Argument - presentation
Building the
‘iconic’ !
With
all the masses of however arguably unique or ‘iconic’ buildings are in the
world, the church is no stranger to the term*… conversely, what? and how? Could
the ’iconic’ be reapplied to the modern church and free it from its pre-conceived
rigidity and timeless historical significance promoting it into a newer future?
I currently pronounce that the new world
Religion is capitalism! The dollar, the pound, the economy, all feed into one
major common compound and that is commercialism. It surrounds us in every
aspect of our known existence, from the way it jumps at you, attracts you, mesmerizes
you, and almost seduces you.
The commercial aspect of the church does
exist in some way; the endless row of memorabilia shops that surround the
Breaking down the food chain of the church
capability to commercialize is from [REFER]
GOD – SCRIPTURE – ICON – WORSHIP – COMMERCE
reducing the deity to a simple hand held
memento or souvenir.
The church has always been inventive in redirecting
the focus of its followers towards god, through art, symbols, and a
fantasmagoria of different effects. ‘The Shopping Mall’ could be the modern
version of those redirections.
Nonetheless, shopping malls do exist under church patron ship in the
Pilgrimage is ritualistic to both the church and
the shopping mall.
The ritual of the church is defined by its liturgy
and scripture.
The ritual of the mall is defined by the brand
value and its signage
The church is grand, holy, formal, robust, excessive,
textured and expensive.
The mall is humble, unholy, informal, flimsy,
moderate, bare and cheap.
These characteristics all translate into the formal
grandeur and or bareness of the church mall. The new church mall should
adhere to all these contrasting ritualistic juxtapositions, at times they would
meet and at other times would part, going back to their original conventional
use in either the mall or the church.
Naturally, the site chosen is EUR Rome,
due to its grand and ambitious architectural Fachist startings in the modernist
30s. It’s only right to apply the Church mall as a new addition to the site.
The area is going under a rejuvenation plan to modernize it to the 21st
century. The blunt positioning of the Church mall on an empty plot of land will
parade off the new landmark.
The cruciform shape, has always had an
undeniable almost divine relationship to the church body and apparently so to
that of the shopping mall floor plan. The shape provides a linear formality to
the inner circulation and organization of the interior spaces. It also allows
for the conveyance of the ‘pilgrimage’ experience to the church via the
procession towards the altar and to the shopping mall via the pilgrimage from
boutique to boutique.
Why the cruciform shape? Well, an
important part of the church’s body, the ‘nave’ was another method of
attracting people to the church. It used to exist as the lively dynamic body of
the church, with markets and shops that flourished its floors leading you to
the inner holier part of the altar. The regular procession of spaces started
from the west façade towards the east (apse) but no further, the adoption of
the crucifix shape as in the shopping mall plans before shows a sense of
linearity for the shops to form around it and situate accessibility and
circulation within the structure.
Part of the shopping experience is
definitely through the corridor (nave) aisle ?
‘’Corridors
are the main arteries of the shopping organ and the driving force of shopping
dynamics’’ Rem Koolhaas, Rem
Koolhaas, Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping.
