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American Junkspace: The Discourse of Contemporary American Architecture

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 86 Delcour 87

American Junkspace:
The Discourse of Contemporary
American Architecture

A d a m N o wek

“Cities exist in time rather than space” (Kingwell, 2008, p.

XA 19). It is a bold statement from Mark Kingwell, a contem- XA
XS porary philosopher, and yet it is one that at once captures XS
XS the relationship between architecture and culture. If we XS

understand culture to be a commodity to be consumed

(Gunster, 2004, p. 3), the site of production (Frank, 1998,
p. 18-19), an entity whose ideologies and dissemination
processes ultimately have effects that cultural theorists
and consumers alike are struggling to effectively describe
(Jenkins, McPherson & Shattuc, 2002, p. 11), and the
place “where the lived experience of historical change”
(Grossberg, 2006, p. 10) occurs, architecture is the ideal
cultural exemplar to examine in order to gain a greater un-
derstanding of culture’s relationship to time. Below in this
essay, I examine two iconic pieces of twenty-first century
architecture in the United States that received nearly uni-
versal acclaim within the architectural discipline, namely

*
Adam Nowek is an independent
researcher, professional photogra-
pher, and editor based in Amsterdam.
He received a Research Master’s in
Urban Studies from the University of
Amsterdam in 2013 after conducting
thesis research on the aesthetics of
high-rise residential architecture in
the Lower Mainland and the Pearl
River Delta.
 88 Nowek
the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco,
and the Seattle Central Library. In looking at the two
cases, I analyse the individual public discourses regard-
ing the two, by exploring, first, how the architectural dis-
“Architecture serves as a barom-
eter for the social, political, and
economic ethos of the age”
cipline has commented on the designs, and second, how
popular critique has appeared in various forms of news
media. These discourses will be interpreted through the
lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis. I ultimately argue that
what contemporary American architecture provides is a
site both of fluid discourse and entrenched conflict regard-
XA ing the course of American culture.
XS
XS
Architecture as Quotidian Culture
In his brief mentioning of Fascist Italian architecture, Sla-
voj Žižek (1997) discusses two case del fascio designed by
two architects with evidently divergent styles (p. 3). Each
casa, which was found in many major urban Italian cen-
tres, was essentially the centre of the Italian social/political
existence and “their link to the outside world” (Kirk, 2005,
p. 97). Giuseppe Terragni’s version of the casa was trans-
parent, modern, and rational (Kirk, 2005, p. 97-98), while
Adolfo Coppedè’s version blended Fascist symbols with or-
nate Renaissance design (Kirk, 2005, p. 101). Ultimately,
for Žižek (1997), the juxtaposing architectures place the
“inherent [psychological] contradiction of the Fascist ide-
ological project” in plain sight for all to see (p. 3). In this
sense, architecture serves as a barometer for the social, po-
litical, and economic ethos of the age, specifically because it
acts as a physical manifestation of ideology within culture.
American Junkspace 89
Terragni’s casa illuminates the modernist and consumer-
ist impulses extant in Fascist Italy, while Coppedè’s casa
suggests a fundamental connexion between the rich tradi-
tion of Italian art and design, and the emergent Fascist
values of a distinct mode of economic production; a set of
values that is not entirely congruent with fascist modern-
ism and consumerism. In cultural terms, the role of the
casa as a meeting place for discussion, political action,
and news from the government in Rome bound the city
itself, as well as the greater discipline of Italian architec-
ture, to the cultural moment defined by the contradictions
evident within the rise of Italian Fascismo.
While the United States has not recently had any dormant
authoritarian tendencies piqued, architecture has stood
importantly within its contemporary sense of culture. Ar-
chitecture is, indeed, “the setting of everyday life” (Upton,
2002, p. 707), and, as such, it is a critical component of the
daily routines and social interactions that characterise our XA
XS
lives, and not necessarily our ‘culture’ as such. To specu- XS
late on the thoughts of eminent cultural theorist Lawrence
Grossberg, this is precisely why we should study architec-
ture in Cultural Studies: the crucial object of study is not
the cultural artefact itself, but rather the context within
which the object itself operates and interacts with soci-
ety (as cited in Cho, 2008, p. 104). While the opinions
of critics and practitioners of architecture certainly are
of importance, it is the opinion of the individual user of
the building - from the security guard to the person who
walks by on their way to work – that matters to forming
vernacular views of a piece of architecture, though muted
criticism from individuals can be interpreted as a symp-
tom of a greater issue. While the two pieces of architec-
ture discussed below are two types of civic institutional
buildings (i.e., a museum and a library) in two American
cities (i.e., San Francisco and Seattle), they are nonethe-
less useful examples of contemporary American architec-
ture. This is because of the seemingly untouchable status
of the architects involved (Merrick, 2006, p. 44) and the
 90 Nowek
nearly unanimous praise from architecture critics con-
trasting with their mixed public receptions, thus allowing
a glimpse into what architecture does at the site of cul-
ture’s creation.
For the purposes of analysing these buildings and the dis-
courses surrounding them, I incorporate the perspectives
of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Lacan’s theory of psychoa-
nalysis is one of early, swift, and (ideally) precise diagno-
sis of the source of psychological symptoms (Fink, 1997,
p. 75-76). In a sense, there is a strong emphasis on pin-
pointing the problematic symptoms in order to dictate a
strategy for treatment. In relation to architecture, Lacan
