Eulogies proclaiming the death of Fordism confuse the spatial residue of industrial capitalism as being a diagnostic tool for its health—that a static system of buildings somehow belies a static economic, social, and political condition, and the abandonment of an urban pattern reflects an abandonment of Fordism: the mass production of sameness
We are told that sameness is dead—there is no ethos of the contemporary order other than the raucous cacophony of choice.
Yet the world—its culture, economy, and yes, its architecture, is becoming ever more the same. If Fordism had an ethos (which is debatable), it could be said to focus upon the homogenization of bodies and products: one mass produced by the state, the other by the corporation. We are, therefore, in the second epoch of Fordism: its locus operandi has moved to new markets, new territories. Yet even in these old markets, Fordism thrives behind the scenes, in territories that occupy the fringe of the city and even in the non-urban, and therefore are of little interest to institutional thinkers ensconced in urban conditions, for whom the territory of Fordism belongs to ring suburbs and fly over states, of interest only due to their patterns at 40,000 feet.
As global manufacturing conglomerates close regional factories, centralize production, and standardize available material and construction methodologies, the move towards sameness is masked by shape. Shape, in its endless parametric application and ability to mine the massive dustbin of history, has fully seduced the academy, and thus represents Fordism’s ultimate triumph: the masking of global sameness in networks of production, logistics, and consumption. The cultural imaginary of shape is free to present infinite variations of itself to a global audience through standardized, digital content distribution channels, fully unaware of itself as a Fordist factory of content production. Standing on the assembly line of shape, one can see the various bins of parts: here are the acceptable references, over here are your colors, here is the gif machine, here are the dimensions of an Instagram image.
Go forth and manufacture an endless string of the same beautiful images.
JLC-1
Jan 13, 19 7:07 pm
have some left?
poop876
Jan 25, 19 9:33 am
"That's some good shit, huh?" - It's a fucking cigarette.
Eulogies proclaiming the death of Fordism confuse the spatial residue of industrial capitalism as being a diagnostic tool for its health—that a static system of buildings somehow belies a static economic, social, and political condition, and the abandonment of an urban pattern reflects an abandonment of Fordism: the mass production of sameness
We are told that sameness is dead—there is no ethos of the contemporary order other than the raucous cacophony of choice.
Yet the world—its culture, economy, and yes, its architecture, is becoming ever more the same. If Fordism had an ethos (which is debatable), it could be said to focus upon the homogenization of bodies and products: one mass produced by the state, the other by the corporation. We are, therefore, in the second epoch of Fordism: its locus operandi has moved to new markets, new territories. Yet even in these old markets, Fordism thrives behind the scenes, in territories that occupy the fringe of the city and even in the non-urban, and therefore are of little interest to institutional thinkers ensconced in urban conditions, for whom the territory of Fordism belongs to ring suburbs and fly over states, of interest only due to their patterns at 40,000 feet.
As global manufacturing conglomerates close regional factories, centralize production, and standardize available material and construction methodologies, the move towards sameness is masked by shape. Shape, in its endless parametric application and ability to mine the massive dustbin of history, has fully seduced the academy, and thus represents Fordism’s ultimate triumph: the masking of global sameness in networks of production, logistics, and consumption. The cultural imaginary of shape is free to present infinite variations of itself to a global audience through standardized, digital content distribution channels, fully unaware of itself as a Fordist factory of content production. Standing on the assembly line of shape, one can see the various bins of parts: here are the acceptable references, over here are your colors, here is the gif machine, here are the dimensions of an Instagram image.
Go forth and manufacture an endless string of the same beautiful images.
have some left?
"That's some good shit, huh?" - It's a fucking cigarette.
wtf
Liberland!