Junkspace: Kansas City

Junkspace

Kansas City Nick Fratta Theory of Urbanism Prof Vladimir Krstic Kansas City Design Center

"If space-junk is the human debris that litters the universe, junk-space is the residue mankind leaves on the planet"

http://commons.wikimedia.org. U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Digital Visual Library

Overview The language of REM Koolhaas’ Junkspace is at first off putting and captivating due to his use of imagery, though the core critique in his writing becomes at risk of convolution. When this use of imagery can be understood as a tool of metaphor, images of buildings exchangeable with their counterparts of greater scale, new understanding of architecture and the city emerge. Where Koolhaas criticizes the contemporary practice of architecture for its perpetual making of placeless space – Junkspace, it is evident too that Junkspace is a persistent condition of the city, not confined to single buildings or complexes.

Koolhaas focuses primarily on the physical environment, however, and it seems natural that evolution of Junkspace would lead to permeation into digital space as well. Perhaps it could be argued that the digital environment, is a direct product of Junkspace – an extension of the occupiable disingenuous. So to better understand the full meaning and implications of Koolhaas’ writing, I turned to the virtual Junkspace – the web.

Numerous design blogs and theory forums provide enhanced understanding of Koolhaas’ language and imagery as literary critical devices. “With its decreased line spacing, centrally aligned text, fondness for ellipses and half-finished invectives – Koolhaas’ essay emulates the very space which it is seeking to criticize. The text washes over you; bathes you in its smugness; invites your mind to wander, to be distracted by the playfulness of the language, to be swept along in its scattergun broadsides. Don’t look too hard, it says, or ponder too long, otherwise you might be blinded by the inconceivable vastness of the simulacra.1” If not blinded by the simulacra, within the language is found primary arguements against modern and contemporary design. “Koolhaas’ stream-ofconscious text “Junkspace” encapsulated neither a cynical denial nor an embrace of globalization, but instead offered an account of the inevitable acceptance of what architecture (or what was once architecture) must face.2” One writer best simplified the complexity of his writing style by saying: “In JS Koolhaas does not try to keep distance through the formal construction of the writing. Hence, it may be legitimate to read his essay indeed as kind of a seriously taken diagnosis.3” “A seriously taken diagnosis.” This phrase remained conscious in my mind as I re1.http://artypants-caw.blogspot.com/2011/11/against-junkspace.html Johnson, Peter. “Opinion: Against Junkspace.” http://artypants-caw.blogspot.com. N.P. Web. December 16, 2012.

2. http://archinect.com/features/article/55285437/manhattanisms-ram-s-vs-rem Maymind, Alexander and Matthew Persinger. “Manhattanisms: RAM(s) vs. REM.” Archinect.com. Pidgin Magazine, Issue 11. Princeton University School of Architecture. Web. August 14,2012. December 16, 2012.

3. http://theputnamprogram.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/junkspace-extracted/ monoo. “Junkspace, Extracted.” http://theputnamprogram.wordpress.com. N.P. Web. December 16, 2012.

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approached Junkspace. Having spent the previous semester critically analyzing Kansas City and the Historic Northeast Community at an urban scale, I began to replace the imagery of the writing with elements of the city – air-conditioning, mechanics of the building, with highways and power lines, infrastructure of the city, joints, union of building elements, with axes, union of urban elements, mutative building use with devolution of zoning – and formulating my own serious diagnosis of our urban state.

The following work details through images taken from web sources and comparative analysis of selected passages Kansas City’s critical urban issues. As indicated by the Junkspace diagnosis, the urban issues fall into five larger categories: dis/continuity, flow, simulacra, duality, and communications. “Dis/Continuity” discusses the benefit of continuity and the consequences of discontinuity as a result of highway and utility infrastructure. “Flow” examines the entry sequence of and between areas of the urban core, and where they fail to develop a compelling urbanism.

“Simulacra” critiques the tendency of new development to imitate and borrow styles, and the consequences of an environment that doesn’t exist beyond its own self-reference. “Duality” proposes much of the city is inherently indecisive in its character, and consequently in its urban trajectory. “Communications” focuses on the ubiquity of commercial messages, and how the over saturation of communication becomes a meaningless white noise at an urban scale.

Describing Kansas City in terms of Junkspace is not to say that our city is in anyway confined or doomed to perpetuate Junkspace endlessly. Understanding the city as Junkspace allows a keen designer to identify and isolate specific design issues that have evidently gone thus far neglected. Revealed in the following series of writings, Kansas City is an architecturally and urbanistically beautiful city, with much to be proud of, and much to learn from itself.

Dis/Continuity Continuity Empire of Blur Joints Perfunctory Assemblies Sheetrock Permanent Evloution Splintered Communities

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Flow

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Simulacra

29

Duality

43

Flow Grotesque Journey

Transparency The Curse of Public Space Landscape Adjunct Infrastructures Renewal, Ressurrection Invade the Body

Discharge Aging Conquered Space Public Life, Public Space

Communications Murals Language Ubiquity of English Memory and Deprivation

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"Continuity is the essence of Junkspace; it exploits any invention that enables expansion, deploys the infrastructure of seamlessness"

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Dis/Continuity Continuity Empire of Blur Joints Perfunctory Assemblies Sheetrock Permanent Evloution Splintered Communities

Flow

Simulacra

Duality

Communications

8 10 12 14 16 18 20

“…our concern for the masses has blinded us to People’ s Architecture. Junkspace seems an aberration, but it is the essence, the main thing. . . the product of an encounter between escalator and air-conditioning, conceived in an incubator of Sheetrock (all three missing from the history books).

Continuity is the essence of Junkspace; it exploits any invention that enables expansion, deploys the infrastructure of seamlessness: escalator, air-conditioning, sprinkler, fire shutter, hot-air curtain . . . It is always interior, so extensive that you rarely perceive limits; it promotes disorientation by any means (mirror, polish, echo) . . . Junkspace is sealed, held together not by structure but by skin, like a bubble. Gravity has remained constant, resisted by the same arsenal since the beginning of time; but air-conditioning invisible medium, therefore unnoticed has truly revolutionized architecture. Airconditioning has launched the endless building.

If architecture separates buildings, air-conditioning unites them.

Air-conditioning has dictated mutant regimes of organization and coexistence that leave architecture behind. A single shopping center is now the work of generations of space planners, repairmen, and fixers, like in the Middle Ages; airconditioning sustains our cathedrals.”

Koolhaas, 162

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Continuity With the introduction of air conditioning systems as a constant and overarching variable in architectural design, the need for forms naturally advantaged to cooling and heating disappears. Floor heights become standardized, predictable, and endlessly stackable. The mechanical system of human creation replaces the influence of natural environment and the culture born of it. While Koolhaas describes and rejects this replacement at an architectural scale, focusing on the accumulation of generic spaces into generic buildings, and generic buildings into generic complexes, the next scale of this replacement through a degrading continuity occurs at an urban scale by way of highways.

Stump, Jared. http://city-data.com. N.P. March 3, 2008. Web. December 18, 2012.

Kansas City’s highway infrastructure causes enormous problem and poses perhaps the biggest obstacle in developing a coherent urban condition. The downtown Loop chokes the city center into isolation, restricting the commerce and effectively the economic development to what is one of the smallest cores of major American cities. Further, as much as the Loop isolates, the far reaching interstates allow seemingly endless expansion of the suburban condition, now considered in the contemporary design perspective to be the near antithesis of an ideal urbanism.

As air conditioning allows the construction of continuous buildings and building complexes, void of a cultural or historic character, Kansas City’s highways system neglects and restricts connection to the Missouri and Kansas rivers, our economic and urban origins. In the isolation of the Loop and the expansiveness of the interstate and state highways, we find urban discontinuity and continuity present.

This discontinuity and continuity can also be found in electrical and communication infrastructure. Highly evident along Independence Avenue, continuous power lines cause visual debris, cluttering views to the Downtown core and compromising the pedestrian scale along the avenue. The concern with this infrastructure is not purely visual, it is also that the infrastructural continuity precedes and supersedes any continuity of the urban environment. The ultimately characterless series of telephone poles and cables becomes the character of the place, overshadowing the diverse and unique surrounding neighborhoods. It is not only along Independence Avenue that this occurs, nor is it only in Kansas City. Continuous infrastructure impacts nearly all urban and suburban cities.

If “Air-conditioning has launched the endless building,” highways and exposed infrastructure have launched the endless city.

Alex Maclean. http://alexmaclean.com. N.P. Web. December 18, 2012

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“A fuzzy empire of blur, it fuses high and low, public and private, straight and bent, bloated and starved to offer a seamless patchwork of the permanently disjointed.

