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SECURITY ENTRANCE AND MEDIA CENTER FOR THE UNITED NATIONS

WALA, MAGDALENA A
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1179353633

Abstract Details

2007, MS ARCH, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of).
Focusing the United Nations within a Post-Modern framework, the organization is viewed as a series of simulations. In order for these simulations to defy collapse and maintain validity, the system must misalign its simulations from its reality, through the use of seductions. Providing critical distance, with these contradictory plays of appearance, the organization’s main purpose, to provide hope for a better future, perseveres. Upon this foundation of knowledge, this thesis proposes a replacement to the security tents currently used at the 46th Street entrance (2007). Put up as a knee-jerk reaction to the September 11 attacks, the tents are telling in their own right; and all interventions should be viewed as poignant experiments in re-writing the present era into existence. However, in light of the present condition of our world, the tents seem weak and inadequate; only hinting at the circumstances they engage in. The project first sets up its playing field by describing Baudrillard’s 3 Orders of Simulacra. This commentary explains how symbolic exchange has been heading towards a self-referential collapse, since the feudal system, due to perfections in technology and science. Exploring how this collapse is inescapable, it seeks to understand how architecture can play a role within this dilemma. For methodology, the project uses the discussion between Jean Baudrillard and French architect, Jean Nouvel, in the book The Singular Object. The paper pulls from a wide range of symbolic exchanges such as film, architecture, literature, pop culture and art, in order to support Baudrillard’s observations about our existence and its direction. From these examples and as prescribed by the methodology, the project collects a series of tools, or manipulations, which are used to marginalize the politics of body and space in the security progression. Used as a device for this exploration, the security entrance will be conscious of the identity it filters, between the organization and its users, as they interact. Informed by Baudrillard’s writings, this thesis suggests replacing the current sequence of access to the UN, with a tougher intervention. Using security as a device, a series of targeted visual and spatial manipulations, prolong and amplify the seductions already taking place at the complex allowing the UN’s identity to be re-invigorated. Permitting the security sequence to be rethought, these scripted seductions, more importantly, heightening the intensity of symbolic exchange between organization, city, world, and user. While at the same time, serve as a catalyst towards a conversation about an alternate levity amongst the United Nation’s weight.
Dr. Aarati Kanekar (Advisor)
133 p.
Architecture

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • WALA, M. A. (2007). SECURITY ENTRANCE AND MEDIA CENTER FOR THE UNITED NATIONS [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1179353633

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • WALA, MAGDALENA. SECURITY ENTRANCE AND MEDIA CENTER FOR THE UNITED NATIONS. 2007. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1179353633.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • WALA, MAGDALENA. "SECURITY ENTRANCE AND MEDIA CENTER FOR THE UNITED NATIONS." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1179353633

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1179353633
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© 2007, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.