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 "Logan Airport: a world-class upgrade for
the 21st century" (Late 20th century b1llboard)
BY REM KOOLHAAS
Rabbit is the new beef. ... Because we abhor the would turn into a novel; our concern k>r the masses
u LiliLarian. we haw condemned ourselves to a life-long has blinded us to People's Archirecrure. .Junkspace
immersion in the arbitrary.... !.AX: welcoming - seems an aberration, but it is essence, the main thing ...
possibly flesh-eating-orchids at the check-in counter.... product or the encounter between escalator and air
"Identity'' is the new junk food for the dispossessed, condition ing, conceiwcl in an incubator of sheetrock
globalization's fodder for the disenfranchised .... If (all three m issing from the history books). Continuity
space-junk is the human debris that litters the is the essence ofjunkspace; it exploits any invention
universe, junk-space is the residue mankind leaves on that enables expansion, deploys the infrastructure of
the planet. The built (more about that later) product of seamlcssness: escalator, <lir conditioning. sprinkler,
modernization is not modern architecture but fire shutter, hot-air curtain.... 1L is always interior, so
.Junkspace. Junkspace is what remains after extensive that you rarely perceive limi ts; it promotes
modernization has run its course or, more precisely, disorientation by any means (mirror, polish, echo)....
what coagulates while modernization is in progress, Junksp<Ke is sealed. held together not by structure, but
its fallou t. Modernization had a rational program: tO by skin, like a bubble. Gravity has remained constant,
share the blessings ofscience, universally. Junkspace is resisted hy I he same arsenal since the beginning of
its apo theosis, or meltdown .... Although its individual time; but air conditioning - invisible medium,
parts are the outcome of brilliant inventions, lucidly therefore unnoticed - has truly revolutionized
planned by human intelligence, boosted by infinite architeclure. Air conditioning has launched the
computation, their sum spells the end of endless building. II' architecture separates buildings,
Enlightenment. its resurrection as farce, a low-grade air conditioning unites them. Air conditioning has
purgatory.... junkspace is the sum total of our current dictated mutant regimes or organi?.aLion ancl
arhievement; we have built more than all previous coexistence that leave archi tecture behind. A single
generations together, but somehow we do not register shopping center now is the work of generations of
on the same scales. vVe do not leave pyramids. space planners. repairmen and fixers. like in the
Arcording to a new gospel of ug'liness. there is already Middle Ages; air conditioning sustains our cathedrals.
more Junkspace under const runion in the 21sL (UnwiLlingly, all architects may be worki ng on the
century than survived !rom l he 201 h .... H was a mistake same building, so far separate, but with hidden
to invent modern architecture for the 20th cenlury. receptors thai will eventually make it cohere.) Because
Architecture d isappeared in the 20th cenruty ; we have it costs money, is no longer fi·ee, conditioned space
been reading a footnote under a microscope hoping it inevitably becomes conditional space; sooner or later
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all conditionHl space turns into junkspace .... vVhen we and lighn.vcight, not articulated in different parts but
think about space, we have only looked at its subdivided, quartered the way a carcass is torn apart-
containers. As if space itself is invisible, all theory for individual chunks severed from a universal condition.
the production or space is based on an obsessive There arc no walls, only partitions, shimmering
preon.:upat ion with its opposite: substance and membranes fi·equently covered in mirror or gold.
objeCL'>, i.e., architecture. Architects could never Strunure groans invisibly underneHth decoration, or
explain space; junkspacc is our punishment for their worse. has become ornamental; small shiny space
mystifications. OK. let's tHlk Hbout spHce then. The frames support nominal loads, or huge beams deliver
beauty of airports, especially Hfler ea('h upgrade. The cyclopic burdens to unsuspecting destinations .... The
Juster of renovations. The subtlety or the shopping arch, once the workhorse ofstructures, has become the
center. Let's explore public space. discover casinos. depleted emblem of "community," welcom ing an
spend time in theme parks .... junkspace is the body infinity of virtual populatiom to non-existent there's.
double of space, a territory of impaired vision, limited Where it is absent, it is simply applied - mostly in
expectation, reduced earnestness. junkspace is a stucco - as ornamental afterthought on hurriedly
Bermuda triangle of concepts, a petri dish abandoned: erected superblocks. junkspace's iconography is 13%
it cancels distinctions, undermines resolve, confuses Roman, 8%Bauhaus, 7%Disney (neck and neck), 3%Art
intention with realization. It replaces hierarchy with Nouveau. followed closely by Maya11.. .. Like a substance
accumulation, composition with addition. More and thal could h<lVE> condensed in any other form.
more, more is more. Junkspace is overripe and junkspace is a domain of feigned, simulated order. a
undcrnourishing at the same time, a colossal security kingdom ofmorphing.lts specific configuration is as
blanket that covers the earth in a stranglehold of fortuitous as the geometry of a snowflake. Patterns
care .... junkspace is like being condemned to a imply repetition or uli imately decipherable rules;
perpetual jacuzzi with millions ofyour best friends .... A .Junkspace is beyond measure, beyond code .... Because
fuzzy empire ofblur. it fuses high and low, public and it cannot be grasped, .Junkspace cannot be
private. straight and bent, bloated and scarved to offer remembered.Jt is flamboyant yet unmemorable.like a
a seamless patchwork of' the permanently disjointed. screensaver; its refitsal to freeze ensures instant
Seemingly an apotheosis, spatially grandiose, the amnesia. junkspa('e does not pretend to create
effect of its richness is a terminal hollowness, a vicious perfection, only interest. Its geometries are
parody of ambition that systematically erodes the unimaginable, only makeable. Although strictly non-
credibility of building, possibly forever.... Space was architerlural, it tends to the vaulted, to the Dome.
