How is capitalism effecting our spaces?
"Who the fuck wants to see big gold M's everywhere?!" - Richard Goodwin
I like capitalism. In fact I love it. As humans I firmly believe that we need the continuous fluctuating economic climate in order to stimulate ourlives.
Today we can rest because our business is doing well, and we feel good about our achievements. But tomorrow, we have to work hard because there has been a sudden fall in trade.
Without that stimulation our world would be dreary, monotonous and dull.
If there was a world vote on whether we should all turn to socialism or all turn to capitalism. I'd vote capitalism with a capital ISM!
However, how far are we going to allow capitalism to affect our spaces? In a lecture Richard Goodwin gave a my university the other day he made the point that capitalism is a friend of ours that we've let crash too many of our parties. The increasing rate we see logos appearing on buildings leaves us in a situation where we aren't able to walk down the street anymore without being offered something to go spend our money on. Two seven-11s less than 50metres from eachother(Cavill Avenue, Gold coast), two Hungry Jacks 100metres from eachother (George Street, Sydney) and so on and so forth.
I'll admit it is extremely convenient walking down the road with a hole in our stomach, and seeing the big golden M off in the distance, but where do we draw the line?
When does convenience become a shrouding of choice? Will it ever get to the point where instead of seeing buildings as they evolve around us, to all us seeing is a shopping list of impulse buying?
How can we avoid our architecture becoming the host cell to the parasitic advert symbolism of capitalism?
How is capitalism affecting our spaces?
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