devoted surprisingly few words to expounding upon the
built environment in an explicit manner. However, that
Lacan himself refers to architecture’s nature as being “or-
ganised around emptiness” (as cited in Holm, 2003, p. 29)
is suggestive both of Lacan’s own position on architecture
XA
(i.e., that architecture serves as a spatial manifestation of
XS
XS diagnosable symptoms for architects, planners, citizens,
or society) as well as how to utilise psychoanalytic theo-
ries and methods in interpreting buildings (e.g., through
a reading of design elements that leads to an assessment
of the symbolic thrust of said designs). By adopting this
theoretical lens, I am not seeking to revolutionise how we,
as humans, theorise perceptions of the built environment.
Rather, the importance here is to diagnose the gaps be-
tween two dialectics that generally occur in self-contained
social silos (i.e., the professional/practitioner dialectic and
the citizen/public dialectic) in order to attempt to bridge
these gaps.
American Junkspace 91
Herzog & De Meuron’s de Young Museum
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. San Francisco, California. Designed by
Jacques Herzog + Pierre de Meuron. Photograph taken by author.
XA
XS
XS
The new de Young Museum, designed by Swiss architects
Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron (Sudjic, 2005), is
a modernist building situated in Golden Gate Park with
a copper perforated panel façade and an imposing tower
that rises above the trees in the surrounding park, offer-
ing a complete view of San Francisco (Woodbridge, 2005,
p. 61). The structure has been widely praised by critics
as having a great sense of openness (“porous,” in archi-
tecture speak) (Amelar, 2005, p. 111), and a design that
blends well into the foliage of the garden directly in front
of the building (McGuigan, 2005, p. 68). The de Young has
also been lauded for its capability for seismic resistance:
the structure was built in such a manner that the mu-
seum could twist during an earthquake (Gonchar, 2006,
p. 168), moving up to a maximum of ninety-one centim-
eters (Ashmore, 2006, D1.2). In 2006, the de Young was
voted the Best Overall Outstanding Architectural Design
in California during 2006 for “innovative” employment of
“materials and technique” (“Best public”, 2006, p. 8). San
 92 Nowek
Franciscan media portrayed the new de Young as a pro-
vocative, necessary step in order for San Francisco, as a
city, to engage in the “acceptance of change” (King, 2005,
CM-6), as a signifier of entering a post-modern epoch. This
hearkens back to Fascist Italian architecture: practition-
ers and critics of design sought to trumpet the de Young as
a symbol of an America engrossed in an ideology of (post-)
modernness. According to Kingwell (2008), “[b]uilding is
a project of finding our way” (p. 154), and the de Young is
an intriguing step along the path less taken by San Fran-
cisco’s civic planners.
Despite the glowing praise, however, assessments regard-
ing the building are far from unanimous. Prior to the build-
ing’s construction, San Franciscans twice voted against
measures that would have ensured public funding for the
new de Young (della Cava, 2005, p. 9D), though it is un-
clear whether or not this is a result of objection to the de-
XA sign or to the cost to the individual tax-paying citizen. The
XS
XS museum has been referred to as a “playpen of pretense”
(King, 2005, p. CM-6) from “San Francisco’s moneyed elite”
(Smith, 2010) that “looks like a rusted aircraft carrier”
(Woodbridge, 2005, p. 61). A local project management
consultant claims that the new de Young “lack[s] ... context”
in a city full of neoclassical structures, does not properly
account for its essence as an art gallery, and is ultimately
a “bland” and “gimmick[y]” design (Fusco, 1999). Artist
James Turrell makes an especially audacious claim, namely
that the architects themselves hold an authoritarian vision.
In discussing his frustration of designers of art museums
seeking to curate the collections of their buildings, Turrell
violates Godwin’s Law: “I find myself thinking about that
German architect from the Second World War who we aren’t
supposed to mention these days. I wonder why they don’t
try and run the country as well” (as cited in Sudjic, 2005).
The criticism noted above implies that, through the con-
struction of the new de Young, San Francisco, as a city, will
be losing a sense of identity through the forceful imposition
American Junkspace 93
of a radically different architectural aesthetic at a major
civic institution. The view is not entirely accurate: after
all, perhaps the most enduring aspect of the city “is its
layered, fluid, always shifting contracts between sover-
eign individuals” (Kingwell, 2008, p. 37), and, indeed, the
buildings that complement our existence. While the demo-
lition of the previous de Young removes a spatial connex-
ion between San Francisco’s culture and its history inside
the boundaries of Golden Gate Park, the construction of
the new, shifts the cultural position of the old to that of
“The de Young is precisely the
space where culture serves as
Grossberg’s ‘lived experience of
historical change”
XA
XS
XS
the temporal where the old de Young building is no longer
a contemporary piece of culture, but a historical relation
to a prior age. Conversely, the new building, beyond being
a material object, is a symbol of ideology and politics. If
we accept Žižek’s suggestion (2001) that a critical study
of culture addresses salient “public ideologico-political de-
bates” (p. 215), it is possible to uncover more nuances
within this particular discourse. In this sense, that Fusco’s
opposition to the new de Young is not entirely well argued
is not the important element here. Rather, the fundamen-
tal issue is that, despite widespread technical praise for
the design of the building, local criticism can be read psy-
choanalytically as a symptom.
Fusco’s vitriolic rhetoric appears to be less of a genuine ar-
chitectural critique that provokes a fluid discourse regarding
the public use of the building rather than being indicative
of the construction of the new building disrupting Fusco’s
sense of the ‘Real’ in San Francisco’s civic life. Indeed,
 94 Nowek American Junkspace 95

