He Who Sings Means No Harm - Part Two

written by Alan Kostrenčić

 

All faithful readers of Oris will remember the article ‘He Who Sings Means No Harm’[1] in which we, with a little help from the characters of Golik’s motion picture of the same name who were transported from 1930s Zagreb into the metropolis at the beginning of the new millennium, tried to realize what transformation the city and the life in it were undergoing. We realized that Zagreb is also starting to adopt the characteristics of a generic city that can be detected through the appearance of three paradigmatic architectural typologies that define so-called junkspace[2]: the office tower as the centre of power; the shopping centre, as the ultimate consumer space with its categorical imperative – Enjoy!; as well as gated communities, as a type of housing, a ghettoization in both directions, on the one hand ghettoization of the rich and powerful in a sense of security, and ghettoization of those different in the sense of control.

 



[1] Oris 43-07; Alan Kostrenčić: ‘He Who Sings Means No Harm’, pp 30-43

[2] Rem Koolhaas: ‘Junkspace’ in The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping, Taschen, 2001