created by piling maner on top of matter. cemented to Section:. seem to be devoted to uuer inertness, others
limn a solid newwhole.junkspace is additive. layered in perpetual rhetorical turmoil: the deadest resides
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next to the most hysterical. Themes casL a pall of function like hermit crabs for a vacant shell....
arrested development over interiors as big as the Junkspace sheds architectures like a reptile sheds
Pantheon. spawning stillbirths in every corner. The skins. is reborn every Monday morning. In previous
aesthetic is Byzantine, gorgeous and dark, splintered building, materiality was ba:,ed on a final state that
into thousands ofshards, all visible at the same time: a could only be modified at the expense of partial
quasi-panoptical universe in which all contents destruction. At the exact moment that our culture has
rearrange themselves in split-seconds around the dizzy abandoned repetition and regularity as repressive.
eye of the beholder. Murals used to show idols; building materials have become more and more
Junkspace's modules are dimensioned to carry brands: modular. unitary and standardized; substance now
my ths can be shared, hrands hushand aura at the comes predigitized .... As the module becomes smaller
mercy of focus groups. Brands in Junkspace perform and smaller. its Slat us become that of a crypto-pixel.
the same role as black hole~ in the universe: e~sences \<\Tit h enormous di Cf'i(u)ly - budget. argumen l,
through which meaning disappears .... The shiniest negotiation, deformation- irregularity and uniqueness
surfaces in the history of' mankind relleCl humanity at are constructed from idenrical elements. Instead of
its most casual. The more we inhabit the palatial, the rrying rowrestorder from chaos, the picruresque now
more we seem to dress down./\ stringent dress code - is wrested from the homogenized, the singular
last spasm of etiquette?- governs access to junks pace: liberated from the standardized .... Architects thought
short, sneaker. sandal. shell suit, fleece, jean, parka. of Junkspace first and named it Megastructure. the
backpack. As if the People suddenly accessed the final solution to transcend their huge impasse. Like
private quarters of a dictator,Junkspace is best enjoyed multi ple 13ahels, huge superstructures would last
in a state of post-revolutionary gawking. Polarities have through eternity, teeming with impermanent
merged. there is nothing left between desolation and subsystems rhatwould mutate over time. beyond their
frenzy. Neon signifies both rhe old and the new; control. In Junl<space. the tables are turned: it is
interiors refer lo the Slone and the Space Age al Lhe subsystems only, wi thout superstructure, orphaned
same time. Like the deactivated virus in an particles in search of framework or pattern. All
inoculation. Modern architecture remains essential. materialization is provisional: cutting, bending.
but only in its most sterile manifestation, High Tech (it tearing, (Oating: construction has acquired a new
seemed so dead only a decade ago!). It exposes what softness. like tailoring.... The joint is no longer a
previom generations kept under wraps: structures problem. an intellectual issue: transition<tl moment:,
emerge like springs h:om a mattress. exit stairs dangle are defined by stapling and taping. wrinkly brown
in didactic trapeze, probes thrust in to space to deliver hands harely mainl<tin the illusion of an unbroken
laboriously what is in f~1C t omnipresent, free air. acres surl~we: verbs unknown and unthinkable in
of glass hang from spidery cables, tautly stretched architectural history- damp. stick. fold. clump. glue.
skins enclose flaccid non-events. Transparency only shoot, double, fuse- have be(ome indispensable. Each
reveals everything in which you cannot partake. At the clement performs its task in negotiated isolation.
sound of midnight it all may revert to Taiwanese Where once detailing suggested the coming together,
Gothic. in three years segue into Nigerian Sixties. possibly forever. of disparate materials, it is now a
No rwegian Chalet or default Christian. Earthlings now transient coupling. waiting to be undone, unscrewed,
live in a kindergarten grotesque .... Junks pace thrives a temporary embrace with a high probability of
on design, but design dies in Junkspace. There is no separation; no longer the orchestrated encounter of
form. only proliferation.... Regurgitation is the new difference, but the abrupt end of a system, a stalemate.
ueativity; instead of creation, we honor. cherish and Only the blind. reading its fault lines with their
embrace manipulation .... Superstrings of' graphics, f'ingert ips, will ever understand Junkspace's histories ....
transplanted ernhlems of franchise and sparkling Vvhile whole millennia worked in favor of
infrastructures of light, LEOs, and video describe an permanence, axialities, relationships and proportion,
authorless world beyond anyone's claim, always the program of junkspace is escalation. Instead of
unique, utterly unpredictable, yet intensely familiar. development, it offers entropy. Because it is endless, it
Junks pace is hot (or suddenly arctic); fluorescent walls, always leaks somewhere in junkspace; in the worst
folded like melting stained glass, generate additional case, monumental ashtrays catch intermittent drops
heat to raise the temperature of junkspace to levels in a gray broth.... When did time stop moving forward,
where you could cultivate orchids. Pretending histories begin to spool in every direction.like a tape spinning
left and right. its contents are dynamic yet stagnant. oul of'conl rol? Since the introduction or Real Time'?
re(ydecl or multiplied as in cloning: forms search tor Change has been divorced ['rom the idea of'
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improvemenL Th~re is no progress; like a crab on LSD. can ei Lher be absolutely chaotic or fi'ighteningly
cul tu re sLaggers endlessly sideways .... The average aseptic - like a best-seller - overdetermined and
contemporary lunch box is a microcosm ofjunkspace: indeterminate at the same time. There is something
a fervent semantics ofhealth- slabs of eggplant, topped strange about ballrooms, for instance: huge wastdands
by thick layers of goat cheese -cancelled by a colossal kept column-free for ultimaLe llexibility. Re<·ause
(·ookie at 1he bottom.... Junks pace is draining and is you've never been invited to that kind of event, you
drained in return. Everywhere inJunkspace there arc have never seen them in usc, only being prepared with
seating arrangements, ranges of modular chairs, even chilling precision: a relentless grid of circular tables.