Fusco’s rhetoric recalls the psychoanalytic concept of in-

terpassivity, wherein “the object itself takes from [Fusco],
deprives [Fusco] of, [his] own passivity” (Žižek, 2006, p.
24). In a sense, the action of voicing unconstructive con-
cerns (i.e., activity) deprives Fusco of an internalised sense
or desire of having contributed positively to the discussion
of this particular piece of architecture (i.e., passivity). The
abstract object here is discourse: rather than the fruitful
engagement of discussion, Fusco’s reactions can be read as
demonising statements that do not warrant a reply, and,
as such, satisfy Fusco’s profound dissatisfaction with the
disruption of his interpretation of the nebulous ‘real’ San
Francisco. Perhaps in more concrete terms, other critics
interpret the construction of Herzog & de Meuron’s build-
ing as an affront to public space by the powerful upper
class of San Francisco. On the other hand, the proponents
for the new de Young view a bold architectural statement
in San Francisco as a necessary cultural step for American
XA architecture to separate itself from San Francisco’s ubiqui-
XS
XS tous neoclassical architecture that links American culture
and thought with that of the classic Greeks. Both sides of
the debate share one commonality: that a particular form
of new architecture within public space is the proverbial
signpost at which San Francisco’s culture will transform
itself. This building is precisely the space where culture
serves as Grossberg’s previously mentioned “lived experi-
ence of historical change”.
OMA + LMN’s Seattle Central Library
While the de Young occupies part of a public park and is
frequented by hordes of tourists, the Seattle Central Li-
brary can be said to be much more of a truly civic building.
Located in the heart of downtown Seattle, the architects
view the Central Library as “an institution no longer ex-
clusively dedicated to the book” (Office of Metropolitan
Architecture {OMA}, 2004), and thus the library, as a civic
institution, needs to transform into a modernised version
Seattle Central Library. Seattle, Washington. Designed by Rem Koolhaas +
Joshua Prince-Ramus. Photograph taken by author.
of itself. Critics have noted that the building accomplishes XA
XS
this not only in theory, but also in practice. For instance, XS
the Library organises its collection in continuous shelving
units spanning five floors (Masters, 2005, p. T14), rather
than the traditional stacks seen in the majority of contem-
porary libraries. In essence, by using the new Central Li-
brary, Seattleites are ensuring the practical redefinition of
the purpose of civic space. The Library is no longer merely
a warehouse of books, but a repository of information that
spans varying forms of media. This is not simply futurist
rhetoric of change for the betterment of society, as seen
in Fascist Italy; rather, it is a cultural redefinition in prac-
tice. If we understand media as a physical environment
itself, as Marshall McLuhan does (McLuhan & Fiore, 1967,
p. 26), then the fluid structure of the library appears as the
twenty-first century’s physical embodiment of an “acous-
tic space” with “the primordial feeling” (McLuhan & Fiore,
1967, p. 63) in the American context. Ultimately, this re-
invention of a major Seattle civic space was recognised
by the American Institute of Architects with distinction
in 2004 (Northwest Construction 2005: 24), primarily
 96 Nowek
due to the combination of the façade design and the un-
conventional reorganization of the library’s materials and
resources (“Best public”, 2004, p. 13). The award itself is
recognition from practitioners of the return of informa-
tion, knowledge, and culture to the realm of the primordial
in an age of digitised materials.
“The American city is itself a
spatio-cultural junkspace”
The construction of the OMA design received less opposi-
tion from the community during the planning stages in
comparison to that of the de Young: civic taxpayers paid
for the majority of the building’s cost (Goldberger, 2004, p.
90). Criticism does, however, linger. While Rem Koolhaas,
XA one of the principal architects in the project, states that his
XS
XS “masterpiece actually has an interior” (as cited in Zalews-
ki, 2005), the Library has been routinely criticised for the
point at which the interior meets the exterior at street lev-
el. According to the remarkably blunt David Dillon (2004),
“it is a disaster”, due to the “nondescript” entranceways
(p. 14E). It has been referred to as a “startling, even terri-