Seemingly an apotheosis, spatially grandiose, the effect of its richness is a terminal hollowness, a vicious parody of ambition that systematically erodes the credibility of building, possibly forever . . . Space was created by piling matter on top of matter, cemented to form a solid new whole. Junkspace is additive, layered, and lightweight, not articulated in different parts but subdivided, quartered the way a carcass is torn apart - individual chunks severed from a universal condition.

There are no walls, only partitions, shimmering membranes frequently covered in mirror or gold.�

Koolhaas, 163

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Empire of Blur Koolhaas seems in this description of Junkspace to be explicitly addressing the suburbs. Endless repetition of nearly identical homes, each falsely promising a unique living space for a family, and a neighborhood to connect with, in fact deliver identical floor plans and isolation from others living less than thirty feet away. In the calculated disorganization of “organic” street patterns, the occupants’ individuality and personal identity are lost to a vinyl-clad labyrinth.

Perceived advantages of better schools and closer communities are in fact compromised by an inability to travel to a school or friends’ home without a car, a vehicle of isolation. In this way the public and private are fused; while traveling between public places on public roads, a person is nearly always wrapped in a bubble of privacy. Relative to denser urban living counterparts, the space between homes is vast, and space between home and work, recreation, or market, is even more so. It is in this great discontinuity that the suburban environment severely inhibits the development of an ideal urban environment. http://images.businessweek.com. Bloomberg Businessweek. December 18, 2012

Additive, layered, and lightweight, the continuous spread of like buildings is broken only by the application of various stone veneers, wood-imitating vinyl siding, and layers of beige, cream, or off-white paint. The average suburban home is built to last in its original condition for an optimistic thirty years at best, before major repair is required, and the stick-construction responsible also makes them vulnerable to severe weather. Compounding the discontinuity of the suburbs is the evident impermanence of the buildings constituting the environment.

http://businessweek.com. Bloomberg Businessweek. December 18, 2012.

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“All materialization is provisional: cutting, bending, tearing, coating: construction has acquired a new softness, like tailoring . . . The joint is no longer a problem, an intellectual issue: transitional moments are defined by stapling and taping, wrinkly brown bands barely maintain the illusion of an unbroken surface; verbs unknown and unthinkable in architectural history - clamp, stick, fold, dump, glue, shoot, double, fuse - have become indispensable.

Each element performs its task in negotiated isolation. Whereas detailing once suggested the coming together, possibly forever, of disparate materials, it is now a transient coupling, waiting to be undone, unscrewed, a temporary embrace with a high probability of separation; no longer the orchestrated encounter of difference, but the abrupt end of a system, a stalemate.

Only the blind, reading its fault lines with their fingertips, will ever understand Junkspace’s histories . . . While whole millennia worked in favor of permanence, axialities, relationships, and proportion, the program of Junkspace is escalation. Instead of development, it offers entropy.

Because it is endless, it always leaks somewhere in Junkspace; in the worst case, monumental ashtrays catch intermittent drops in a gray broth . . . When did time stop moving forward, begin to spool in every direction, like a tape spinning out of control?�

Koolhaas, 164

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Joints The architecture at the focus of Koolhaas’ criticism of the joint is perhaps best embodied by Kansas City’s greatest contemporary achievement – Steven Holl’s Bloch Addition to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Not only is there at issue the condition of the joint in the materials of the building itself, there is also at issue the condition of the joint between the original beaux-arts style Nelson Atkins Museum, completed in 1933, and Holl’s addition, completed in 2007. From its earliest conceptual development, the Bloch building was thought of as a feather, a counterpoint to the preexisting stone, and from this point forward would struggle to establish any character of permanence. Despite the architect’s intentional juxtaposition of these imageries, the temporality of the feather persists and between the stone and feather, the “abrupt end of a system, a stalemate,” would permeate the assembly of the building itself.

Hill, John. http://archidose.blogspot.com. Kultureflash. January 14, 2008. Web. December 18, 2012.

In designing the building, five towers would extend upwards through the landscape, bringing in natural light through glass lenses. Each lens had to be translucent, while maintaining structural integrity. The channel glass developed concealed joints between channels as much as possible. Discontinuity of wall elements masked in a false continuity, distinguishable by “the blind, readings its fault lines with their fingertips.” Inside the Bloch building, the white plaster walls are even guiltier of “stapling and taping, wrinkly brown bands barely maintain[ing] the illusion of an unbroken surface.” The discontinuity of the Nelson Atkins Art Museum and the Bloch Addition are further visible at urban scale, in that axiality established by the lawn continues only to Brush Creek, and is disregarded by buildings along the axis.

Unlike the Nelson Atkins, Kansas City’s Liberty Memorial establishes a strong continuity about the axis of its grounds, one responding to the preexisting urban fabric, and regarded by later buildings. Completed in 1926, in a similar beaux arts style to the Nelson Atkins, the grounds are designed by George Kessler, and consequently interact quite successfully in continuity with Kansas City’s boulevard system, as well as the surrounding Penn Valley Park grounds. Strength of the axis is found in the way the central obelisk can be perceived as aligned from high points along Wyandotte and Baltimore, and serve as a point of orientation from any vantage point in the downtown area.

The importance of the joint in Kansas City urbanism, while somewhat neglected at a building scale is strong and lasting at an urban scale, due to the high value placed on axis in earlier works of the beaux arts style. While impermanence and discontinuity of Junkspace persists in the contemporary building, older institutions of Kansas City maintain a structure supportive of a continuous urban condition.

Buckman, Eber c. http://goawaygarage.blogspot.com. N.P. May 2, 2010. Web. December 18, 2012.

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“…in its most abandoned stretches, you find buffets: utilitarian tables draped in white or black sheets, perfunctory assemblies of caffeine and calories cottage cheese, muffins, unripe grapes - notional representations of plenty, without horn and without plenty. Each Junkspace is connected, sooner or later, to bodily functions: wedged between stainless-steel partitions sit rows of groaning Romans, denim togas bunched around their huge sneakers . . . Because it is so intensely consumed, Junkspace is fanatically maintained, the night shift undoing the damage of the day shift in an endless Sisyphean replay. As you recover from Junkspace, Junkspace recovers from you: between 2 and 5 A.M., yet another population, this one heartlessly casual and appreciably darker, is mopping, hovering, sweeping, toweling, resupplying . . . Junkspace does not inspire loyalty in its cleaners . . . Dedicated to instant gratification, Junkspace accommodates seeds of future perfection; a language of apology is woven through its texture of canned euphoria; “pardon our appearance” signs or miniature yellow “sorry” billboards mark ongoing patches of wetness, announce momentary discomfort in return for imminent shine, the allure of improvement.

Somewhere, workers sink on their knees to repair faded sections, as if in a prayer, or half-disappear in ceiling voids to negotiate elusive malfunctions, as if in confession. All surfaces are archaeological, super impositions of different “periods” (what do you call the moment a particular type of wall-to-wall carpet was current?) - as you note when they’ re torn . . .”

Koolhaas,

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

165

Perfunctory Assemblies The perfunctory assemblies of fast food chains are extremely common along the interstates of Kansas City. As you drive, unconcerned or unaware of hunger, each passing sign demands attention, fabricating need, and by the time the third or fourth sign passes, you have developed a craving for empty food, or re-routed your day around an impromptu stop. Along the highway, you will find food that has absolutely no nutritional content, no substance, but you will never see signs advertising a market, where fresh produce can be found. It is I-35 that stands out most predominantly as an urban scale “buffet,” an endless spread of “caffeine and calories. . . notional representations of plenty, without horn and without plenty.”

Navymailman. http://www.flickr.com/photos/navymailman. N.P. March 26, 2011. Web. December 18, 2012.

With further consideration of the parallels between I-35 and a buffet within the context of Junkspace, it becomes evident that the more appropriate metaphor, the image more embodying the full effect of Junkspace, is in fact the highway, rather than the buffet, especially in the case of Kansas City. Kansas City, more so than other major American cities, is an automobile city, and within the culture of the car, consumers walk far less than could even be considered minimum for personal health. The “buffet” of the interstate, equipped with drive-through service windows, allows the over consumption characteristic of Junkspace to occur without the little walking necessary even for a buffet. Perhaps Junkspace begins with a single buffet in a single building and expands to become the interstate’s collage of drive-throughs, in the same way that it begins about the body, is observable in the environment, and then permeates the body, crippling it with poor quality food, stripping it of appropriate exercise. The continuity of this condition – the endless offerings of the highway, the endless stimulation of the senses, the endless titillation of humanistic needs – leads to its own discontinuity – a compromised health of environment, and compromised health of body.