couches, as if the experience junkspace offers its extending towards a distant horizon, their diameters
consumers is significantly more exhausting than any preempling communication. a dais big enough for the
previous spatial sensation; in its most abandoned polifburo of a totalitarian s1ate. wings announcing as
stretches, you find buffets: utilitarian tables dra ped in yet unimagined surprises - acres of organizaLion to
white or black sheets. pcrhmctory assemblies of support future drunkenness, disarray and disorder. Or
caffeine and calories- cottage cheese. muffins. unripe car shows .... junkspace is often described as a space of
grapes - norional representations of plenty. without flows, hut that is a misnomer; flows depend on
horn and without plenty. EachJunkspace is connected, disciplined movement, bodies that cohere. junkspace
sooner or later. to bodily functions: wedged between is a web without spider: although it is an architecture
stainless-steel part it ions sit rows of groaning Romans. of the masses. each trajectory is strictly unique. Its
denim togas bunched around their huge sneakers .... anarchy is one of rhe last tangible ways in which we
Because iL is so intensely consumed , Junkspace is experience freedom. It is a space of collision, a
fanatically maintained, the night shift undoing 1he container of atoms, busy, not dense .... There is a special
damage of the day shift in an endless Sisyphean replay. way of moving injunkspace. at the same rime aimless
As you recover from junkspace. Jtmksp<Ke recovers and purposeful. It is an acquired culture. Junkspace
from you: between 2 and 5 am. yet another popula1 ion, features Lhe tyranny of the oblivious: somelimes an
this one heartlessly casual and appreciably darker. is entire junkspacc comes unstuck through the non-
mopping. hovering. sweeping, roweling, resupplying ... . conformity of one of its members: a single citizen of an
junkspace does not inspire loyalty in its cleaners ... . another culture- a refi.1gee. a mother- can destabilize
Dedicated to inslant gratification, junkspace an entire Junkspace, hold it to a rustic's ransom,
accommodates seeds of future perfection: a language leaving an invisible swath of obstruction in his/her
of apology is woven through its texture of canned wake, a deregulation eventually communicated ro its
euphoria; "pardon our appearance" signs or miniature furthest ex1remities. Where movement becomes
yellow "sorry" billboards mark ongoing patches of synchronized, it curdles: on escalators, near exits.
wetness, announce momentary discomfort in return parking machines, automated tellers. Sometimes,
for imminent shine. the allure of improvement. under duress, individuals are channeled in a !low.
Somewhere, workers sink on their knees to repair pushed through a single doo r or forced to negotiate
faded sertions- as if in a prayer- or half-disappear in the gap between two temporary obstacles (an invalid's
ceiling voids ro negotiate elusive malfunction- as if in blccping chariot and a Christmas tree): the manifest ill
confession. All surfaces arc archaeological. will such narrowing provokes, mocks the notion of
superpositions of different "periods" (what do you call t1ows. Flows inJunkspace lead to disaster: department
1he moment a particular type of wall-to-wall carpet was stores at the beginning of sales. the stampedes
current?) - as you note when they're torn .... triggered by warring compartments of soccer fans.
Traditionally, typology implies demarcation, the dead bodies piling up in front of the locked emergency
definition of a singular model that excludes other doors of a disco: evidence of the misfit be1ween the
arrangements.junkspace represents a reverse typolo~'}' porlals of.Junkspace and the narrow calibrations of the
ofcumulative, approximative identity. less abmll kind old world. The young instinctively avoid the Dantesquc
t h<1n about quantity. But formlessness is still form, 1he manipulations/containers to which .Junkspacc has
f()rmless also a typology.... Take the dump, where condemned their elders in perpetuity. Within the
successive trucks discharge their loads to form a heap, meta-playground of junkspacc exist smaller
whole in spite of the randomness orils contents and its playgrounds, junkspace for children (usually in the
!undamental shapelessness. or that of 1he Lent- least desirable square footage): sections of sudden
envelope that assumes dinerent shapes to miniaturization- often underneath staircases. always
accommodate variable interior volumes. Or the near dead ends - assemblies or uncler-dimt'nsioned
amorphous notches of the ncwgeneration.junkspace plastic structures-slides. seesaws. swings -shunned by
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their intended audience -kids- turned into junknichc if dedicated to differem species .... The ground is no
for the old, the lost, the forgotten, the insane... last more. There are mo many raw needs to be realized on
hiccup of humanism .... Traffic is Junkspace, fi·om only one plane. The absolute horizontal has been
airspace to the subway; the entire highway system is abandoned. Transparency has disappeared, replaced
junkspace, a vast potential utopia clogged by its users, by a dense crust of provisional occupation: kiosks,
as you notice when they've finally disappeared on carts, strollers, palms, fountains, bars, sofas, trolleys ....
vacation .... Like radioactive waste, Junl<space has an Corridors no longer simply link A to B. but have
insidious half-life.Aging injunkspace is nonexistent or become "destinations." Their tenant life tends to be
catastrophic: sometimes an entire junkspace - a short: the most stagnant windows, the most
department store, a nightclub. a bachelor pad- turns perfunctory dresses. the most implausible flowers. All
into a slum overnight without warning: wattage perspective is gone, as in a rainforest (itself
diminishes imperceptibly, letters drop out of signs, air disappearing, they keep saying...). The formerly
conditioning units start dripping, cracks appear as if straight is coiled into ever more complex
from othenvise unregistered earthquakes; sections rot, configurations. Only a perverse modernist
arc no longer viable, but remain joined to the flesh of choreography can explain the twists and turns. asccms
the main body via gangrenous passages. judging the and descents, sudden reversals that comprise the
built presumed a static condition; now each typical path fi·om checl<-in (misleading name) to apron
architecture embodies opposite conditions ofthe average contemporaty airport. Because we never
simultaneously: old and new, permanent and reconstruct or question the absurdityofthese enforced
temporary, flourishing and at risk .... Sections undergo derives, we meekly submit to grotesque journeys past
an Alzheimer-likc deterioration as others arc perfume, asylum seeker. building site, underwear,
upgraded. Because Junkspace is endless, it is never oysters, pornography. cell phone - incredible
closed .... Renovation and restoration were procedures adventures for the brain, the eye, the nose, the tongue,
that took place in your absence: now you're a witness, a the womb, the test icles .... There was once a polemic
reluctant p<~rt icipant.... Seeing Junkspace in about the right angle and the straight line: now the
conversion is like inspecting an unmade bed, someone 90th degree has become one among many. In fact.
