Architectural Association School of Architecture

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The Middle of the City Two Identities of the City The identity of the city can be read in two parts, in an external image of the city and in an internal image of the city. The external image is predicated around its monuments and its icons. The internal image is created through consumerism and communication. Identification “The mirror is a virtual plane between the real and the representation of the real.” A mirror divides the external image of the city from the interior image of the city. The mirror internalizes the identity of each image – alienating them from the image of the city as a whole. The mirrored image reflects the ubiquity of the city, identifying its lack of place and exaggerating its continuity. - “Consumption – Strategy for desire.” The mirrored image makes consumption a conscious act, and exhausts the identity of each image. - The individuals of the interior become conscious of the represented image, and begin to fight against the mirror for relief. (‘Fighting’ is materialized into the manipulation of surface values, intensification of signage, and the duplication of space through added mirrors.) The individuals of the exterior become conscious of the represented image, and begin to fight against the mirror for relief. (‘Fighting’ is materialized into the masking of icon, and the duplication of space through added mirrors.) - As the mirror is attacked from either side, it becomes scratched and distorted. The image of the city becomes disrupted and confused. The once perceived continuity becomes deceptive as its limits are exposed. - Inhabitation within the distorted image of the interior becomes threatening and delusional, as consumerism and communication are repeated beyond control, and space becomes evasively liminal. Inhabitation within the distorted image of the exterior becomes threatening and delusional, as historicity becomes fractured, skewed and collapsed. The Exchange of Identity The madness created by the distortion of the mirror motivates the individuals of either side to fight harder, forcing the mirror to rupture and fracture. Fragments of the mirror fall and shatter, reflecting new views of the city and revealing passages to the image beyond. - The creation of passages opens the division between the internal and external images of the city, revealing alternate understandings of the city’s identity as a whole. - The passage becomes a space of exchange.