Frightening Future Vision in Copenhagen’s New Architecture
Travelling around newer parts of Copenhagen, the architecture speaks of what a future would look like as more and more of what we need and how we work is controlled by corporations. What would the world look like if corporations became so powerful that democracy ceased to function in effect? If you are like the author you won’t find it pleasurable at all.
Moving on to the homes of corporations themselves (Picture 7). Once, corporations had buildings built purposely for themselves, showing their individuality, expressing their brand and tailored to just their way of working. No more of that. It is not necessary as work is now standardised. Most corporations are happy renting standard office space in standard buildings that say standard things to employees and suppliers. Standard messages like “everyone is a replaceable cog in the wheel from which we remove cogs regularly”.
This building (Picture 6) houses some of Scandinavia’s top corporations all slotted into standard office modules. I counted Ericsson, Handelsbanken and (no surprise) Accenture among the dozen or so well-known corporations tucked away in the building. But some of the symbology remains. The moat is a symbol of power. These offices come with a standard shallow moat-looking frontage complete with drawbridge-looking path over (Picture 9). You have to love the control element in this design. You have to walk where you are designated to enter the building you must approach at one particular angle (unless you want wet feet).
As you enter the offices you feel a chill as the wind blows off the cold water. Is this also part of the design – to feel a chill, perhaps of awe – before coming into contact with the corporation?
Well into reception we see two corporacracy manifestations. The first is no people (Picture 12). For corporacracy to work there must be a constant removal of people from the way the way things work. I had to press this screen to get in touch with a remote reception desk and talk to a video of a guy’s head.
The other striking thing about the entrance is the large screen showing the news (Picture 10). Critics of corporacracy claim the news is controlled by corporations and only serves their purpose. If this is true then this design feature shows waiting visitors being bombarded with corporatist messages. If this is not enough there is an even larger version in the staff cafeteria (Picture 11). Employees are consumers too and fair targets of the communicated truth.
Well up into the offices we are given a sight of the housing section (Picture 14). Corporatist design housing puts people in quickly-made high rise standard looking apartments (Picture 13). As if to reinforce the message: “you are a consumer, you make choices from what we offer and there is no other alternative. You couldn’t really be bothered to go through all that trouble to find it anyway”. Well you couldn’t, could you?
References:
1) For more on Corporacracy see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporacracy
2) See the film and the book of the film “The Corporation” the official website http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=47
3) See the official webpage of this new area http://www.orestad.dk/da-DK.aspx?sc_lang=en
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