else's. Say an airport needs more space. In the past new remnants oftormer geometries create ever new havoc,
terminals were added, each more or less characteristic om~ring forlorn nodes of resistance that create
of its own age, leaving the old ones as a readable unstable eddies in newly opportunistic flows .... \Nho
record, evidence of progress. Since passengers have would dare claim responsibility for this sequence? TI1e
definitively demonstrated their infinite malleability, idea 1hat a profession once dictated, or ar least
the idea of rebuilding on the spot has gained currency. presumed to predict, people's movements, now seems
Travelators are thrown in reverse, signs taped, potted laughable, or worse: umhinkable. Instead of design,
p<llms (or very large corpses) covered in body bags. there is calculation: the more erratic the path,
Screens ortaped sheetrock segregate two populations: eccentric the loops, hidden the blueprint, the more
one wet, one dry, one hard, one nahby, one rold. one efficient the exposure, inevitable the transaction. In
overheated. Half the population produces new space, this war, graphic designers are the great turncoats:
the more affluent half consumes old space. To where once signagc promised to deliver you to where
accommodate a nether world of manual labor, the you wanted to be, it now obruscates and entangles you
concourse suddenly turns into casbah: improvised in a thicket of cuteness that forces you past unwanted
locker rooms, coffee breaks, smoking, even real detours, turns you back when you're lost.
campfires .... The ceiling is a crumpled plate like 1he Postmodernism adds a crumple-zone of viral poche that
Alps; grids of unstable tiles alternate with fractures and multiplies the endless frontline of
monogrammed sheets of black plastic. improbably display, a peristaltic shrink-wrap crucial to all
punctured by grids of crystal chandeliers.... Metal duct~ commercial exchange. Trajectories arc launched as
arc replaced by breathing textiles. Gaping joints reveal ramp, turn horizontal without any warning, imcrscct,
vast ceiling voids (former canyons of asbestos?), beams, fold down, suddenly emerge on a vertiginous balcony
ducting, rope, cable, insulation, fireproofing, string; above a large void. fascism minus dictator. From the
tangled arrangements suddenly exposed to daylight. sudden dead end where you were dropped by a
Impure, tortured and complex, they exist only because monumental. granite stain.:ase, an escalator takes you
they were never consciously plolled. The Door is a to an invisible destination, facing a provisional vista or
patchwork: dir!erent tE>xtures- concrete, hairy, heavy, plaster, inspired by forgettable sources. (There is no
shiny, plastic, metallic, muddy- alternate randomly, as datum level; you always inhabit a sandwich. "Space'' is
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scooped our ofjunkspace as from a ~oggy block of ice do you think you are? Who do you want to bc?(:\<>Le to
cream thar has languished mo long in the freezer: architects: you thought that you could ignore
cylindrical. mne shaped, more or less !>phcrical. junkspacc, visit it surreptitiously, treat it with
whaW\'er....) Toilet groups mut<lle into Disney Store condescending contempt or enjoy it vicariously...
rhcn morph to become mcdiration ccmer: successive because you could not understand it, you've thrown
transiormatiom mock the word "plan." The plan is a away the keys .... But now your own architecrurc is
radar screen where individual pulses sutvivc Jor infecled, has become equally smooth, all-inclusive,
unpredictable periods of time in a Bacchanalian free- continuous. warped, busy, atrium-ridden ....)
for-all .... In this stanclofTbctween the redundanr and junkSignature'" is the new architecture: the former
the inevitable, a plan would actually make matters megalomania or a profession contracted to
worse. drive you to in\tant de~pair. Only the diagram manageable size,junkspace minus its ~aving vulgarity.
gives a bearable version. There b zero loyalty- and zero Anything stretched- limousines, body parts, planes-
rolcrancc - toward configuration. no "original" turns into Junkspacc. iLs original concept abused.
condition; arrhitccture has turned into a time-lapse Restore. rearrange, rea~semble. revamp, renovate.
sequence m reveal a "p('rmanen t evolu lion·.... The only revise, recover, redesign. return - the Partht>non
ccrtilinty is conversion- continuous- Jollowed. in rare marbles- recto, respect, rent: wrhs that start with re-
cases. by "re\toration," the process 1 hat claims cwr producejunkspace.... junkspact> will be our tomb. Half
new sections of history as extt'nsions of junkspilce. of mankind pollute~ to produce. the other pollutes to
Tli>tory corrupts, absolute history corrupts absolutely. consume. The combined pollution of all Third World
Color and m<llter arc eliminated ti·om tht!sc bloodless cars. motorbikes. trucks, buses. sweatshops pales into
grafts: the bland has become the only meeting ground insignificance compared to the heat generated by
for the old and the m'w.... Can the bland be amplified? junkspace. junkspacc is political: it depends on the
Th<.> featurt>less be exaggermcd? Through height? central removal ofrhc critical facu lry in the name of
Depth? Lcngt h? Variation? Repetition? Sometime\ not comfort and pleasure. Politics has become manifesto
owrload but its opposite, an absolute absence ofdetail, by Photoshop, seamles~ blueprints of the mumally
gt>ncrates.funkspace. Avoided condition of frightening exdusive, arbitrated by opaque NGOs. Comfort is the
sparseness, shocking proof that so much can be new justkt>. Entire miniature stal('S now adopt
organized by ~o little. Laughable emptiness infuses the Junkspact> as political program. estabhsh regimes of
rcspenful distance or tenl ative embrace that engineered disorientation. instigate a politics of
star<"hitects mai ntain in the prcsen<"e of the past, systematic disarray. Not exactly "anything goes"; in
aU[ hemic or not. Invariably. the primordial decision is fact, the secret of Junk~pacc is rhat ir is both
to leave the original intact; the formerly residual is promiscuous and repressive: as the formless
de<"larcd tlw new essence. focu~ of the intervention. As proliferates, the !onnal withers, and wi th it all rules,
a first step, the substance to be preserved is wrapped in regulations. 1-e<·oursc.... Babel has been misunderstood.