More severe cases of compromised health of body due to highway systems are well known to those who build them. Night road workers are at great personal risk when building and repairing roadways, but they are needed. They are “another population, this one heartlessly casual and appreciably darker, [they are] mopping, hovering, sweeping, toweling, resupplying,” they are rebuilding, resurfacing, reorganizing, repaving. And in the morning when they have finished their work for the night, they leave in place a maze of orange barrels and yellow signs, causing great discontinuity to the morning commute, and increasing the driving risk for all on the road. Koolhaas’ consideration of assemblies, at an architectural scale, expresses concern for “momentary discomfort in return for imminent shine.” At an urban scale, the risk and reward of “the allure of improvement” are greater; temporary endangerment in return for faster commute.

http://safety.transportation.org/. N.P. Web. December 18, 2012.

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“Screens of taped Sheetrock segregate two populations: one wet, one dry, one hard, one flabby, one cold, one overheated.

Half the population produces new space; the more affluent half consumes old space.

To accommodate a netherworld of manual labor, the concourse suddenly turns into Casbah: improvised locker rooms, coffee breaks, smoking, even real campfires . . . The ceiling is a crumpled plate like the Alps; grids of unstable tiles alternate with monogrammed sheets of black plastic, improbably punctured by grids of crystal chandeliers . . .�

Koolhaas, 166

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Sheetrock Along K-10 between Kansas City and Lawrence, the Dunes at Falcon Valley condominium complex stand as a perfect testament to Junkspace as described by this passage. Built to fit the suburbs, surrounded by little but industrial and business parks, this is “half the population produc[ing] new space” exemplified. Not only is this building discontinuous with its context, there seems to be no context pre-existing with which this building could develop continuity. Despite global and alarmingly local drought, the fountain is left spraying continuously, though no one steps on to their balcony to see it.

http://www.dunesatfalconvalley.com. N.P. Web. December 18, 2012.

There is another perpetually flowing fountain of Junkspace, along interstate 35, inside the Bass Pro Outdoor World store. More than the airport casbah’s real campfires, the Outdoor World store has real fish in aquariums shaped like real streams, taxidermied animals in displays decorated like real woodland, real antlers and other real memorabilia of sport hunting, in addition to real campfires. The unavoidable, and perhaps even intended, reality of these environments is that everything real is indeed artificial, a notion of itself. Not to delve prematurely too far into the subject of simulacra, but this is simulacra at its most common and consumable state. It is in this state that it causes great disruption of continuity. Not only does a general assessment of a store like this reveal great discontinuities in local economy and urban fabric, there is something more inherent being disrupted.

The nature and wildlife, even so much as the image of the nature and wildlife, intended at the center of this commercial celebration is degraded by its removal from its native surroundings. The quality of life experienced by the fish, swimming in a fabricated stream, surrounded by rows of cheap sweatshirts, surrounded by walls of cheap sheetrock, surrounded by acres of cheap asphalt, must be the same compromised quality of life experienced by the residents of the Dunes at Falcon Valley, surrounded by fountains of excess, surrounded by acres of business parks, surrounded by miles of highways.

Joits. http://www.flickriver.com. N.P. Web. December 18, 2012.

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“Toilet groups mutate into Disney Stores then morph to become meditation centers: Successive transformations mock the word “plan.” The plan is a radar screen where individual pulses survive for unpredictable periods of time in a Bacchanalian freefor-all . . . In this standoff between the redundant and the inevitable, a plan would actually make matters worse, would drive you to instant despair. Only the diagram gives a bearable version. There is zero loyalty - and zero tolerance toward configuration, no “original” condition; architecture has turned into a time-lapse sequence to reveal a “permanent evolution.” . . . The only certainty is conversion – continuous - followed, in rare cases, by “restoration,” the process that claims ever new sections of history as extensions of Junkspace.”

Koolhaas, 167

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Permanent Evolution Before the floods of 1903 and 1951 forced all residential to the bluffs to the east, Kansas City’s West Bottoms was a major part of the downtown urban center.

Beautifully constructed warehouses hosted active and profitable businesses in furniture, seed, and household products. Now the gems of the later decades of the 1800’s are home to totally different uses, discontinuous with any prescription of history. The most common are antique stores, and salvage warehouses, with a few tech repair businesses as the exception, though the most successful repurposed warehouses host haunted houses.

Four major haunted houses – The Beast, The Edge of Hell, Macabre Cinema, and The Chambers of Edgar Allen Poe – gross $2 million USD in the month preceding Halloween. The earnings of these unexpected, and to many undesired, establishments are much greater than the original businesses occupying these warehouses.

http://kcpt.org/blog. KCPT. Web. December 18, 2012.

It is clear that no warehouse of the 1860’s was ever built in anticipation that someday the largest haunted house in America may be its occupant, though it stands that these haunted houses are currently the most active businesses of the developmentally struggling West Bottoms. Where there is great opportunity in the open plan of these warehouses for residential, business, or retail use, the haunted houses find opportunity in rearranging their labyrinths for each season; a microexample of the permanent evolution in Junkspace.

It is unfortunate that the former urban center of Kansas City is now known only for its theme-park-ish attractions, and that these attractions draw only temporary and fleeting business to the area, but such is the reality of redevelopment. This is Koolhaas’ “time-lapse sequence [of] ‘permanent evolution,’” a continuous “process that claims ever new sections of history as extensions of Junkspace.”

Ink. http://inkkc.com. Ink. August 21, 2012. Web. December 2012.

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“Junkspace pretends to unite, but it actually splinters.

It creates communities not out of shared interest or free association, but out of identical statistics and unavoidable demographics, an opportunistic weave of vested interests. Each man, woman, and child is individually targeted, tracked, split off from the rest . . . Fragment s come together at “security” only, where a grid of video screens disappointingly reassembles individual frames into a banalized, utilitarian cubism that reveals Junkspace’s overall coherence to the dispassionate glare of barely trained guards: video-ethnography in its brute form. Just as Junkspace is unstable, its actual ownership is forever being passed on in parallel disloyalty.”

Koolhaas, 168

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Splintered Communities While the origin of segregation within cities today is driven by much more than the built environment, it is often the built environment that reflects the segregation best. Roadways, waterways, and landmarks become barriers of race and income, seemingly impossible to overcome despite efforts of integration. Kansas City is, unfortunately, a precise example of this condition; the north-south Troost Avenue has been the racial divide of Kansas City for decades. To Kansas City residents, Troost represents a discontinuity in race, income, opportunity, it divides the metro area into “identical statistics and unavoidable demographics.”

MARELBU. http://panoramio.com. N.P. Jun 19, 2011. Web. December 19, 2012.

The seemingly single area of Kansas City with a high degree of integration, and a high level of diversity is the Northeast Community surrounding Independence Avenue. Over 20 languages are spoken among residents of the Northeast, which includes neighborhoods such as Gladstone and Lykins. Gladstone and Lykins, however, stand out as indicators of segregation happening at a smaller-than-metro neighborhood scale. The Victorian home pictured is located in the Gladstone area and represents a relatively common home style and quality, while the abandoned home pictured is in the Lykins area and represents the standard home and quality.

Moreover, the abandoned home is representative of all the housing stock South of Independence Avenue, and the Victorian is representative of the housing stock North of Independence Avenue.

At the neighborhood scale, Independence Avenue operates as a barrier of income and race, despite its overall diversity relative to the metro region. Koolhaas’ description of Junkspace as “Fragments com[ing] together at “security” only, where a grid of video screens disappointingly reassembles individual frames into a banalized, utilitarian cubism” is visible in the increased security along Independence Avenue, camera systems and police patrol standard along the avenue.

The effects of the segregation among neighborhoods are observable in the Northeast in the way community improvement is approached. Wealthier neighborhoods to the North cooperate successfully with the City, relevant organizations, and investors to enact change to their area, whereas neighborhoods to the South are left disconnected from the larger movement to push the Northeast in the direction of improvement. It is in this lack of responsibility for one’s own neighborhood that we find “Junkspace [as] unstable, its actual ownership [as] forever being passed on in parallel disloyalty.”

http://www.tonyskansascity.com. N.P. October 11, 2010. Web. December 19, 2012.

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"The idea that a profession once dictated, or at least presumed to predict, people's movements now seems laughable, or worse: unthinkable."

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Dis/Continuity

Flow

Flow Grotesque Journey

Simulacra

Duality

Communications

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“Where movement becomes synchronized, it curdles: on escalators, near exits, parking machines, automated tellers.

