Disko 8-11

Condition note: fine, minor shelf wear

Disko 8
Conversely to Foucault, whose critical stance is “the art of not being governed quite so much,” Kim Jong Il’s treatise on the art of building should logically be entitled “to govern with the art of building quite so much.” Kim Jong Il’s text is a stringent instruction on how to govern uncompromisingly with the means of consistently ideologically charged architecture and by eliminating the possibility of that very same critical stance. For us, the question arises within our contexts: where does architecture govern quite so much that we have to apply the art of not being governed quite so much.
Disko 9
The Paektusan Academy of Architecture in Pyongyang welcomes its visitors with a room-high, colorful mural. The painting shows an idealized, birds-eye panoramic view
of the capital of North Korea. A few steps away, the only 40-year long history of the cityscape is explained: 287 black and white photos are mounted on the front and back of 25 room-high panels. The photos show a chronological outline of world architecture—from archaic druid stones of prehistory to international cityscapes of the 20th century.
Disko 10
If we frame it theoretically, three further levels of interpretation are added to classical architecture. Firstly, one is dealing with the hermeneutics of space. This is not just about the architect’s reading, but about any conceivable, concrete forms of use. Secondly, it is a matter of adding another interpretation to the existing ones, namely the one that leads me to my goal. Thirdly—and this is the level which brings the first two levels together—it is a matter of making one’s own presence invisible. So I will try to cover my own tracks by disappearing into the architecture of the event.
Disko 11
The issue stages the dynamics of the symbolic exchange of language and nature, things and signs in a textbook-like manner. The new term anthropomorphizes not only a plant, but also a person.