a thick pack of commerce and catering - like a Language is not the problem, just the new frontier of
rcluctanL skier push<.> d downhill by responsible junkspace. Mankind, Lorn by eternal dilemmas, the
minders. To show respect, symmt'lries are maintained impasse of~t.>emingly endless clt>bates, has launched a
and helple\sly exaggerated; ancient building new language that straddles unbridgeable dividt>s like
techn iques are resurrected and honed 10 irrelevant a fragile designer's f(Jotblidge ... coined a proactive
shine. quarrit.>s reopened to excavate the "same" stone, wave of new oxymorons to suspend former
indis<Teet donor nam<.>\ chiseled prominently in the incompatibility: life/)tyle, reality/fV, worldfmusic.
meekest of typefaces; the courtyard covered by a museumjstore, foodfcourt. heall hJcare.
masterful, ~lrucrura l "filigree" emphatically waiting/lounge. Naming has replaced class si ruggle,
uncompetirive- so thai continuity may he established sonorous amalgamations of status. high-<onccpt and
with the "re~t" of Junkspace (abandoned galleries. history. Through acronym, unusual tmportation,
dhplay slum~. jurassic concepts ...). Conditioning is suppressing letters, or fabrie<ation of non-existent
applied; filtered daylight reveals vast. antiseptic plurals, they ai m to \hed meaning in return tor a
expanses of monumental reticence and makes them spacious new roomint>~s .... junkspace knows all your
come alive. vibrant as a computer rendering .... 'lhe emotions, all your desires. lt is the interior of Big
cur..,e of public space: latent fascism safely smothered Brother's belly. It preempts people's sensations. It
in signage, stools, sympathy.... Junkspace is post- comes \\ith a sound! rack. smell. captions: it blatantly
existential; it makes you uncertain wh<>re you are. proclaims how it wants to be read: rich, stunning, <"O<>I.
obscures where you go, undoes where you were. Who huge. abstract, "minimal." historical. lt sponsors a
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 to EIIJT . _~·. . ...
collective ofbrooding consumers in surly anticipation franchises. the underpinning of brands. junkspacc
of their next spend, a mass ofrt"frdctory periods caught expand' with the economy but its footprint cannot
in <1 Thousand Year Reign ofRaumatatz. a paroxysm of contr<Kt... when it is no longer needed, it thins.
prosperity. The subject is strippt>d of privacy in return Because of ib tenuous viability, Junkspace has to
for access to a credit nirvana. You an.• complicit in the swallow more and more program 10 survive; soon, we
tracing of the fingerprints earh of" yonr transactions will be able to do anything anyvvhere. We will have
leaves; they know everything about you. except who conquert-d plan"'. At the end of Junksp<Ke. the
you arc. Emissaries of .Junkspact> pursue you in the Universal? Through Junks pace old aura is transliJst'd
formerly impc1vious privacy of the hedroom: the with new luster co spawn sudden conuncrcial viability:
minib<tr. private fax machines. pay TV offering Barcelona amalgamated with the Olympics. Bilbao
compromised pornography. fresh plastic wib with Guggenheim. 42nd wirh Disnt'y. God is clead.the
wrapping roilet scats, courtesy condoms: miniature author i~ ell'ad. history is dead, only the architt>rt b left
profit centers coexist with your bedside bible.... standing... an insulting cvolutionaty joke.... Ashortage
junkspace pretends to unite. but it aciUallv splinters. It of ma~tt'rs has not stopped a proliferation of
creates communities not of shared interest or fret' mastt'rpit'ce~. "\1aMerpiccc" has become a definit ivc
association. bur of identical statistics and unavoidable sa net ion, a wmanl ic space that saves the object from
demogrilphKs. an opportunistic weave of vested cnttctsm, leaves its qualities unproven, its
interests. r:ach man, woman and child is individually performance untested. its motives unquestioned.
targeted, tracked, split ofT from 1ht' re~t. ... Fragments Masterpiece is no longer an ioexplkable fluke, a roll of
c-ome together at "security" only, where a grid of" vi cleo the dice. but a consistent typology: its mbsion to
~creens disappointingly reassembles individual frames intimid;He. most of its exterior surf;tces bent, hugt'
into a banalized, utilitarian cubism 1har reveals perc-entages of its square footage dysfunctionaL its
Junkspace's overall coherence to the dispassionate t·entrifugal components barely held together by the
glare ofban•ly trained guards:videoethnography in its pull of the atrium. dreading the imminent arrival of
brute h>rm. Just as junkspace is unstable. it:..~ actual forensic accounting.... The more indeterminate the
ownet-:.hip 1s fi>rever being passed on in parallel city, rlw more \)Wrifk its junkspacc: all junkspacc's
disloyalty.junkspace happens spontaneously through prototypes arc urban · the Roman Forum. the
natural corporate exuberance- 1he unl~·ttered play of Metropolis; it is only their reverse syne11-'Y that makes
the market- or is generated through the combined them suburban. simultaneously swollt'n and shrunk.
