It would be called the United Unions (UU) building.
The UU building would house the diplomatic leaders of the EU, the North American Union, the Asia Pacific Union, the South American Union, the African Union, and the Middle Eastern Union (maybe one or two more, but I can't think of them right now). These unions would each in the near future have federalized the states in the respective regions and subordinated the sovereignty of the states to the respective unions, fast on the heels of a time of synthetic terror,synthetic war, synthetic financial crises, sythetic elections, torture prisons, police state tactics, and managed media.
In this scenario, these unions are reputedly the way the world is soon to be organized, according to scholars at the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Enterprise Institute, the Trilateral Commission, and Bilderberg--some of the elite consensus building arms of the central bank and its central bank centric new world order that reputedly run the show now.
Let's assume the new UU building would no longer be in New York City. Let's assume that it would be located on an island somewhere far from the threats of terrorist bombers sponsored by all manner of residual G8 state intelligence agencies. We could suppose it would be located on the most remote island in the world. Googling most remote island suggests that would be Bouvet Island, an uninhabited Norwegian possession, located half way between Cape Town, South Africa, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the south Atlantic Ocean. For specificity freaks that would be at 54°26′S, 3°24′E, or 946 miles north of Antarctica. Hmmm. The big power folks would never settle for that hostile of a climate and it is rumored to be a bit boring topographically. We could pick the island chain of Tristan de Cuna farther north, but there's not much there to spark an architect's imagination either. So: instead, let us hop a few thousand kilometers west of Chile, South America, assume it will be built on assume on Easter Island aka Rapa Nui. You know, the one with the heads in the Pacific--the one where a civilization perished because it reputedly exceeded the carrying capacity of the island.
What contemporary architect would you want to get the commission and what kind of a building would you expect him to design?
I would
nominate Thom Mayne, and Morphosis (LA), and specify as an example their new San Francisco Federal office building.
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/morphosis/usfb/usfb.html
I'd nominate no one!
Too long have they made decisions from Ivory Towers with no real affinity for how perhaps 60% of the planet lives.
I'd drop them off on the island with a few tons of garbage, old pallets, rusty corrugated steel, plastic sheeting, and let em figure it out for themselves. Then we might see some resolutions that might make a difference.
A grand structure only seems to enforce the delegates sense of entitlement and immunity from the real problems, 🙁
My ten dollar pound puppy lives better than most humans on the planet. 🙁
Sorry, I'm just pissed off at this morning's 700 billion dollar fat-cat bailout. 🙁
I'll go off in a corner somewhere and grouse and grumble to myself. 🙂
UU of architects
". . . the greatest creations of architecture are not so much the product of individual labour, rather the product of social endeavour, they are things simply cobbled together by working people, rather than inspired inventions of the creative genius, they are the traces a nation leaves behind, the strata desposited by the centuries, the lees of successive evaporations of human society, in short they are a kind of geological formation".
Victor Hugo
More than a single building, by an only one architect, I think it would be better a master plan (made by an architect), with some buildings, each one by a different one.
I would recall
+ The IBA Berlin 1987
+ The Vitra factory
+ Ordos 100
So each architect could interchange with others, the ideas in the project.
And in 10, 50 years, there will be the buildings which would dialogue between them.
Perhaps each building contributes with one cultural region. And each architect for one of them.
The IBA Berlin 1987
Rauchstrasse Project
There are many IBA, but I was thinking on Rauchstrasse Project.
The architect Krier (master plan), decided to divide the plot in 10, and give them to 10 architects in this one Aldo Rosi, Hans Hollein and others.
I visited some years ago, and had a very nice sensation of harmony, rather than a competition.
Could have the risk to look like "UU Disney version"? Perhaps it,s a risk and will need to take it under control.
But at IBA Berlin, the result was much better than one made by just one.
I still thinking on nomination, Mathias Klotz , Solano Benitez, I,ll see.
Ps.:
I loved, and love Morphosis and Zaha too, one vote more from here.
Link from IBA Berlin (all IBA) http://architectureinberlin.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/the-berlin-iba-1987/
Photos from flickr http://www.flickr.com/groups/847356@N24/pool/
Rauchstrasse Project link:
http://architectureinberlin.wordpress.com/rob-krier-and-others-rauchstra...
If you need any help, please contact us at – info@designaddict.com