fying” “glass behemoth” (Kennicott, 2009, p. E04), and as
a building that displays the tensions of the modern library
rather than resolving them (Ouroussoff, 2007). One Seat-
tleite writing to the Seattle Times claimed that the new de-
sign was “pure ugliness and stupidity cloaked in a honey-
comb of elitist self- importance” (as cited in Cheek, 2000,
p. 23). Much like Fusco’s criticism of the new de Young
Museum, diatribes focusing on creating a scathing insult
rather than a constructive critique can be interpreted as
the symptom of a greater issue at hand. While viewing the
new library as ‘elitist’ certainly suggests that there may be
an element of growing class distinction within Seattle, its
greater context as an extended ad hominem attack makes
this relatively unlikely.
American Junkspace 97
While criticism of the new de Young focused on a sense of
history and a tradition of architecture unique to the city of
San Francisco, criticism in Seattle arose from two distinct
aspects of the design: the entranceways, and the overall
design. In terms of the entranceways to the Library, a focus
on minutiae of an immense structure appears to indicate
technical and practical critique from architects and build-
ing occupants alike. Criticism of this nature appears to be
aimed specifically at the functioning of the building. In a
sense, there is an underlying appreciation and enjoyment
of what the Library itself offers as a valuable civic struc-
ture. Criticism regarding the entirety of the design, how-
ever, does not serve this purpose. While referring to the
building’s design as “stupid” and “disastrous”, or the archi-
tects as “bloviating buffoons in black turtlenecks” (Malkin,
2000, p. A10) would certainly be viscerally satisfying, it
uncovers a culture of contrarianism extant alongside cri-
tiques that avoid ad hominem attacks. This is not to say
that those subscribing to this sentiment are ‘wrong’ or ‘in- XA
XS
ferior’: indeed, all opinions in the formation of culture are XS
crucial for consideration. Rather, it is evident that there is
a fabricated divide between technical critique and popular
critique. Sensing a knowledge gap between the public and
the designers, the popular feels an inability to engage in
what they perceive to be a technical discussion between
those that possess cultural capital and academic training
and those that do not, thus prompting personal attacks di-
rected towards individual character and fashion style. The
negative public reaction is in essence placed against what
is perceived to be a cultural domination of particular view-
points that may be threatening the existence of other es-
tablished viewpoints; in this case, more historically-rooted
and potentially conservative stances of how American civic
institutional structures should be designed.
 98 Nowek
Conclusion
While analyses of public discourses in print media outlets
regarding a mere two contemporary civic institutional
buildings in the United States cannot offer a definitive
picture of how architecture relates broadly to Americans
and American culture, these cases provide hints of inter-
esting trends worthy of research. Namely, contemporary
architecture in the United States is becoming what Rem
Koolhaas (2002) refers to as ‘junkspace’. For Koolhaas
(2002), junkspace “replaces hierarchy with accumula-
tion, composition with addition” (p. 176). With the ad-
dition of structures being built with designs rarely seen
before outside of the architectural playgrounds of Western
and Northern Europe, the American city is itself a spatio-
cultural junkspace. Moreover, the American public sphere
is no longer what Jürgen Habermas (1991) would refer to
as a bourgeois public sphere: rather than “regulat[ing]...
XA civil society” (p. 52), it is encouraging it. The knowledge
XS
XS and opinion gaps between the practitioners and the users
of modern civic institutional buildings are suggestive of a
period of transition for the role that architecture plays, as
well as the role that it is perceived to play, within the con-
temporary United States. These discourses regarding the
physical public symbols that help constitute the built en-
vironment may not always be constructive or dialectical,
but they indicate that, while architecture has progressed
through rational modernist uniformity to messy postmod-
ernist pluralities, the readers of these cultural texts exist
in a junkspace state of flux, wherein the relevant actors
appear to refuse to even be interested in bridging extant
gaps with the other relevant actors.
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