ac-tions of temporary 'czars' with long records of three- junkspac-e reduces what is urban to urbanity.... Instead
dimensional philanthropy, bureaucrats (often IC.Jrmer of public life. Public SpaceT\(: what rem<tin~ ofthc city
leftists) thai optimistically sell oiT v<1st I racks of once the unpredictable has bt"en removed .... Space for
waterlront. former hippodromes. military ha,es and "honoring," "sharing," "caring," "grieving" and
abandoned airfields to developers or real estate moguls "ht'aling" ... dvilily imposed by an overdo~e ofserif.... In
that can accommodate any deficit in futuristic the third Millennium, junkspace will assume
balances. or through Default Preservation""' (the responsibility for plt'asurc and religion. exposure and
maintenance of historical complexes that nobody intimacy, public life and privacy. Inevitably, tlw dt-at h
w;mts but the Zeitgeist has declared sacrosanct). As its of God (and the author) has spawned orphaned space;
sc;1le mu~hrooms- rivals and even exceeds 1hat oft he junkspacc is authorless, yet surprisingly
Public - its economy becomes more inscrutable. Its authoritarian .... At tht' moment of its greatest
financing is a dcliherare hazt-, clouding opaque deals. emancipation, humankind is subjected to the mosr
dubious tax breaks, unusual incentives, exemptions, dictatorial scripL~: rrom the pushy oration of the
tenuous legalities, transferred air rights, joined waiter. to the answering gulags on the other end of the
properties. special zoning districts, public-private tt'lephonc. the safety instructions on 1he airpl<tnt',
complicities. funded by bonds. lottery, subsidy, chariry, more and more insistent perfumes, mankind is
!,'l'<ml: an erratic flow of yen. curos and dollars (¥€$) browbeaten w submit to the most harshly engineered
creates financial envelopes that arc as fragile as their plotline.... TI1e chosen theater of megalomania - the
contents. Because of a structural shorrfall, a dicrarorial - is no longer politics, but entertainment.
fundamental deficit. a contingent bankruptcy, each TI1rough Junkspace, entertainment organizes
square inch becomes a grasping. needy surface hermetic regimes of ultimate exclusion and
dependent on covert or overt support. discount, concentration : concentration gambling.
compensation and fundraising. Forntlture. ·engraved concentration golf, concentration nmvenl ion,
donor bricks"; foreve1ythingelse: cash, rt:>ntals, leases, concentration movie, concentration culture.
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concentration holiday. Entertainmenr is like watching interior phl7as: a Post-ir universe: ·ream mcmot'Y.'
a once hot planet cool off; its major inventions are "information persistence-: futile hedges against the
ancient: the moving image, the roller coaster. sound, universal forgetting of the unmemorablc. the
cartoons. clowns, uni(.)'cles, dinosaurs. news, war. oxymoron as mission statement. Witness corporatt'
Except celebrities · of which there is a dramatic agir-prop: the CEO's suite becomes ~leadership
shorragc- we have added nothing, just reconfigured. collecti ve," wired to all the world's other junkspace.
Corpotainment is a galaxy in contraction, forced to go real or imagined . .!::space becomes c-spact'. Thl' 21st
through the motions by ruthless Copernie<m laws. TI1e centu1y will bring "intelligent" Junksp<~ce: on a big
secret of corporate aesthetics was the power of digital ~dashboard": sales. CNNNYSENASDAQC-SPAN,
elimination. the celebration of the ef"ficient, the anything 1hat goes up or down, from good to bad.
eradication or excess: abstraction as camounage. the presented in real time like the automotive thN>ry
search for a Corporate Sublime. On popular demand. course rhat complements driving lessons ....
organized beauty has become warm. humanist. Globalization rums language into Junkspace. We arc
inclusivist. arbllrary. poetic and unthreatening: water stuck in a speech-doldrums. The ubiquity offnglish is
is pressurized through very small holt'S. then forced Pyrrhic: now that we all speak it. nobody remembers
into rigorous hoops: su-aight palm' arc bent into its use. TI1c collective bastardization of English is our
grotesque poses, air is burdened wi 1h added ox'Ygen- as most impressive achievement; we have broken its back
i r only forcing malleable substances into the most with ignorance. arcent, slang, jargon. tourism,
drasl ic contortions maintains control. S<ttisfies the outsomcing and multitasking... we can make it say
drive to get rid or surprise. Not canned laugh ter, but anythingwewant,likcaspccchdummy.... Through the
canned euphoria .... Color has disappeared to dampen retrofilling of language, there are too few plausible
the resulting cacophony, is used only as cue: relax, words left: our most creative hypotheses will nl'Vl'r lw
enjoy. be \WII; we're united in sedation .... Whycan'twe formulated. discoveries will remain unmade. concepts
tolerate \tronger sensations? Dissonance? unlaunched. philosophies muffled. nuances
Awkwardness? Genius? Anarchy?....Junkspace heals. or miscarried.... We inhabit sumptuous Potemkin
at least that is the assumption of many hospitals. We suburbs of weasel terminologies. Aberrant linguistic
thought the hospital was unique- a universe iclent i lied ecologies sustain virtual subjects in their claim to
by irs smell- but now that we arc used lO universal legitim<~cy. help them survive .... Language is no longer
conditioning we recognize it was merely a prototype: used to explore. define, express, or to confi·on t hut to
all .Junkspan-' is defined by its odor. Orten heroic in fitdge. blur, obfuscate, apologize and comfort... it
size. planned with the last adrenaline or modernism's st<~kes claims. assigns victimhood, preempts debate,
grand impiration, we have made them (too) human; <~dmils 1-,'l.tilt, losrcrs consensus. Entire organizations
life or death decisions are taken in spaces that are and for pro less ions impose a descent into the linguistic
relentlessly friendly. littered with fading bouquets. equivalent of hell: condenmed to a word·limbo,
empty coffee cups and yesterday's papers. You used 10 inmates wrestle with words in ever-descending spirals
face death in appropriate cells. now your nearest are of pleading. lying. bargaining. nauening... a Satanic
huddled together in atriums. A bold datum line is orchestration oft he meaningless.... Intended for the
cstablisht'd on evet'Y vertical surfiKe. dividing the interior.jun k\pace can easily engulfa whole city. first.