Sometimes, under duress, individuals are channeled in a flow, pushed through a single door or forced to negotiate the gap between two temporary obstacles (an invalid’s bleeping chariot and a Christmas tree): the manifest ill will such narrowing provokes mocks the notion of flows.

Flows in Junkspace lead to disaster : department stores at the beginning of sales; the stampedes triggered by warring compartments of soccer fans; dead bodies piling up in front of the locked emergency doors of a disco - evidence of the awkward fit between the portals of Junkspace and the narrow calibrations of the old world.”

Koolhaas, 165

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Flow It is unfortunate that Kansas City cannot be analyzed or understood without much attention being given to the highways, but the highways are its greatest lifeblood and poison simultaneously. Recurrent in “Dis/Continuity” was attention towards highways and the detrimental effect on the continuity of Kansas City as an urban environment. It serves as barrier and connector, and has secured its place in daily life as a necessary means of commuting. Here we find the best example of urban scale flow, and its contribution to the development of a successful urban environment.

Smith, Deann. http://www.kctv5.com. N.P. June 30, 2011. Web. December 18, 2012.

No place is it more critical for flow to be synchronous than on highways. At an architectural scale, the consequence of narrowed or obstructed flow is bumping shoulders with “an invalid’s bleeping chariot and a Christmas tree” or in rare situations “dead bodies piling up in front of the locked emergency doors.” At an urban scale, on roads and highways, the consequence of obstructed flow is almost certainly a severe- or fatal-injury wreck. It is when there is a severe wreck on a highway that its contribution to Junkspace is most intense, not only for the injury done to the victims of the wreck, but the influence that is felt throughout the city.

Successful flow along highways is successful delivery of employees to workplaces, reduced stress levels for all commuting, reduced idle emissions from cars, and lives spared.

Oberhultz, Chris. http://www.kctv5.com. N.P. May 22, 2012. Web. December 18, 2012.

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“Because we never reconstruct or question the absurdity of these enforced dérives, we meekly submit to grotesque journeys past per fume, asylum- seeker s, building site, underwear, oysters, pornography, cell phone - incredible adventures for the brain, the eye, the nose, the tongue, the womb, the testicles . . . There was once a polemic about the right angle and the straight line; now the ninetieth degree has become one among many. In fact, remnants of former geometries create ever new havoc, offering forlorn nodes of resistance that create unstable eddies in newly opportunistic flows . . . Who would dare claim responsibility for this sequence?

The idea that a profession once dictated, or at least presumed to predict, people’s movements now seems laughable, or worse: unthinkable. Instead of design, there is calculation: the more erratic the path, eccentric the loops, hidden the blueprint, efficient the exposure, the more inevitable the transaction. In this war, graphic designers are the great turncoats: Where once signage promised to deliver you to where you wanted to be, it now obfuscates and entangles you in a thicket of cuteness that forces you past unwanted detours, turns you back when you’re lost.”

Koolhaas, 166

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Grotesque Journeys In the design of a city, the approach, the thresholds, the gateways, are given much consideration – Where does the city begin? How is the city entered? What is the first impression? Kansas City has few ideal approaches. From a distance, to the north, approaching south into the city allows for beautiful views of the skyline, as does the approach from the east along Independence Avenue, and the approach from the southwest on I-35. However, as you move closer, you encounter dilapidated industrial areas from all directions, resulting from the knot of railroads surrounding the urban core. Associated with this surrounding industrial is a lack of residential density, and without residential, comes reduced business presence.

What are left are no-man’s lands to be overridden by vice. Drug sales and consumption, as well as prostitution is common to outlying areas along Kansas City’s entry flows.

http://yesnowastaken.com. N.P. July 2, 2012. Web. December 18, 2012.

In the case of Independence Avenue, prostitution is central to the reputation surrounding the area, and bus stops are known as trading posts for drug dealers.

These vices are disruptions to the flow of approach, degrading the experience of the city by compromising the first impression, particularly when made permanent by establishments, such as the one in the crossroads across the highways from the Loop. Kansas Citians are forced to “meekly submit to grotesque journeys past perfume, asylum- seekers, building site, underwear, oysters, pornography, cell phone,” prostitution, and drug sale. Koolhaas’ identification of the effects of flow in producing Junkspace is accurate to Kansas City, though his criticism of angles leaves some discussion to be had.

Along Independence Avenue, the east approach, nearly half of intersecting roads do not connect directly through, creating a “zipper” effect in the road system.

This creates very unique disadvantage and opportunity in the urban environment.

Koolhaas criticizes the dissolution of the right angle in design: “the ninetieth degree has become one among many. In fact, remnants of former geometries create ever new havoc, offering forlorn nodes of resistance that create unstable eddies in newly opportunistic flows.” At the intersection of Independence and Prospect, this condition can be found causing interruption to north-south traffic flow and complicating pedestrian traffic crossing, but creating a storefront with greater street visibility and distinguished form. The complications to traffic flow would be what Koolhaas would refer to as “ever new havoc” while the larger sidewalks and more attractive business buildings may be referred to as “nodes of opportunity.”

http://www.trulia.com. N.P. Web. December 18, 2012.

27

"Superstrings of graphics, transplanted emblems of franchise and sparkling infrastructures of light, LEDs, and video describe an authorless world"

28

Dis/Continuity

Flow

Simulacra

Transparency The Curse of Public Space Landscape Adjunct Infrastructures Renewal, Ressurrection Invade the Body

Duality

Communications

30 32 34 36 38 40

“Transparency only reveals everything in which you cannot partake. At the stroke of midnight it all may revert to Taiwanese Gothic; in three years it may segue into Nigerian Sixties, Norwegian Chalet, or default Christian. Earthlings now live in a kindergarten grotesque . . .

Junkspace thrives on design, but design dies in Junkspace. There is no form, only proliferat ion . . . Regurgitation is the new creativity; instead of creation, we honor, cherish, and embrace manipulation . . .

Superstrings of graphics, transplanted emblems of franchise and sparkling infrastructures of light, LEDs, and video describe an authorless world beyond anyone’s claim, always unique, utterly unpredictable, yet intensely familiar.

Junkspace is hot (or suddenly arctic); fluorescent walls, folded like melting stained glass, generate additional heat to raise the temperature of Junkspace to levels at which you could cultivate orchids. Pretending histories left and right, its contents are dynamic yet stagnant, recycled or multiplied as in cloning: forms search for function like hermit crabs looking for a vacant shell . . . Junkspace sheds architectures like a reptile sheds skins, is reborn every Monday morning. “ Koolhaas, 164

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Transparency A room on Main Street, at the heart of Kansas City’s downtown loop, is enclosed on all but one side with glass. Inside the room, a screen plays endlessly on repeat a corporate promotional video. Hundreds of people pass by this room everyday, most of them not noticing at all the empty glass theater, much less considering what it means to our urban condition as a city. This empty room is part of the headquarters of Kansas City Power and Light. “Transparency only reveals everything in which you cannot partake.” This is a poignantly true statement in the context of many large corporations, the statement of the empty room, exemplified in KCPL’s video prism. The glass room is acting as an image of the company, and represents its presence in the city effectively producing a condition of simulacra between the signified, Kansas City Power and Light, and the signifier, the prism.

http://google.com/maps. Google Streetview. Web. December 18, 2012.

To the south of the KCPL building, the mixed use development of the same name represents better the condition of urban simulacra. The Power and Light District entertainment hub Kansas City Live! is a vulgar representation of itself, simulacra so severe entire building stories have been falsely constructed for the purpose of “contextualizing” the development in formal scale. The entire block has a similar falsehood, as what seems to be a complete city block from outside is actually a shallow enclosure of bars around a concrete courtyard. The regurgitation of stereotypical places and franchised characters in the pursuit of creating a unique entertainment venue results in “Superstrings of graphics, transplanted emblems of franchise and sparkling infrastructures of light, LEDs, and video describe[ing] an authorless world.”

http://omnientertinment.com. Omni Entertainment. Web. December 18, 2012.

31

“The curse of public space: latent fascism safely smothered in signage, stools, sympathy . . . Junkspace is post-existential; it makes you uncertain where you are, obscures where you go, undoes where you were. Who do you think you are? Who do you want to be? (Note to architects: You thought that you could ignore Junkspace, visit it surreptitiously, treat it with condescending contempt or enjoy it vicariously . . . because you could not understand it, you’ve thrown away the keys . . . But now your own architecture is infected, has become equally smooth, all-inclusive, continuous, warped, busy, atrium-ridden . . . ) JunkSignature™ is the new architecture: the former megalomania of a profession contracted to manageable size, Junkspace minus its saving vulgarity. Anything stretched - limousines, body parts, planes - turns into Junkspace, its original concept abused.

