Synecdoche, Beijing

Architecture at its best and worst is a simulation. It simulates an entity that brings order to chaos while at the same time maintaining and even nursing the chaos. In a future where such an understanding is taken to the extreme, there’ll be no need for architecture to have an appearance or style, because all you have is the insides. The outsides have become utter void, nothingness and separated by a virtual layer, manifesting the illusion of infinite interiority. Beijing therefore becomes a place of both non-place and hyper-place, a place that makes you question context, authenticity and realism. A space of contained architecture that renders historic and architectural landmarks as caged, castrated wildlife, forcefully deprived of their immediate surroundings and they seem not to care, all for your amusement. There is no “Nature” to tell you that you live in an imbalanced reality, and that civilization has taken over too much. A time and space where looks and performance are disconnected, and all you have left are empty containers deprived of meaning. Organ without a body, persisting beyond time, space, context and culture. One can only speculate whether this architecture is a dystopian future, or an actualization of current trends in global contemporary built environment. But where do you want to live? Why not wake up in Beijing and go for a morning run through the buzzling cityscape of, where the air is always clean, the weather is perfect. Live among the happiest and healthiest people and dine the best ecological food that is locally grown under the highest quality measures. Beijing grows and incorporates other cities essence to become the global city of tomorrow. A number of global mega corporations have united into building their own nation with their own laws and government placed within a mega city structure, which functions as a new reality. The mega structure consists of a highly engineered multi-performative dome structure that generates artificial weathers and pure air. The domes also incorporate power plants and agricultural platforms, which allow its inhabitants to have access to energy and ecologically grown products. Basal commodities have become scarce products outside the corporate mega structures, due the human created global heating and pollution. The domes provide fresh air and covers for the outside smog of Beijing. The smog and global overheating of Beijing has been worsened over the last years. It has now become impossible for human beings to walk and live in the city without a proper environmental suit. The air is un-breathable and the temperature is inhumane. Fortunately the most intelligent and skilled people are selected by corporations to live within Synecdoche Beijing. It is a corporate nation that is cross-cultural and cross social. That doesn’t differentiate or deselect humans based on gender, race or background. Only people who are not part of the corporation that are left outside. We call it corporate selection.