all kinds of activities, and even we have become in part material for production in modern society. For this reason, we rethink how architecture could work as a catalyst to address the urgent needs arising from climate change and natural resource crises. The outcome of the project is an imaginative approach to space. Voids within and between the architecture are highlighted as protagonists in this project. Being an architect does not involve merely creating buildings; it also requires reimagining how to make more efficient something that will someday be obsolete. The final result of the No City project is a series of provocative images of London’s attractions and famous places that have been transformed to serve the UK’s economy. Cities are not only places for living; they are places that serve in ways that nobody wants to address but are nevertheless necessary. This has become the new purpose for the city in this century. Therefore, No City is not a plan against capitalism but a solution using the advantage of capitalism to reanimate the city and reactivate it for a new purpose.

Note 1 “Fall of Berlin Wall: How 1989 Reshaped the Modern World,” BBC News (BBC, November 5, 2019), https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsworld-europe-50013048. 2 Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (Winchester, UK: Zero Books, 2010), 2. 3 Oxfam International, “Extreme Inequality and Essential Services,” Oxfam International, January 20, 2020, https://www.oxfam.org/en/what-we-do/issues/extreme-inequality-and-essential-services. 4 Manoj Singh, “The 2007-2008 Financial Crisis in Review,” Investopedia (Investopedia, July 28, 2021), https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/financial-crisis-review.asp. 4 Manoj Singh, “The 2007-2008 Financial Crisis in Review,” Investopedia (Investopedia, July 28, 2021), https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/financial-crisis-review.asp. 5 Francesco Proto, Mass Identity Architecture: The Architectural Writings of Jean Baudrillard (New York, NY: Wiley, John, & Sons, 2003), 98. 6 Francesco Proto, Mass Identity Architecture: The Architectural Writings of Jean Baudrillard (New York, NY: Wiley, John, & Sons, 2003), 134. 7 James Taylor-Foster, “Reflections on the 2014 Venice Biennale,” ArchDaily (ArchDaily, November 18, 2014), https://www.archdaily.com/568233/reflections-on-the-2014-venice-biennale. 8 Rem Koolhaas et al., Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping (Köln: Taschen, 2001), 336-349. 9 The World Bank, “Global Economic Prospects: The Global Economy: On Track for Strong but Uneven Growth as Covid-19 Still Weighs,” World Bank, June 8, 2021, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2021/06/08/the-global-economy-on-track-for-strong-but-uneven-growth-as-covid-19-still-weighs. 10 Mark Stephens, Haydn Wright, and Gareth Luckwell, “Coronavirus and the Impact on Output in the UK Economy: December 2020,” Coronavirus and the impact on output in the UK economy - Office for National Statistics (Office for National Statistics, February 12, 2021), https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/articles/coronavirusandtheimpactonoutputintheukeconomy/december2020. 11 Leo Panitch, “How Capitalism Went Digital,” Tribune, November 24, 2020, https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/11/how-capitalism-went-digital. 12 “Operaist and Social Revolutionary Readings of Marx (from the Early 1960s),” MARX 200, March 2, 2017, https://marx200.org/en/marxism-think-one-two-many-marxes/operaist-and-social-revolutionary-readings-marx-early-1960s. 13 Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture within and against Capitalism (New York, NY: Buell Center/FORuM Project and Princton Architectural Press, 2008), 37 14 Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2011), 17. 15 Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture within and against Capitalism (New York, NY: Buell Center/FORuM Project and Princton Architectural Press, 2008), 72. 16 Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2011), 19. 17 Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture within and against Capitalism (New York, NY: Buell Center/FORuM Project and Princton Architectural Press, 2008), 73. 18 Pier Vittorio Aureli, Dogma - 11 Projects (London: AA Publications, 2013), 13. 19 Pier Vittorio Aureli, Dogma - 11 Projects (London: AA Publications, 2013), 11-13. 20 Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture within and against Capitalism (New York, NY: Buell Center/FORuM Project and Princton Architectural Press, 2008), 37. 21 Douglas Spencer, The Architecture of Neoliberalism: How Contemporary Architecture Became an Instrument of Control and Compliance (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 81. 22 Douglas Spencer, The Architecture of Neoliberalism: How Contemporary Architecture Became an Instrument of Control and Compliance (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 81. 23 Daniel Just, “A Biopolitics of Immaterial Labor,” Political Studies 64, no. 2 (December 2015): pp. 401-416, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.12185, 411. 24 Emrah Karakilic, “Acting Up with Hardt and Negri: Capitalism in the Biopolitical Context,” M@n@Gement 22 (2019): pp. 496-506, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3917/mana.223.0496, 504. 25 S. Ghosh, “Food Production in Cities,” Acta Horticulturae, no. 643 (2004): pp. 233-239, https://doi.org/10.17660/actahortic.2004.643.30. 26 Tim Lang, Erik P Millstone , and Terry Marsden, “Food Shortages, Brexit and Covid-19: How Britain’s PROBLEMS Converged at Christmas,” The Conversation, May 25, 2021, https:// theconversation.com/food-shortages-brexit-and-covid-19-how-britains-problems-convergedat-christmas-152412. 27 “IPCC Report: ‘Code Red’ for Human Driven GLOBAL Heating, Warns UN Chief | | UN NEWS,” United Nations (United Nations), accessed August 29, 2021, https://news.un.org/en/ story/2021/08/1097362. 28 Niall Patrick Walsh, “The Facts about Architecture and Climate Change,” ArchDaily (ArchDaily, August 18, 2021), https://www.archdaily.com/931240/the-facts-about-architecture-andclimate-change. 29 Tim Burrows, “Balfron 2.0: How Goldfinger’s Utopian Tower Became Luxury Flats,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, September 19, 2019), https://www.theguardian.com/ cities/2019/sep/19/balfron-20-how-goldfingers-utopian-tower-became-luxury-flats. 30 Reinier de Graaf, “‘Architecture Is Now a Tool of Capital, Complicit in a Purpose Antithetical to Its Social Mission’,” Architectural Review, July 21, 2020, https://www.architectural-review. com/essays/architecture-is-now-a-tool-of-capital-complicit-in-a-purpose-antithetical-to-its-social-mission. 31 Francesco Proto, Mass Identity Architecture: The Architectural Writings of Jean Baudrillard (New York, NY: Wiley, John, & Sons, 2003), 137.

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APPENDIX INFORMATION

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31 Author, History of Architecture and capitalism, 2021, Digital work, The Bartlett School of Architecture.