- New alliances
Objects and architectures orient us in space. They establish our social, cultural and spatial position relative to the common ground we form. Architecture and design have often failed to consider the multiplicity of perspectives, beings and bodies that inhabit and are affected by it. As such, there is an imperative to challenge the established character of objects, architectures and the ways they come to be.
City of My Dreams is an initial experiment in an ongoing project which intends to re-orient architecture’s historical interest in phenomenology towards recent critical developments, particularly a queer phenomenology. Looking past the popular narrative of the site, the project layers histories, memories and imaginations to give form to that which is not immediately seen, known or experienced. A sundry gathering of small civic architectures - each with their own willful character - engage the existing ground and create a new common ground on which we gather.
“In the beginning, the city got its seal and mark: walls and towers by water. I’ve gotten lost among endless sidewalks, but the air is fresh in the spring sun and tourists are searching for fossils; involuntary companions of colonists and refugees - residents of museums - hack with small axes, chisels and spades. The fishermen pitch their tents in a long line and I don't know if I really like Whiskey or if I just enjoy it because it reminds me of when I was living in Scotland.”
City of My Dreams acknowledges the multitude of narratives that define the city and presents a view, or a way of seeing, that projects these narratives into a field where the physical, the imagined, the historical and the remembered exist simultaneously.
A collection of personal narratives originate a series of public programs that are situated within the site as new civic architectures in such a way as to engage, enhance and orient specific relationships within it.
For example - A casual description of a memory evoked by a pastry bag recalls a shopkeeper as he takes off his watch, listens as he winds it, cleans its face and puts the watch back on his wrist again.
This voyeuristic memory originates a voyeuristic architecture that is both a watch tower for watching the city, and a clock tower for the city to watch. It reflects the opposite existing facade and frames a proposed square within the building fabric of the site with an elevated walkway above it.
