Collections of the unconscious

An architectural critique-from-within on economic speculative architecture; By creating a series of speculative architectural proposals the integrity of architecture itself is questioned through practice. . This crisis is presented in a Greek tragedy called where the architectural protagonist embarks on a journey through this crisis

Collections of the unconscious is an architectural critique on economic speculative architecture as it appears within the architectural competition; in this case the Chinese shopping mall. With this project, I’m looking into phenomena such as empty shopping malls, ghost architecture and other purely economic speculative projects. An experiment in juxtaposing Kulturindustrie and Zeitgeist within the architectural drawing. In these drawings elements of Kulturindustrie such as everyday spacial experiences ranging from generic buildings(infrastructure) to novelty experiences with a high surface character(experiences); are used in relation with Zeitgeist elements. Those elements can be somewhat difficult to define, but the following example is how Kulturindustrie and Zeitgeist are perceived in Collections of the Unconscious. The shark tank example(fig 1.1): in 2012 a small shopping mall in Beijing made the news because a glass shark tank broke and flooded parts of the mall, this made worldwide news. The Installation of artificial elements, like exotic plants, water an historical elements in a safe and easy to consume environment has always been part of the shopping mall. Those elements act like facilitators to counteract the ease in which we consume (we are not hunting for food nor are we crafting our own goods), this creates a void that needs to be filled with those elements. So here the shark tank is a product of a Kulturindustrie, showing the shark in a safe way, but diluting the experience because no risk is involved. At the moment when the tank starts to burst. There is a speculative moment of what will happen. When the tank actually burst the safeguards are removed and the boundaries are blurred, who is the hunter and who is the gatherer? In Collections of the unconscious the drawings are in a similar balancing act between Kulturindustrie and Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist...the shark that got away...the suicide in the atrium...black market...ghost malls...