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Walter Benjamin’s
“the arcades project” (passagenwerk)
commodity consumption
and popular culture within the architecture of the arcade
Walter Benjamin – early 20th century German
philosopher and social critic
• Benjamin’s work focused on the “everyday” and the “discarded refuses” of modern industrialism and popular culture.
• Benjamin’s focus on the 19th century Parisian arcades built to accommodate the increases in commodity production where changes in popular culture could be experienced in the exchange of goods between buyer and seller within a controlled interior environment.
• These spaces became the forerunner of the modern- day supermarket and arcade that now consume many spaces around the world.
Parisian Arcades – 19th century - insertion of shops and commodities in sealed climatically controlled environments.
the shopping mall acts as an oasis where the world of holidays
is in incessant rebirth and regeneration
the mall is constantlychanging its appearance, anchoring itself to an
evolving present in a magical process
working is the mundane side of life, but being a consumer is potentially its most poetic or symbolic pay-off
Site’s changes – the architecture of pop and trash into the spaces of consumption – theme park design.
so it is not too difficult to project that all space is commoditizing
the body within the new architectural spaces of the arcade,
mall and supermarket
• so
this studio will be based on designing hyperspaces as
prototype for a supermarket/arcade chain-store that will spread its way across Europe
site of project - in and around Innsbruck
super U - projects in brief• 1a. research project – spaces of consumption – detail your own shopping
experience – can be supermarket, department store, kitchen store, tools store, car yard, electrical store, sports store, music store etc.
• Note: this detailing will be realized firstly as photographs/video and secondly as a plan of the store and its contents - layout of the plan will be in A1.
• 1b. research project – collect and research images of 10 spaces in where there is some relationship between architecture and consumption existing anywhere in the world.
• 2a. the storage stack - design a prototype for shelving to be used in your supermarket/arcade.
• 2b. space creation – design a space solely constructed out of this shelving prototype.
• 2c. check out – design a prototype of the bar coding of products and the exchange of money between customer and supermarket employee.
• 3a. circulation study – take a place of intersection in the city of Innsbruck and create a demographic modeling showing the tracings over a given hour of how people move within your designated environment i.e., either a public, commercial or institutional spaces.
• This project can be executed in video, collage stills photography, drawing and/or animated through computer software.
• Designing automatic and interactive relationships between objects and consumer will also be explored throughout the studio.
super U – projects cont.
major project
Designing a supermarket/arcade that will seek to from new relationships between consumer and seller, architectural design and constructed space and between bodies and commodities.
• The Interior
• The supermarket/arcade shall have an overall capacity of 40,000 square meters – what the supermarket/arcade contains i.e., all sectors of goods found in the everyday supermarket in the same space e.g. food items, plus various accessories found in most common supermarkets spread within the interior of the building.
• The Exterior
• The site is to be in Innsbruck with an overall land size of 30,000 square meters.
• Emphasis will be placed on buildings overall form and design, facade treatments, materials and construction techniques.
• Parking plan and programming.
Studio Influences• Many – it’s all around us – but look at the American 80’s
architectural firm – SITE.
• Look at Las Vegas architecture – look at Robert Venturi’s work and more than anything else – go and shop – sit in an arcade – be homeless – and do the circuit of the supermarket.
• Essentially the experience of the modern supermarket is a bland horizontal orientation. The work of the studio will be to investigate architectural design in many different forms and orientations – emphasis will be placed on inventing new forms in the designing and construction of space for the housing of commodities and of-course bodies who buy.