Restore, rearrange, reassemble, revamp, renovate, revise, recover, redesign, return the Parthenon marbles - redo, respect, rent: verbs that start with ‘re-‘ produce Junkspace . . .Junkspace will be our tomb. Half of mankind pollutes to produce, the other pollutes to consume. The combined pollution of all Third World cars, motorbikes, trucks, buses, sweatshops pales into insignificance compared to the heat generated by Junkspace.”

Koolhaas, 167

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

The Curse of Public Space Some of the most predominant characteristics of public spaces in Kansas City are good intentions and missed opportunities. As a result, some of our city’s most cherished places are Junkspace. In the case of the Kessler plan, park land was set aside based on its inability to be used for building development due to severe slope.

It is this geography that makes the space also difficult for recreational use, and makes visibility about the area obstructed. With little visibility and little appropriate use, parks became over run as places for criminal activity, likely drug sales and prostitution. The Kessler Park, while valued as one of America’s great greenways, has been abused as a place for dumping and criminal activity precisely for the reason that it is relatively rarely used and very difficult to maintain orientation in the park; “it makes you uncertain where you are, obscures where you go, undoes where you were.” Kansas City’s built public spaces are as plagued by Junkspace as the natural.

http://trailsandtreasures.com/Missouri. N.P. Web. December 19, 2012.

Crown Center is likely the best example of Koolhaas’ infected architecture – “equally smooth, all-inclusive, continuous, warped, busy, atrium-ridden” – in Kansas City.

The complex of shopping and dining offers as unique experiences for entertainment as the neon cowboys of the Power and Light District. That is to say everything offered is franchised, familiar, and at the same time wholly removing from what is more genuinely Kansas City. It should not be that our public spaces, our semblances of public spaces, do more to remove from than to connect to Kansas City and the continuum of our urbanism. Both Kessler Park and Crown Center suffer “the curse of public space” in that they are both conceived as public, but did not and could not organically arrive at this condition.

Jocosiding. http://blog.jocosiding.com. N.P. December 22, 2011. Web. December 19, 2012.

33

“Landscape has become Junkspace, foliage as spoilage: Trees are tortured, lawns cover human manipulations like thick pelts, or even toupees, sprinklers water according to mathematical timetables . . . Seemingly at the opposite end of Junkspace, the golf course is, in fact, its conceptual double: empty, serene, free of commercial debris. The relative evacuation of the golf course is achieved by the further charging of Junkspace.

The methods of their design and realization are similar: erasure, tabula rasa, reconfiguration.

Junkspace turns into biojunk; ecology turns into ecospace.

Ecology and economy have bonded in Junkspace as ecolomy.�

Koolhaas, 170

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Landscape Mentioned previously in “The Curse of Public Space,” Kessler’s allocation of public park space based on un-developable grade has had great consequence in the urbanism of Kansas City. The parks, unusable for building, are also unusable for recreation, and produce low visibility, and without people there or people able to observe, parks become host for criminal activity. There is an opposite of this condition, the manicured fairway, the groomed green, and the organized wood between. In Swope park, Kansas City’s largest park, the majority of walkable green space is used as a golf course, the focus of Koolhaas’ criticism in this particular sect of Junkspace. Junkspace emerges from the landscape as it is commodified, train to specific growth: “Trees are tortured, lawns cover human manipulations like thick pelts, or even toupees, sprinklers water according to mathematical timetables.”

http://trailsandtreasures.com. N.P. Web. December 20, 2012.

What Koolhaas does not discuss is the collision of two types of Junkspace – ecological and infrastructural – which is a commonly occurring condition in most parks and cities. The example that first comes to mind in Kansas City is Concourse Park. This park of two small residential blocks size is surrounded on all sides by roads and bisected by roads. Topography is adjusted to allow ease of travel for the vehicle, not the pedestrian. At the north end of the park, there sits a colonnade overlooking Kessler Park, with stunning views to the Northland beyond unkempt thicket of trees, cut off from the rest of the park completely by an active street. The colonnade is rarely used for observation to the North, as that is difficult to discern is the purpose driving by, and pedestrian access to the overlook requires the crossing of at least two active roadways; the overlook instead becomes another place for prostitution.

Both of these landscapes are not in fact landscapes at all, but the simulations of them, the simulacra of landscape. The golf course simulating at times an English wood, and others a Scottish isle, the overlook colonnade simulating a landmark, a public place of gathering, both fail to produce a genuine sense of place. Junkspace prevails where the natural is removed from nature, and infrastructure is instead introduced.

http://goodwalkspoiled.wordpress.com. N.P. Web. December 20, 2012.

35

“Junkspace is rewriting the apocalypse; we may die of oxygen poisoning . . . In the past, the complexities of Junkspace were compensated for by the stark rawness of its adjunct infrastructures: parking garages, filling stations, distribution centers routinely displaying a monumental purity that was the original aim of modernism. Now, massive inject ions of lyricism have enabled an infrastructure the one domain previously immune to design, taste, or the marketplace - to join the world of Junkspace, and for Junkspace to extend its manifestations under the sky. Railway stations unfold like iron butterflies, airports glisten like cyclopic dewdrops, bridges span often negligible banks like grotesquely enlarged versions of the harp. To each rivulet its own Calatrava.�

Koolhaas, 170

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Adjunct Infrastructures Familiarity with Kansas City is familiarity with parking and other vehicle infrastructure. This “adjunct infrastructure” is so severe in Kansas City that it challenges the hierarchy of which typology is secondary to which, that it sometimes feels as if office and retail complexes are there to serve the parking garages. It is no surprise then to find their immensity in urban presence equal to their contribution to Junkspace. However, rather than infrastructure producing Junkspace in their most purely functional state, “displaying a monumental purity that was the original aim of modernism,” these adjunct parking and vehicle infrastructures produce Junkspace when needlessly decorated in deceptive facades.

The Kansas City Library Downtown Branch parking garage is one of the most wellknown parking garages of the country for all the wrong reasons; it exudes Junkspace in its shroud of caricature-like book ends. Central Branch parking garage is evidence that “Massive injections of lyricism have enabled an infrastructure - the one domain previously immune to design, taste, or the marketplace - to join the world of Junkspace, and for Junkspace to extend its manifestations under the sky.”

Amir. http://beautifuldecay.com. N.P. July 6, 2012. Web. December 20, 2012.

Also claimed by Junkspace by way of excessive lyricism are the bridges over I-35. By Koolhaas’ discussion of Junkspace and its constituting conditions, these bridges are certainly an example of “bridges span[ning] often negligible banks like grotesquely enlarged versions of the harp.” Of course, these are landmarks of Kansas City, and demarcate an entry point into the downtown loop, so how do they contribute so much to a Junkspace? The bridges once existed in their “modernist purity” before being wrapped in perforated metal and rows of LED’s, in a garb strikingly similar to the adjacent Power and Light District. The bridges themselves do not constitute Junkspace, it is instead their imitative qualities, their dishonest appearance.

Zahner. http://www.azahner.com. N.P. Web. December 20, 2012.

37

“Art galleries move en masse to “edgy” locations, then convert raw space into white cubes . . .

The only legitimate discourse is loss; art replenishes Junkspace in direct proportion to its own morbidity. We used to renew what was depleted; now we try to resurrect what is gone . . . Outside, the architect’s footbridge is rocked to the breaking point by a stampede of enthusiastic pedestrians; the designer’ s initial audacity now awaits the engineer’s application of dampers. Junkspace is a look-no-hands world . . . The constant threat of virtuality in Junkspace is no longer exorcized by petrochemical products, plastic, vinyl or rubber; the synthetic cheapens.

Junkspace has to exaggerate its claims to the authentic.

Junkspace is like a womb that organizes the transition of endless quantities of the Real - stone, trees, goods, daylight, people - into the unreal.”

Koolhaas, 171

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Renewal and Resurrection It seems the opening lines of this passage, “Art galleries move en masse to “edgy” locations, then convert raw space into white cubes,” describes precisely the art galleries of the Crossroads art district in Kansas City. Anyone who has visited a First Fridays event knows the interior of all art galleries in the Crossroads quite well, regardless of having entered one or many, for the trend of white washed walls are omnipresent. Koolhaas criticizes the reduction of what is an authentic place, in the case of Kansas City these would be former warehouse structures, to uniform galleries of white, but fails to acknowledge the necessity of a “clean slate” to display artwork against.

http://www.visitkc.com. N.P. Web. December 20, 2012.

