kerkko.fi

 

Ping-Pong Oppression

Arguably the most pervasive element enabling exploitative office culture is the postmodern trickery of the contemporary working environment. [The Slovenian philosopher] Slavoj Žižek argues that modern employment tactics create the illusion that our employer is our friend. This fabrication empowers the employer while denying the employed the right to vocalize and protest dissatisfaction of their working conditions. “You’re not going to stick around and help out? I thought we were a team? I thought we were friends?”

Žižek suggests that the environment of the workplace has been twisted, using architectural devices, to manipulate employees. Kitchens, "break-out spaces," lounges, free food, free coffee -- all this is a postmodern sleight of hand designed to manipulate and disarm staff. By fabricating the illusion of employer as friend, the employed is denied the opportunity to protest, argue, fight, be adversarial, and demand more of their working conditions. These informal spaces are political spaces of control, surveillance, and manipulation.


http://www.archdaily.com/234633/worklifework-balance/
Filed under: Architecture Business Capitalism Labour Office Work Zizek
 

City on Rails

Media_httpwwwjagnefal_krdco

A Swedish architecture firm that came up with a plan to roll buildings through a city on rails has won third prize in a competition to develop the Norwegian city of Åndalsnes. The company, Jagnafalt Milton, suggested that existing and new railroads could be built to provide the base for buildings that could be positioned differently depending on the seasons and on the weather.


http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-01/05/architecture-on-rails

Filed under: Architecture Cool Design Norway
 

Architectural Orgasm
Buzescu

Buzescu is a village southwest of the Romanian capital, Bucharest. On entering the village, you will first see rural houses with little vegetable gardens nestling on the left and right of the main street. Suddenly behind the church, glistening high roofs with metal and tin towers dazzle in the bright sunshine. Mercedes stars on the ridge of the roof, pagoda after pagoda, silver flaking roofs: a mixture of styles carried to extremes. The Roma have created a bizarre cityscape: they erect the pompous buildings to show off their wealth, but many of the mansions stand uninhabited afterwards.

http://rabid-worg.livejournal.com/204901.html

Filed under: Architecture Buzescu Roma Romania WTF
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