Assignment
First, explain in your own words Rein's thesis in the essay and in the passage quoted above. Describe his writing style. Why is there a lack of punctuation? Did he write the essay quickly while waiting for planes to take off? These are all things to consider in your reading of Junkspace.
Second, using only specific examples of architecture from places other than America and Europe, describe how globalization and junkspace has manifested itself Aim for a minimum of three examples.
"Junkspace is the sum of our current achievement; we have built more than did all previous generations put together, but somehow we do not register on the same scales. We do not leave pyramids. According to a new gospel of ugliness, there is already more Junkspace under construction in the twenty-first century than has survived from the twentieth . . . It was a mistake to invent modern architecture for the twentieth century. Architecture disappeared in the twentieth century; we have been reading a footnote under a microscope hoping it would turn into a novel; our concern for the masses has blinded us to People's Architecture. Junkspace seems an aberration, but it is the essence, the main thing."
Rein Koolhaas' meditation on globalization, "Junkspace," retains all of the sardonic bite it had when first published back in 2002.