hıdden jewels

When tasked with designing a city hall for Burning Man, first question I thought of was what do we know about Burning Man? Where does our information really come from? It is probably a safe bet to say it is social media, specifically mostly from the “influencers” on Instagram. These posts on social media inevitably curate an idea of Burning Man for us. This is one thing about social media, it creates layers of reality that habituates us on different layers. Thus, what if Burning Man actually started curating its images to advertise itself in a certain way but hid some elements from us. Would we ever know?

A festival that got its start as a fantasy to create a sovereign state that aids people to come together and celebrate humanity, unfortunately, with the exponentially rising ticket prices is becoming more and more like a resort and making less and less layers of its reality available to the average Joe. Many avid Burners are now replaced by celebrities who are seeking to look trendy.

In my project, on the 366th day, Burning Man is no longer an experience, but a product. It is a permanent place where people pay astronomical prices to go, so they can post their “uncommodified experience”, yet vacation for the rest of the day. The building is placed at the heart of Burning Man as a power move on city hall’s behalf and for the sake of directionality, the building sits on a man-made column field condition enabling the building to gain shape in a vast shapeless desert.

Bibliography:

1) Bratton, Benjamin H. The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015.

2) Gilmore, James H., and Joseph B. Pine II. The Experience Economy. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2011.

3) Feireiss, Lukas. Utopia Forever: Visions of Architecture and Urbanism. N.p.: Gestaltenn.d.

4) Jodidio, Philip. Architecture Now! Vol. 10. N.p.: Taschenn.d.

5) Bansal, Garima. “The Five Principles of Le Corbusier and Monumentality Concept of Louis Kahn.” Sushant School of Art and Architecture. https://www.scribd.com/doc/222139603/The-Five-Principles-ofLe-Corbusier-and-Monumentality-Concept-of-Louis-Kahn.

6) Weisman, Aly. “Here’s what the inside of a ‘fancy celebrity camp’ at Burning Man looks like.” Insider. https://www.thisisinsider.com/burning-man-celebrity-camp-2016-9.

7) Groth, Aimee. “The real reason Burning Man isn’t for regular folks.” Quartz. https://qz.com/255532/thereal-reason-burning-man-isnt-for-regular-folks/.

This city hall presents three layers. Along with the virtual layer, there is the desired and the needed layers that consist the physical presence of the building. As Kahn suggested, the desired spaces form the served spaces of the building, while the servant spaces (located inside the rock shells) aid the operations of the building. As the desired is the “self-reliant”, the needed “someone to rely on” is hidden for the sake of protecting the function of desired spaces.

As a result, the building is an extension of its prime Instagrammable spots revolving around providing its “citizens” with quality virtual presence and comfortable luxury simultaneously.

The programs in the building include education on Burning Man, advising on Instagram presence and building systems.

Instagram Space

Needed Spaces Desired Spaces

Education on Burning Man Lounge Space & Temple View Deck

Advising Offices for Instagram Efficiency

Head Guru’s Office

Attorney’s Office

PR’s Office

Head of Operations’ Office

Creative Team

Registration for BM Post Permits

Auditorium

Servant Spaces

Digital Archive Room for Past Instagram Posts

Meeting Hammock

For this project to be exemplified in real life, an Instagram page has been created for it. The content on this page is specifically curated to maintain the “self-reliant” image of Burning Man. For example, on the bottom left example is inspired by one of the most popular shots to be taken at Burning Man, posing in front of the Temple. However, the picture fails to show the shallow Japanese pool that the person is standing in.

In order to emphasize on this duality of personalities and feasting in anonymity, the entourage of these images wore Venetian inspired masks.

Overall, inspired by the layers of a geode, this building aims to question the virtual vs real images and how architecture can govern through enabling or disabling a social idea for different communities.

Instagram Page

Instagram Posts

Venetian Masks