Right its official I need a thesaurus, and I don’t think a pocket one is going to cut the mustard. I mentioned a common theme running through the texts we’ve been looking at last week, but this blog is definitely developing a common theme of its own. Cutting to the heart of the text for me has not only been about teasing the issues out but also cutting through the language these guys are throwing around; I swear some of these authors have been involved in some kind of decade’s long linguistic pissing contest.
We’re talking (hopefully in words of less than 5 syllables) social Space this week, but it’s not all cocktail bars boys and girls, no no no we’re dealing with Henri Lefebvre here. He kicks off by explaining the difference between work and product. To understand the difference between the two we’re going to look at a couple of TV shows: Gardener’s World & Grand Designs. I can feel the anger bubbling up again, Kevin McLeod (grand designs presenter) illicits that same feeling of rage that Zaha Hadid does, the idea that this hack pretty much represents architecture, (my Profession!!) as far as the average man in the street is concerned, is so overwhelmingly depressing it’s all I can do to not disappear into a dark room with the Radiohead back catalogue and a bottle of scotch.
We’re rapidly getting off track again that’s two rants in three paragraphs, anger’ll do that to a man, let’s start breaking this down. If we start with ‘work’ as Lefebvre describes it we’re into the realms of Gardeners World - A flower is work, it is an object that has no political leanings, it is. It doesn’t know that it is beautiful and its growth can’t be scrutinised to find efficiency savings. Gardeners World cannot delve deeper into the growth of a flower there’s nowhere to go with it, flowers grow, they’re pretty, they die end of.
For ‘product’ we look to Grand Designs, a kitchen is a product, it is designed and its design can and is influenced by many factors (need, want, fashion, technology), sadly for Kev he has no idea this is the case. Humans are creatures of production, we analyse our own ideas yet nothing on Grand Designs is looked at past the level of work, the kitchen is stunning and the heart of the family home but not once does Kev ask why it’s a mass produced IKEA kitchen with soft close drawers and a Smeg Fridge. Or for that matter not once does he ask the couple with 2 kids and another on the way why they’re only building two bedrooms but have a fantastic triple height living space. Sorry I’m struggling with my rage again, sometimes counting to ten just doesn’t work.
Lefebvre moves on to talk about Venice, a city which he believes represents both work and product, the whole is a work born of the sea, anticipating its own death like a flower, but its constituent parts are works – houses like those on grand designs. I’m fascinated by this idea that Venice can be both but as the main man says, other cities are simply product I think you could argue in the same way that Venice defiantly rises from the sea that Vegas defiantly rises from the desert. I’m not sure where I stand on this one and to delve any deeper now would unravel this whole situation and we’re too close to the end for me to allow that to happen.
Tuscany next and we’re into more products, Tuscan farms representing the human domination of the landscape, we’re into product again. Once you start dominating a landscape from scratch you’re going to do it with thought with leanings, it might be a collection of people (planning authority, government, tribe) or it might be the local big dick showing the plebs just how powerful he is – that he can literally mould the landscape to suit his whims.
I’m going to end where I started, on another commonality between this and earlier texts, it’s that idea of whipping the slate clean and starting again, Ms Hadid had a real Jones on for this idea if you remember, Lefebvre is backing me up here though, he says that no space can be removed entirely there will always remnants of it left behind. Now is it just me or if it’s there should you not have the decency to acknowledge it, even if you decide not to incorporate anything of it into a new design, but maybe that’s just sentimental (slightly angry) old me.
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