design map

What is the vocabulary of the Architecture of Power ? What is the post-Beaux Arts monument to power? What is the place of the monument in a world where it is not politically correct anymore to demonstrate power?

 click on image for mid_term pdf

Politics is in the envelope. The envelope registers political forces. At a macro scale, the envelope serves as an icon; it should be graphic and photogenic, ideal for broadcasting. It has to be designed purely for effect. It carries a function of its own, independent of the program inside. As Loos saw it, the monument's functionality exists solely on a visual plane. The envelope becomes a cohesive representation of a multi-faceted reality. At  a micro scale, the envelope responds to programmatic needs. It registers inner pressures and external desires.

Where democracy meets a dictatorship, capitalism socialism, the envelope is not purely representative of one man's political power, but visualizes the complex politics involved in its creation, and in different ways exerts itself political power.Can Ghaddafi play with the rest of the Big Boys?

"Tall buildings have become paradigmatic of the representation of power in the city, be it of a corporation in a city or of a political regime.

40% of the world's highrise have been built since 2000.

8% of tall building stock in the world is under construction right now." (from A. Zaera-Polo, The politics of the Envelope)

A google search for 'monument' and 'iconic building' shows that the obelisk archetype is, in popular culture, the solution to both. 

 The Tower is the monument par excellence. The contemporary icon is trying to incorporate as many of the archetypal monuments as possible. The tower is also an arch, a pyramid, a statue. All of these archetypes have gained further meaning.

The Third theory - the media tower in Tripoli will be both organizational and representational, expressing the multitude of powers acting upon it within a unitary envelope.

The grandstand will disappear when no one is there to occupy it. Those who are unable to preform the roles of heroism in life, who are ignorant of the events of history, who fall short of envisioning the future, and who are not serious enough in their lives, are the trivial persons who fill the seats of theaters and cinemas, to watch the events of life and to learn their course.

People are only harmonious with their own arts and heritages. They are not harmonious with the arts of others because of heredity, even though those people, who differ in heritage, speak one common language.

from the Green Book, Muammar Gadaffi

mid_term_jiggle from luca farinelli on Vimeo.