[INVISIBLE CITIES]
CONCEPT - THE DETACHED CITY
STUDIO 2 - LSoA
// BRIEF
Referencing the travelogues of Marco Pollo in Calvino's 'Invisible Cities', develop a narrative that can inform an architectural response. Focus on the social, political and economic forces which influence the development of our urban environments and how 'invisible' forces such as surveillance, fortification, mobility and security inform and shape our perspectives on the world.
// RESPONSE
My interpretation of the design brief has led me to look into the culture of consumerism, as both the creator and destroyer of our urban environments. The intimate relationship between urban and rural that channels material products across the globe, seeing the natural world not as a human environment but as a resource base from which the urban form is able to assemble.
// RESPONSE
My interpretation of the design brief has led me to look into the culture of consumerism, as both the creator and destroyer of our urban environments. The intimate relationship between urban and rural that channels material products across the globe, seeing the natural world not as a human environment but as a resource base from which the urban form is able to assemble.
Capitalism has enabled a global consumer framework to emerge, concentrating elements within the process in order to maximise efficiencies and thus economic gain, above all, has become the marker for human progress.
Calvino demonstrates the fragility of this system within a number of his travelogues, as below, describing the linearity of a system destined to fail:
Isaura: a city increasingly reliant upon an invisible resource base.
Leonia: a city defined by waste, as an addiction to the novel threatens to engulf the city under a sea of discarded products.
Zenobia: a speculative projection of our future urban environments, a desert city telling a story of a resource rich past.
The process of capitalist production as outline by Annie Leonard in 'The Story of Stuff' [2011]
'A Linear Economy'
The linearity of global capitalism. The focus here, and for the project as a whole, is that the image of the system is dominated by consumerism.
Especially within the 'developed' world, we experience the consumer realm as an abstract environment, the rest is often written off as an invisible entity and is carefully choreographed so as not to impact on our ability to consumer and ultimately, reproduce the system.
Especially within the 'developed' world, we experience the consumer realm as an abstract environment, the rest is often written off as an invisible entity and is carefully choreographed so as not to impact on our ability to consumer and ultimately, reproduce the system.
'The Capitalist Agenda'
'Capital Aspirations'
The dominance of capitalism as an ideology owes much to the psycho-social impact of the commodity.
Jean Baudrillard describes consumerism not as an economic but as a symbolic exchange within a system of objects and that consumption is not merely a physical act but a social act in which the symbolic value defines ones position within society.
Jean Baudrillard describes consumerism not as an economic but as a symbolic exchange within a system of objects and that consumption is not merely a physical act but a social act in which the symbolic value defines ones position within society.
The alignment of social heirarchy and consumerism is not a contemporary phenomenon, however, the accessibility of commodities through the efficiencies of the global market and the contemporary bombardment of advertisements has constructed a globalised social order based on artificial needs, which ultimately maintains the system whilst enslaving both the producer and the consumer to a lifestyle of capital aspirations.
'The Detached City'
With the domination of the capitalist system as an urban framework, the resultant image projected within the 'developed' city is that of sterilised consumerism. This urban environment, characterised by corporate power and an idealised consumer image, is defined in contrast to the rural. A dangerous monologue in a climate of environmental uncertainty, the city has become detached (both mentally and physically) from the very systems which support life within it.