infirmary in two: above an endless humani~t scroll of it escapes from ib containers- semantic orchids that
"color," lowd ones, children's sunsets, si~,rnagt> and needed hothouse protection emerging with surprising
an ... below a utilitarian zone for dcfaccmt'nl and robustness -th(•n the outdoors iL~elfis converted: the
disinfectant. <tnl icipated collision. scra tch, spill and street is paved more luxuriously, shelters proliferate
smudge .... Junkspnce is space as vacation; lht'rr once carrying increasingly dictatorial messages. tranic is
was a relationship between leisme ancl work, a biblical calmed. crime eliminated. Thenjunkspace spreads like
dictarr thai divided our weeks. organized public life. a fi)rest fire in LA.... The global progress ofJunkspacc
Now we work harder. marooned in a never-ending represents a final Manifest Destiny: the World as public
casual friday.... The office is the next frontier of space.... All the resurrected emblems and rekindled
Junkspace. Since you can work at home. the office embers of the formerly public need new pastures. A
aspires tot he domestic; because you still need a life. it new vegetal iSC"orrallt'd for its 1hematic efficiency. The
simuliltt'\ the ciry.junkspace features the office as the outing of junkspact' has triggered the
urban home. a meeting-boudoir: desks bet·ome professionalizat ion or denaturing, a benign em-
sculptures. the workiloor is lit by intimate clown lights. fascism that posit iom a rare surviving Siberian tiger in
Monumental partitions, kiosks. mini-Starbucks on a !orest or slot machines, ncar Armani. amidst a
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twisted arboreal Baroque .... Outside, between the destination. Airports, provisional accommodation for
casinos, fountains project entire Stalinist buildings of those going elsewhere, inhabited by assemblies united
liquid, ejaculated in a split-second. hovering only by the imminence of their dissolution, have
momentarily, then withdrawn with an amnesiac turned into consumption gulags, democratically
competency.... Air, water, wood: all are enhanced to distributed across the globe to give every citizen an
produce Hyperecology'" , a parallel Walden. a new equal chance of admission .... MXP looks as if all the
rainforest. Landscape has become Junkspace. loliage as leftovers of'Easr Germany's reconstruction- whatever
spoilage: trees are tortured, lawns cover human was needed to undo the deprivations of Communism -
manipulations like 1hick pelts or even toupees, have been hurriedly bulldozed wgether according to a
sprinklers water according to mathematical vaguely rectangular blueprint to form a botched
timetables.... Seemingly at the opposite end of sequence of deformed, inadequate spaces, apparently
.Junkspace, the golf wurse is in fact its conceptual willed into being by the current rulers of Europe.
double; empty. serene, free of commercial debris. The extorting limitless euros fi·om the community's
relative evacuation oflhe golf course is achieved by the regional funds. now causing endless delays for its
further charging oCJunkspacc. The methods of their duped taxpayers too busy on cell phones LO notice.
design and realization arc similar: erasure, tabula rasa. DFWis composed of three elements only, rl:'peated ad
reconfiguration.junkspace turns into biojunk; ecology infinitum, nothing else: one kind ofheam, one kind of
inro ecospace. Ecology and economy have bondE-d in brick, one kind of tile, all coated in rhe same color- is it
junkspace as ecolomy. The economy has become teal? Rust? Tobacco? Its symmetries scaled beyond any
faustian; hyperdevelopment depends on artificial recognition, the endless cutve ofits terminals forces its
underdevelopment; a huge global bureaucracy is in users to enact relativity theory in their quest for the
the making to settle. in a colossal yinfyang, the balance gate.lts drop-off is the seemingly harmless beginning
betweenJunkspace and golf, between the scraped and of a journey to the heart of unmitigated nothingness,
the scaped, trading the right to despoil for the beyond animal ion by Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen.... Valley
obligation to create steroid rainforests in Costa Rica. cullurl:'s wl:'re thought to be the most resistant to
Oxygen banks, fort Knoxes of chlorophyll. eco-reserves .Junkspace: at GVZ you can still see a universe of rules,
as a blank check for further pollution. Junkspace is order, hierarchy, neatness, coordination, poised
rewriting the apocalypse; we may die of oxygen moments before its implosion, but at ZHR huge
poisoning.... In the past. the complexities ofjunkspace "timepieces" hover in fi·ont of interior waterfalls as an
were compensated by the stark rawness of its adjunct essay in Regionaljunk. Duty-free is junkspace,
infrastructures: parking garages, filling stations, .Junkspace is duty-free space. Where culture was
distribution centers that routinely displayed a thinnest, will it be the first to run out? Is emptiness
monumental purity that was the original aim of local? Do "vide open spaces demand wide open
modernism. Now, massive injections of lyricism have junkspace? Sunbelt: huge populations where there
enabled infrastructure - the one domain previously was nothing; PHX: warpaint on every terminal, dead
immune to design. taste or the marketplace- to join Tndian outlines on every surface- carpet, wallpaper.
