Anarchitecture
Under advanced capitalism, every space that you pass through will have been designed with you in mind. The utilization and design of architecture is playing an increasingly important role in the corporate world. Governments and corporations have infiltrated all corners of urban space. Every street is now brimming with security cameras (for our protection of course), every public space is designed with traffic flow in mind. People have become units to be directed and physically moved around space. The State creates a system within which we move and live, a functional space on a massive scale. Users of space are placed in a position of subordination to the owners of space. Control over the users of space often takes the form of obvious physical devices within architecture, however contemporary architecture also uses much more subtle devices within its design. It now works on a psychological as well as physical level. Space is designed to affect our moods, and put us into the frame of mind that companies require in order to be in a position to compete with their rivals. This requires that they use both the language of their architecture and the knowledge of how we will react to space.
It is through a process of mythification that corporate space claims a dominance over the users and visitors of space. Corporate architecture acts as a signifier of the myth of the efficient and powerful corporation, it is the physical symbol and public face of that corporation. Its forms demand that the myth be read as such, although as with all signs the link is arbitrary. A vocabulary of signs is built up and reused by corporate architects in order to exert control over the mood and behavior of the users of that space.
In this way, architecture is analogous to a type of language. Buildings and the layouts and components within them can act as a text, instructing users how they are intended to be used and affecting the ambiance of the space.
As with any language system, the link between signifier and signified is an arbitrary one. It is only by social convention that we read language as we do. This applies to architecture as much as it does to the English language. Language is also something that can change over time. It is by corrupting the language and signification of architecture (by producing events, objects, and their language) that a real form of resistance to architecture can be found. Myths can be demystified and signs rewritten.
The users of space constitute the greatest and most powerful force within the world of architecture - everyone is a user of space. Consequently, everyone is a potential creator of that space. We simply need to change the language, from one that uses us, to one that we can control. By creating new and contrasting myths and stories within architectural space, we can create ‘Anarchitecture’, an alternative use of the architecture in which there is no hierarchy of control. Anarchitecture attempts to confuse the existing language of architecture, not to replace it. It is not a matter of one system of ideas replacing another, but rather of a process of corruption. The architectural language of places can be corrupted by merely spreading different ideas about the use of these spaces within the communities of users. This requires a method of splitting apart architectural myths and creating a space that is open to new forms of appropriation. A method of concrete change here and now as opposed to counting time waiting for yet another utopian revolutionary ideal.
The above is a slightly modified and abstracted version of the Space Hijackers manifesto.