In this way it becomes apparent what is meant by the words “The constant threat of virtuality in Junkspace is no longer exorcized by petrochemical products, plastic, vinyl or rubber; the synthetic cheapens. Junkspace has to exaggerate its claims to the authentic.” Art galleries of converted warehouses become contributors to Junkspace and detractors of positive urbanism by covering up the space that came before, the authentic origins of the place, and instead trying to create a gallery type that exists universally. This is similar to the way landscapes approached with a “tabula rasa” development strategy followed by a replacement with simulacra produce only Junkspace.

“Junkspace is like a womb that organizes the transition of endless quantities of the Real - stone, trees, goods, daylight, people - into the unreal.” This organization of the Real into the unreal seems to be precisely the architectural expression of simulacra. Kansas City’s art galleries of the Crossroads are rare to preserve the origins of the warehouse spaces beyond their structural bones, and in place insert organizational partitions of art. Parks replace natural landscapes with manicured ones, or worse constrict the “natural” landscape in a knot of roads. In both the landscape and the art gallery, Junkspace is a result of simulacra, a result of the unreal trying desperately to be real or at the least seem real; and it is exhausting for the occupant to endure prolonged these make-beliefs.

Padget, Mindie. http://www2.ljworld.com. Lawrence Journal World. August 29, 2004. Web. December 20, 2012.

39

“Conceptually, each monitor, each TV screen is a substitute for a window; real life is inside, while cyberspace has become the great outdoors . . .

Mankind is always going on about architecture. What if space started looking at mankind? Will Junkspace invade the body? Through the vibes of the cell phone?

Has it already? Through Botox injections? Collagen?

Silicone implants?

Liposuction?

Penis enlargements? Does gene therapy announce a total reengineering according to Junkspace? Is each of us a mini-construction site? Is mankind the sum of three to five billion individual upgrades? Is it a repertoire of reconfiguration that facilitates the intromission of a new species into its self-made Junksphere? The cosmetic is the new cosmic . . .�

Koolhaas, 171

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Invade the Body “Through Botox injections? Collagen? Silicone implants? Liposuction? Penis enlargements?” Koolhaas supposes that Junkspace would penetrate the human body in a formal sense, through dramatic physical alteration by intent of perfecting the body; Simulacra in the body projecting a false image of itself, and a false image of perfection. The majority of the architecture and urban space guilty of constituting Junkspace in Kansas City also attempt perfection in form or experience, but the evidence of Junkspace in the body is in other acts of simulacra. Through Tattoos. By their nature of being an image, a pictorial representation of reality, tattoos fall into a category of simulacra, but there is a greater context to this simulacra, in that the tattoos pictured here depict Junkspace. From the conditions of Kansas City examined through these writings, it has become clear that we suffer extensive Junkspace throughout our city, and to tattoo representations of that Junkspace is to assume it as your own identity. Not only does Junkspace invade our body physically, it invades our mind, our fiber of character. In some sense, it is the invasion of our mind and character that leads to the invasion of our body. This can be seen in another predominant example of body invasive Junkspace in Kansas City. http://kcworsttattoos.wordpress.com. N.P. June 29, 2011. Web. December 20, 2012.

While it is clear that in some select cities around the world, these plastic surgery type “invasions” are extremely common, and often unmistakably obvious, there is a more universal condition of body-invasive Junkspace that is as easily noticeable as plastic surgery. Through Obesity. Obesity stands as a testament to Junkspace invading the body in that it is a combined result of automobile lifestyle, disconnect from public recreation places, and eating habits dictated by convenience over nutrition. Predominance of the car in the daily life of the Kansas Citian replaces the time otherwise spent standing on a public transit mode and walking to and from stops. Physical inability to access public green spaces due to infrastructural barriers and the public dissociation necessary from crime-ridden park spaces prevents healthfully frequent use of recreational facilities. In part in conjunction with the automobile culture, a diet of convenience and quickness has replaced a due respect for nutrition as the reason for eating. It could be argued that the diet a majority of Kansas Citians choose or are unconsciously subjected to is simulacra as well; fast and frozen food representing actual produce and grain.

Juan. http://www.topix.com. N.P. March 15, 2009. Web. December 20, 2012.

41

"Now each architecture embodies opposite conditions simultaneously: old and new, permanent and temporary, flourishing and at risk"

42

Dis/Continuity

Flow

Simulacra

Duality Discharge Aging Conquered Space Public Life, Public Space

Communications

44 46 48 50

“Take the dump, where successive trucks discharge their loads to form a heap, whole in spite of the randomness of its contents and its fundamental sha pelessness, or that of the tent envelope that assumes different shapes to accommodate variable interior volumes. Or the vague crotches of the new generation.

J u n k s p a c e can either be a b s o l u t e l y chaotic or frighteningly aseptic - like a best- seller - over determined and indeterminate at the same time.�

Koolhaas, 165

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Discharge It is a persistent problem in Kansas City that many of the parks are troubled by chronic dumping. The Northeast community is an unfortunately strong example of this, as Kessler Park and Indian Mound are perhaps the greatest victims of dumping.

Where breath should be taken by expansive views to the Northland across East Bottoms, it is instead choked by hillsides covered in tires and fields between factories filled with junk cars, as shown in the photo here. This is the first duality related to discharge – the intent of the place versus the actuality of the place. The intent of overlook opportunities is still present in select stone structures and a periodically bloated roadway, though the actuality of the place overtakes this intent as the bulges of the road have been used as a safe an invisible pull-off for trucks to dump, and the structures a meeting point for prostitution. This duality has some promise to it, though, that there is a place that suffers from neglect rather than no place at all, and the place still stands a chance of revival.

Collins, Leslie. http://northeastnews.net. March 7, 2012. Web. December 18, 2012.

Furthering promise of revitalization is the duality between people in this place – those who perpetrate dumping and those who continue cleaning it up. Where the city falls short in providing clean up for dumping or even working to prevent it in the first place, residents of the neighborhood come together on clean up days to reclaim from litter their streets and parks. This duality is one of the most important to a positive urbanism, a reduction or elimination completely of Junkspace, for the people who reside in a place are the enactors of its future. Without an opposition to the garbage, without a force opposing degradation and criminal activity in public spaces, dumping, drugs, and prostitution would completely overrun.

81SIKC. http://81sikc.blogspot.com. December 21 2011. Web. December 18, 2012.

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“Aging in Junkspace is nonexistent or catastrophic; sometimes an entire Junkspace a department store, a nightclub, a bachelor pad turns into a slum overnight without warning: wattage diminishes imperceptibly, letters drop out of signs, air-conditioning units start dripping, cracks appear as if from otherwise unregistered earthquakes; sections rot, are no longer viable, but remain joined to the flesh of the main body via gangrenous passages.

Judging the built presumed a static condition; now each architecture embodies opposite conditions simultaneously: old and new, permanent and temporary, flourishing and at risk . . . Sections undergo an Alzheimer’s –like deterioration as others are upgraded.”

Koolhaas, 166

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Aging In considering Koolhaas’ words “old and new, permanent and temporary, flourishing and at risk,” the Kansas City school system embody them all. In the people comprising it, in the people affected by it, and in the buildings they formerly occupied. No Junkspace of Kansas City more directly reflects its community. Vacant schools once of the Kansas City School District are an ongoing focus of conversation in planning. Communities with vacant schools are aware and eager to enact the potential of their buildings as economic catalysts. Conversations of planning for these renewal projects reveal the duality in the schools at their current state, duality constituting Junkspace.

“Old and New.” After years of heavy use, vacant school buildings would certainly be considered old. While condition ranges from some still having active utilities to others needing costly mechanical overhauls, few are close to ready for occupancy.

However, all are not unreasonably far from it either. They offer the potential for new mixed-uses to be developed, contributing to a more ideal urbanism. http://metrowirekc.com. N.P. August 31, 2012. Web. December 18, 2012.

“Permanent and Temporary.” While relative to other types of building construction these buildings appear permanent, the changing communities around them will require evolving uses for these buildings, their uses resultantly being temporary.

In a greater context of the city, nearly all buildings begin with an illusion of permanence yet decline and disappear, and after even the memory for some is temporary.

“Flourishing and at risk.” Craftsmanship and detail in construction of the most of these schools is unique to the architecture of Kansas City, and deserve some degree of preservation. It is not feasible given trends of density and city population to expect them to return to use as schools, and the buildings are at risk of degradation without intervention.

Proposed uses for the schools reflect communities’ interest and support for innovative urban design, as well as the needs and concerns of residents. Condition of the schools reflect communities’ declining population and density. The vacant aging buildings themselves reflect Junkspace, but the unified attitudes toward them reflect potential for catalytic interventions.

http://forum.kcrag.com. N.P. December 1, 2011. Web. December 18, 2012.