the world ofjunkspace. anclfor ]lmkspace to extend its napkins - like frogs ilallened by car tires. Public Arl
manifestations under the sky. Railway stations unJold distributed across T./\X: the fish that have disappeared
like iron butterf1ies, airports glisten like cydopic from our rivers return as public art in the concourse;
dewdrops, bridges span often negligible banks like only what is dead can be resurrected. Memory itself
grotesquely enlarged versions of the harp. To each may have turned inro Junkspace; only those murdered
rivulet its own Calatrava. (Sometimes when there is a will he remembered .... Deprivation c;m he caused by
strong wind. this new generation ()(' instrument~ overdose or shortage; both conditions happen in
shakes as if being played by a giant, or maybe a God, junkspace (often at the same time). Minimum is the
and mankind shudders ....).Junkspace can be airborne, ultimate ornament, a self-righteous crime. the
bring malaria to Sussex; 300 anopheline mosquitoes contemporary Baroque. It does not signifY beauty. hut
arrive each day at GDG and GlW with the theoretical guilt. Its demonstrative earnestness drives whole
ability to infect 8 to 20 locals in a 3 mile radius, a civilizations into the welcoming arms of camp and
hazard exacerbated by the average passenger's kitsch. Ostensibly a relief fi·om constant sensorial
reluctance. in a misplaced gasp of quasi-autonomy, to onslaught, minimum is maximltm in drag. a stealth
he disinfected once he or she has buckled up for the laundering of luxury: the stricter the lines, the more
return journey from the dead end or the tourist irresistible the seductions. Tts role is not to
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approximate the sublime, but to minimize the shame of endless quantities of the Real - stone, trees, goods,
or consumption, drain embarrassment, to lower the daylight. people- into the unreal. Entire mountains are
higher. Minimum now exists in a state of parasitic co- dismembered to provide ever-greater quantities of
dependency with overdose: to have and not to have, authenticity, suspended on precarious brackets,
naving and owning, finally collapsed in a single polished to a blinding state of flash that renders the
signi rier.... Museums arc sanctimonious junkspace: no intended earnestness instantly elusive. Stone only
sturdier aura than holiness. To accommodate the romes in light yellow. flesh. a violent beige, a soap-like
converts they have attracted by default, museums green, the colors of Communist plas tics in the 1950s.
massively turn "bad" space in to "good" space; the more forests are felled, their wood is all pale: maybe the
untreated the oak. the larger the profit center. origins of junkspace go back to the Kindergarten...
Monasteries inflated to the scale ofdepartrnent stores: ("Origins" is a mint shampoo that stings the anal
expansion is the third millennium's entropy, dilute or region). Color in the real world looks increasingly
die. Dedicated to respect mostly the dead, no cemetery unreal, drained. Color in virtual space is luminous,
would da re to reshuffle corpses as casually in the name therefore irresistible. A surfeit of reality TV has made
or current expediency; curators plot ha ngings and us into amateur guards monitoring a Ju nkunive rse ....
unexpected encounters in a donor-plate labyrinth with From the lively breasts of l he classical violinist, to the
the finesse of' the retailer: lingerie becomes "Nude, designer sluhble of lhe Big Brother outcast, the
Action. Body," cosmetics "History, Memory, Society." contextual pedophilia of the forme r revolutionary, the
All paintings based on black grids are herded together roULine addictions of the sta rs, the runny makeup of
in a single white room. Large spiders in the the evangelist, the ro botic body language of the
humongous conversion o1Ier delirium lor the conductor, the dubious benefits of the fimdraising
masses .... Narrative reflexes that have enabled us from marathon, the futile explanations of the politician: the
the beginning of time to connect dots, !Ill in blanks, swooping movement of the TV camera suspended fi:om
are now turned against us: we cannot stop noticing: no its boom - an eagle vvithout beak or claws. just an
sequence too absurd. tri vial, meaningless, insulting ... optical stomach - swallows images and confessions
through our ancien t evolutionary equipment, our indiscriminately, like a trash bag, to propel them as
irrepressible auemion span, we helplessly register, cyber-vomit in space. TV studio sets - garishly
provide insight, squeeze meaning. read intention: we monu mental- are both the culmination and the end or
cannot stop making sense out of the utterly senseless .... perspectival space as we've known it: angular
On its triumphal march as content provider. ar t geometric remnants invading starry infinities; real
extends far beyond the museum's ever-increasing space edited for smooth transmission in virtual space.
boundaries. Outside, in the real world. the "an crucial hinge in an infernal feedback loop... the
planner" spreads Junkspace's fundamental vastness ofjunkspace extended to the edges of the Big
incoherence by assigning defunct mythologies to Bang. Because we spend our life indoors -like animals
residual surfaces and plotting three-dimensional in a zoo- we are obsessed with the weather: 40% of all
works in leftover emptiness. Scouting for authenticity. TV consists of presenters or lesser attractiveness
their touch seals the fate of what was real. taps it for gesturing helplessly in front of windswept rormations,
incorporation in junkspace. Art galleries move en through which you rerognize. sometimes, your own
masse to where it is "edgy," then convert raw space into destinationjcurrenl position. Conceptually. each
whi te cubes .... The only legitimate discourse is loss: art monitor. each TV screen is a substitute tor a window;
replenishes .Junkspace in direct proportion to its own real life is inside. cyberspace has become the great
morbidity. We used to renew what was depleted. now outdoors.... Mankind is always going on about
we try to resurrect what is gone .... Oulside, the architecture. What ifspace started looking at man kind?
architect's footblidge is rocked to the breal<ing point Will junkspace invade the body? Through the vibes of
hy a stampede of enthusiastir pedestrians; the the cell phone? Has it already? Botox injections?
designers' initial audacity now awaits the engineer's Collagen? Silicone implants? liposuction? Penis
application of dampers. Junkspace is a look-no-hands enlargements? Does gene therapy announce a total
wo rld .... The constant threat ofvirtualiry in .Junkspace reengineering according to Ju nkspace? Is each of us a
is no longer exorcized by pelrorhemical products, mini-construction site? Mankind the sum of3 to 5 billion
plastic, vinyl or rubber; the synthetic cheapens. individual upgrades? Is il a repertoire of reconfiguration
junkspace has IO exaggerate its claims to the authentic that ri:tcilirares the intromission of a new species into its
Junkspace is like a womb that organizes the transition self-madeJunksphere?Tile cosmetic is the new cosmic...
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