Advanced Studio – taught by Michael Benedikt

The Whole Earth Subvertisement Headquarters – WESH – aims to speak truth to power. Informed by Object Oriented Ontology (OOO) and Situationalism, WESH houses several institutions and activities whose purpose is to discover and disseminate information that interferes with, corrects, satirizes, and replaces some part of the flow of mis- and dis-information that constitutes the society of spectacle today. In OOO, objects are more than what they do or are used for, extrapolating to architecture, WESH is other than superficial.

This architecture is a sheep in wolves clothing. Taking cues from the modernism of SOM and the ubiquity of the generic plan, this building satirizes a typical capitalist corporate headquarters through amplification. The counterculture programs of the interior are enveloped by an intensely regular facade order, asking the city to both “look at me” and “move along” at the same time. It is both extraordinary and mundane, outgoing and self-conscious, yet thoroughly a whole. The subtle relationship of the the horizontal facade to floor plates, as two distinctly separate systems which interact and overlap, creates a buffer between an aggressive, ordinary, outward posture and a phenomenological, introverted, interior experience. This order, as well as the regular structure throughout the plan, is paramount to the affect, allowing for unexpected and advantageous adjacencies to arise from the mundanity of an office tower. A second glance is necessary to unwrap the credibility of this institution (or any institution). Perhaps a passerby will ask what is really going on inside WESH and who am I to ask.

Diagrams

Texas Observer Office

Plans

Section

Perspective Set

Section Perspective

Elevation

Wall Section + Elevation

Gallery