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“Because of its tenuous viability, Junkspace has to swallow more and more program to survive; soon, we will be able to do anything anywhere. We will have conquered place. At the end of Junkspace, the Universal? Through Junkspace, old aura is transfused with new luster to spawn sudden commercial viability: Barcelona amalgamated with the Olympics, Bilbao with the Guggenheim, Forty-second Street with Disney. God is dead, the author is dead, history is dead, only the architect is left standing . . . an insulting evolutionary joke . . . A shortage of masters has not stopped a proliferation of masterpieces.

“Masterpiece” has become a definitive sanction, a semantic space that saves the object from criticism, leaves its qualities unproven, its performance untested, its motives unquestioned.

Masterpiece is no longer an inexplicable fluke, a roll of the dice, but a consistent typology: its mission to intimidate, most of its exterior surfaces bent, huge percentages of its square footage dysfunctional, its centrifugal components barely held together by the pull of the atrium, dreading the imminent arrival of forensic accounting . . .”

Koolhaas, 168

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Conquered Place “Barcelona amalgamated with the Olympics, Bilbao with the Guggenheim, Fortysecond Street with Disney.” Kansas City, Kansas with Legends Outlets. The shopping and entertainment complex encompasses a variety of program such that time and space are collapsed into the largest tourist attraction in Kansas. No where else can a NASCAR race be viewed in the same hour and square mile as a waterpark, a soccer stadium, baseball fields, and the “skeleton” of a dinosaur. This is truly a “conquered place,” all elements of attraction or entertainment of a city unnaturally confined and connected by the same acreage of parking lot. Opposite this instance of conquered place – opposite in use complexity, opposite in scale – and comparatively equal in economic impact is the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

http://kansastravel.org. N.P. Web. December 19, 2012.

Urban context and grand civic presence qualify the Kauffman as masterpiece nearly by default. Its reception upon opening was largely positive, reaction of the public praise, though Koolhaas’ description of Junkspace seems to propose the Kauffman is guilty of Junkspace. “A shortage of masters has not stopped a proliferation of masterpieces. “Masterpiece” has become a definitive sanction, a semantic space that saves the object from criticism, leaves its qualities unproven, its performance untested, its motives unquestioned.” While some qualities of the Kauffman confirm its contribution to Junkspace – “its exterior surfaces bent, huge percentages of its square footage dysfunctional, its centrifugal components barely held together by the pull of the atrium” – a deeper understanding of its civic impact contests. The location of the center has furthered momentum for a downtown arts campus for University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) as well as enhanced the urban core through population increase and increase in commerce nearby.

The projects in comparison reflect two opposing strategies to urban design, community improvement, and economic activity present in Kansas City currently.

While the trends of design thought support unanimously the Kauffman as the better way to develop an ideal urbanism, of sustainable density and mixed activity, it is the suburban shopping sprawl that dominates growth patterns. Beyond the physical environment, unresolved duality between thought and action in urban design is the greatest producer of Junkspace.

Hursley, Tim. http://news.visitmo.com. Visit MO. Web. December 19, 2012.

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“Instead of public life, Public Space™: what remains of the city once the unpredictable has been removed . . . Space for “honoring,” ”sharing,” “caring,” “grieving,” and “healing” . . . civility imposed by an overdose of serif . . . In the third Millennium, Junkspace will assume responsibility for pleasure and religion, exposure and intimacy, public life and privacy. Inevitably, the death of God (and the author) has spawned orphaned space; Junkspace is authorless, yet surprisingly authoritarian . . . At the moment of its greatest emancipation, humankind is subjected to the most dictatorial scripts: from the pushy oration of the waiter to the answering gulags on the other end of the telephone, the safety instructions on the airplane, more and more insistent perfumes, mankind is browbeaten into submitting to the most harshly engineered plotline” Koolhaas, 168

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Public Life, Public Space As discussed previously, many of the public parks of Kansas City are a result of the original Kessler Plan, which reserved space for parks based on whether or not the grade was buildable. Some parks, like Budd Park in the historic Northeast, left for the most part the original topography of the land, with vegetation left to grow naturally as well. The result of this approach to design is authorless, orphaned space.

In the authorless environment, public space may be plenty while public life is scarce.

This duality is the result of public parks being dissociated from the urban fabric.

While historic parks suffer disconnect due to neglect in design and decline in use, contemporary parks, such as the Riverfront Park, suffer disconnect due to physical infrastructural barriers.

Matlock, Marshall. http://marshallmatlock.com. N.P. July 23, 2011. December 19, 2012.

Between the Riverfront Park and the nearest residential areas is all of East Bottoms, with the exception of the west end where the Town of Kansas bridge extends into the Rivermarket neighborhood. The Riverfront park is often seen as captured here, authoritarian rows of uniform lampposts, but not a person to be seen for the entire stretch of trail. More popular than the trail itself, likely because of its proximity to residencies and active commercial district, is the bridge and overlook crossing the tracks north of Rivermarket which grants access to the Riverfront Park.

Though the views from the bridge are unique and powerful, they are preceded by an intimidating greeting from a loudspeaker warning that the bridge is private property, and all activities are recorded on security camera. “At the moment of its greatest emancipation, humankind is subjected to the most dictatorial scripts: from the pushy oration of the waiter to the answering gulags on the other end of the telephone, the safety instructions on the airplane,” the loudspeaker warnings preceding liberating views of the Missouri River.

Holmes, Damian. http://worldlandscapearchitect.com. N.P. June 26, 2012. Web. December 19, 2012.

51

52

"Globalization turns language into Junkspace. We are stuck in a speech-doldrums."

Dis/Continuity

Flow

Simulacra

Duality

Communications Murals Language Ubiquity of English Memory and Deprivation

54 56 58 60

“Murals used to show idols; Junkspace’s modules are dimensioned to carry brands; myths can be shared, brands husband aura at the mercy of focus groups. Brands in Junkspace perform the same role as black holes in the universe: they are essences through which meaning disappears . . . The shiniest surfaces in the history of mankind reflect humanity at its most casual. The more we inhabit the palatial, the more we seem to dress down. A stringent dress code; last spasm of etiquette? - governs access to Junkspace: shorts, sneakers, sandals, shell suit, fleece, jeans, parka, backpack. As if the People suddenly accessed the private quarters of a dictator, Junkspace is best enjoyed in a state of post-revolutionary gawking. Polarities have merged - there is nothing left between desolation and frenzy.

Neon signifies both the old and the new; interiors refer to the Stone and Space Age at the same time.”

Koolhaas, 164

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Murals In the Crossroads art district, examples of non-commercial murals can still be found, building exteriors acting as a canvas for creative display. However, the largest and most dominant murals of the district are advertisements, the worst of which being the Verizon Wireless facing downtown, forcing itself upon the view of the Crossroads from oďŹƒce towers in the Loop. It is in this way, when the advertisements find a way to inflict themselves on otherwise astounding views of Kansas City, that Junkspace is most present.

Along I-35 north into the downtown Loop, this Tivol billboard among dozens of others obstruct views to the city center from one of the most active entry points, with an elevational advantage of looking down over the Crossroads and up at the towers of the Loop, before going under the city completely. Junkspace is the unwanted and ill-inserted communication along this unique and striking entry sequence. Worsening the condition is that I-35 is traveled by all ages, ethnicities, and incomes, evidencing that Junkspace is now open to all, no longer confined. https://www.cbsoutdoor.com. CBS Outdoor. Web. December 18, 2012.

Another example of all-access Junkspace in Kansas City is the Central Library branch in the Loop. Near a major junction of public transportation, and being the nearest open-to-the public civic building, has led to the library becoming a 8 to 5 safe haven for the homeless. “A stringent dress code; last spasm of etiquette? - governs access to Junkspace: shorts, sneakers, sandals, shell suit, fleece, jeans, parka, backpack.�

Yet the problems are much greater than the dress of those filling the library; The blocks surrounding the library are subject to people selling and using street drugs.

The library itself has become Junkspace, not because homeless have sought refuge there, but because civility has been taken advantage of. The public library, like the public parks of Kansas City, is currently facing conflict with drug activity, and without better communication with the city as to reducing illicit behaviors in the area, the degradation into Junkspace continues.

Janovy, CJ. http://www.pitch.com. The Pitch. November 16, 2009. Web. December 18, 2012.

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“Language is not the problem, just the new frontier of Junkspace.

