Title:
Culture of Circulation
Culture of Circulation
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Author(s)
Ockman, Joan
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Abstract
Once upon a time, in the days when modern
architecture was young, circulation through
a building was primarily a functional
problem. By the mid-twentieth century,
when the monument building morphed into
the spectacle-building, the circulation system
began to take on aesthetic implications of its
own and to become a central feature of a
building’s architectural identity. Think of Wright’s Guggenheim Museum or Saarinen’s
TWA Terminal. Of course, Baroque
architects already appreciated the expressive
potential of dynamic scenography four
centuries ago. But today the mania for
circulation spaces manifest in cutting-edge
architecture goes well beyond formal
virtuosity. Escalators, ramps, elevators, stairs,
bridges, catwalks—these privileged elements
of contemporary buildings not only belong to
a form-making culture that at all costs
(figuratively and literally) wishes to avoid the
appearance of fixity, but emanate from the
very structure of the neocapitalist imaginary.
In this talk we attempt an allegorical reading
of architecture’s “culture of circulation.”
What are the implications of an architecture
that is about circulation?
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Date Issued
2017-03-31
Extent
26:29 minutes
Resource Type
Moving Image
Resource Subtype
Lecture