The Question of Excess

The Question of Excess

Marina Carretero

Architecture and excess have been together for ages. In one or another way these two terms have been complementary for each other. The question and the worries come in the how. How after the Modern movement and beginning of the Postmodernism the language and meaning of architecture have changed so much. Why this tendency and persistency in changing things and trying to think in a “solution”, in a way out of the current situation. It is obvious that there was stack period on late modernism, but it is also true that the way it was solved was too much thought, giving results sometimes even worse that the stuck in where architecture was immerged. Often the works were full of non-justified intellectualism that afterwards was lost in time, lost as fads.

Some of these fads and disclosures about postmodernism were exposed in Greenberg essay “Avantgarde and Kitsch”. He used the German word kitsch to argument the consumerism and its consequences on art.

He was worried about the the distance between the kitsch and the highart. When he wrote this essay, the kitsch art, or the art for the low classes

Example of Kitsch as a result of consumerism and fad.

Marina Carretero

was just emerging, but nowadays things have changed and the main concern is how far are one to another, or what is even worse, is the high-art still there? For the author the main problem is this space left between the mass culture and the elite culture. As he described it, Kitsch is just the consequence of the capitalist world we inhabit and its reflections on art.

For him this derives into the completely illiteracy of people.

Around 40 years later, Jameson related his thought about postmodernism that were also related to capitalism and consumerism. From a Marxist point of view, he criticized postmodernism again for being the consequence of a lack of culture of the mass. He replaces Greenberg´s term of Kitsch by pastiche, being again a lack of judgment and culture that was (is) affecting the mass. He sees it as the commodity fetishism described by Marx. It implies by definition the connection to the current conditions, meaning Jameson was describing, just as Greenberg did, the situation they were living, similar to the one we are currently experiencing. It is, and has been a period of “cultural disaster�, a mess that started and have not end. Just as said at the beginning of the essay, postmodernism was (is?) a time of too many reflections without conclusions, or at least with no good results.

As these two architects argued we live in a time of consumerism and capitalism. This derives into the eager for excess. Excess that is translated to everything, even (of course) architecture. It does not necessarily mean excess on budget, but excess on its pretensions, excess on its language. The egocentrism that capitalism has created is reflected in every field. It may be good sometimes, because it can make you stronger, it can give that push that is sometimes needed. But talking about architecture it is different. It is this desire for shine over others, trying to get the best project what makes it a SHIT. There is no need to struggle trying to find something new. This overacting makes me sick.

Action | Chapter 5

Yes. I am talking about examples like this.

And yes, I am leaving a white spread after this for the reader to make his own conclusions.

But just wait. Let’s give the MASTER a word before.

Marina Carretero

Les Espaces d’Abraxas 1982, Marne la Vallée, Paris, France.

As the landmark building of the new Ville nouvelle of Marne-la Vallée, the complex consisting of Le Palacio, Le Théâtre and L’Arc needed to have a monumental and symbolic character in order to make them meeting place and point of reference for the new town. While its impact on the urban fabric is not decisive, Les Espaces d’Abraxas perfectly fulfils its role as an urban monument marking the beginning of the new town. Imbued with this representative character, the three buildings are laid out in a baroque space, more French in some areas, more Mediterranean in others, to constitute a great public space in which the monumentality provides the backdrop to the “noblest” area of the new residential development. By virtue of this, Les Espaces d’Abraxas have become the symbol and reference point for a large part of the Marne valley.

Ricardo Bofill Program 591 dwellings and public spaces Client le palacio: cnh 2000.

Le théâtre and l’arc: sad’hlm, les trois vallées Gross area 47,000 m2

Action | Chapter 5

Marina Carretero

Action | Chapter 5