Mankind, torn by eternal dilemmas, the impasse of seemingly endless debates, has launched a new language that straddles unbridgeable divides like a fragile designer’s footbridge . . . coined a proactive wave of new oxymorons to suspend former incompatibility: life/style, reality/TV, world/music, museum/store, food/court, health/ care, waiting/lounge. Naming has replaced class struggle, sonorous amalgamations of status, highconcept, and history. Through acronym, unusual importation, suppressing letters, or fabrication of nonexistent plurals, they aim to shed meaning in return for a spacious new roominess . . . Junkspace knows all your emotions, all your desires. It is the interior of Big Brother’s belly.

It preempts people’s sensations.

It comes with a sound track, smell, captions; it blatantly proclaims how it wants to be read: rich, stunning, cool, huge, abstract, ‘minimal,’ historical.”

Koolhaas, 167

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Language “Language is not the problem, just the new frontier of Junkspace . . . a proactive wave of new oxymorons to suspend former incompatibility: life/style, reality/TV, world/music, museum/store, food/court, health/care, waiting/lounge,” shopping/ center. In the same way life is independent of style, reality exists entirely without the television, and music transcends universality, retail can be sustained in dispersion. However, it is the result of an automobile culture and associated sprawl that retail outlets amalgamate in isolation from the city.

Consider Legends Outlets of Kansas City, Kansas – shopping central only to itself.

This incompatibility justified in communication does injury to the urban core by drawing commerce away from the areas most in need of economic bolstering.

Rather than diversified shopping and entertainment being developed downtown, urbanistically injurious building complexes such as the Charles Evans Whittaker US Courthouse.

http://groucho-karl-marx.blogspot.com. N.P. April 17, 2011. Web. December 19, 2012.

No building in Kansas City is better described as “the interior of Big Brother’s belly.”

“It preempts people’s sensations. It comes with a sound track, smell, captions; it blatantly proclaims how it wants to be read: rich, stunning, cool, huge, abstract, ‘minimal,’ historical.” This District Courthouse’s attempts at minimalism are stiflingly obvious and shortcoming while the attempts at historic integration with the art deco style of Kansas City extended only to appliqué window grates are feeble at best, insulting at worst. More so than its minimalism and “historicism,” the circular footprint of the courthouse seems to intentionally reject the rectangular order established by the fabric of the surrounding city. As communication, this building is intended to intimidate, and unintendedly insults the intelligence of the city’s residents and the urbanism around it.

http://www.balcousa.com. N.P. Web. December 19, 2012.

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“Globalization turns language into Junkspace. We are stuck in a speech-doldrums. The ubiquity of English is Pyrrhic: now that we all speak it, nobody remembers its use. The collective bastardization of English is our most impressive achievement; we have broken its back with ignorance, accent, slang, jargon, tourism, outsourcing, and multitasking . . . we can make it say anything we want, like a speech dummy. . . . Through the retrofitting of language, there are too few plausible words left; our most creative hypotheses will never be formulated, discoveries will remain unmade, concepts unlaunched, philosophies muffled, nuances miscarried . . . We inhabit sumptuous Potemkin suburbs of weasel terminologies. Aberrant linguistic ecologies sustain virtual subjects in their claim to legitimacy, help them survive . . . Language is no longer used to explore, de® ne, express, or to confront but to fudge, blur, obfuscate, apologize, and comfort . . it stakes claims, assigns victimhood, preempts debate, admits guilt, fosters consensus.”

Koolhaas, 169

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Ubiquity of English “We can make it say anything we want, like a speech dummy.” This describes precisely the advertising communications found throughout the Kansas City area.

When in close proximity as in the urban core, messages of simultaneously like and dislike intent reveal more poignantly the consequences of ubiquitous English.

“Missing Jesus. Is Jesus missing in your life? www.missingjesus.com.” Before this advertisement, on this same billboard, there has likely been a cycle of larger-thanlife size burgers, watches, and credit cards, each an attempt at drawing a consumer to a product. In the ubiquity of English, the significance and due reverence of a call to religion, to a change of life, is lost to an array of callings. Whether to turn to God, or turn at the next exit for Hardee’s, communication is reduced to a universal demand for consumers to put their attention and resources towards an end not previously held valuable.

http://kcmeesha.com. N.P. January 14, 2010. Web. December 20, 2012.

“Join in KC! Welcome Fanatikcs. From Mayor Sly James, Visitkc.com, and Pepsi.”

The mayor’s call for celebration of the All-Star game in Kansas City is another frame on the reel, a passing collection of words among endless and countless others.

However, this billboard is only a piece of an advertising campaign, considered one of the All-Star Game’s most successful and well-executed, which included installations ranging from coloring water of fountains to painting advertisements on the streets at all major intersections throughout the urban core. Not only were these messages part of a ubiquitous language, the billboard itself was part of a ubiquitous promotional campaign.

More invasive and omnipresent communications is more invasive and omnipresent Junkspace. Interestingly, the All-Star Game campaign producing a greater Junkspace also produced a more unified feeling throughout Kansas City. For one week, to a city full of strangers, Kansas City’s urban core appeared to have unity in design and way finding; from the Downtown Loop to the Plaza, street navigation and entertainment establishment location was simplified to a single logo and three colors. While the sense of design unity was farcical and temporary, it is still something desirable in a lasting way. Junkspace by communication indicates the benefits of unified design strategies, and allows evaluation of its success while limiting the side effects.

Stephens, Megan. http://www.willoughbydesign.com. N.P. June 15, 2012. Web. December 20, 2012.

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“Memory itself may have turned into Junkspace; only those murdered will be remembered . . . Deprivation can be caused by overdose or shortage; both conditions happen in Junkspace (often at the same time). Minimum is the ultimate ornament, a self-righteous crime, the contemporary Baroque. It does not signify beauty, but guilt.

Its demonstrative earnestness drives whole civilizations into the welcoming arms of camp and kitsch. Ostensibly a relief from constant sensorial onslaught, minimum is maximum in drag, a stealth laundering of luxury: the stricter the lines, the more irresistible the seductions. Its role is not to approximate the sublime, but to minimize the shame of consumption, drain embarrassment, to lower what is higher. The minimum now exists in a state of parasitic codependency with the overdose: to have and not to have, craving and owning, finally collapsed in a single signifier�

Koolhaas, 170-171

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Junkspace. Rem Koolhaas. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002)

Memory and Deprivation Memory is lingering communication, the strongest remnants of an impression.

Due to the problems discussed throughout these writings – poor design and use of public parks, lack of well-considered public spaces, architecture ignorant of urbanism, and urbanism ignorant of a pedestrian future – Kansas City as an urban environment does not last well in memory. Positive experiences of restaurant dining, evening entertainment, world class art collections, and diverse American architecture are often overwhelmed by news stories of violence and drug crime. In a culture of internet-derived collective conscious, the memory of one precedes and forebodes the experience of another. The historic Northeast Community is the best example of this in Kansas City.

Walton, Christie. http://www.fox4kc.com. Fox. May 26, 2012. Web. December 20, 2012.

The historic Northeast, while a collection of the most diverse neighborhoods, some of the finest residential architecture of the city, and arguably the best eclectic dining experiences, is remembered publicly as a place of prostitution and crime.

Independence Avenue of the Northeast suers the most from this stigma, yet along the Avenue prostitution and related crime continues. Pictured are police responding to a homicide in the Northeast, and an addict soliciting funds along Independence Avenue at 2 am, both images that stay with the public more than the Kansas City Museum, or the views from Concourse Park.

The memory, the image, of Kansas City itself is deprived. Memories of activities, experiences, senses are strong, but without an equally strong urban place to locate the memories in, the image degrades, and the public impression assumes massmedia misrepresentations.

Ziegler, Julie. http://kcur.org. KCUR. August 27 2012. Web. December 20, 2012.

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"The cosmetic is the new cosmic."

Conclusion Comparing Kansas City to Koolhaas’ Junkspace seems to paint an unattractive portrait of our city, one troubled by architectural and urban inattention. The issues crtiqued in this document are based strictly on the elements dervived from Junkspace, which offers little in the way of praise of modern and contemporary architecture. In keeping with the focus of the original writings, the positive attributes of the city and the active involvement of its professional design community have been neglected in discussion.

Kansas City is well tuned in to itself, and seeks an improved urban future.

While more weighty issues of social equity, economic opportunity, and infrastructural overhaul are being addressed by the city’s leaders, planners, designers, and residents, I wish in this collection of writings to offer a perspective of urban theory to bear on the planning process. All factors considered in relation to one another opens the possibilties for better informed intervention in constructing an urban future successful and sustained at multiple scales.

http://www.roasterie.com. Roasterie Coffee. November 28, 2012. Web. December 20, 2012.

Junkspace Kansas City