Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:02 Welcome to failed architecture, breeze blocks, where our editors share their thoughts on works in progress, urgent matters, and current happenings in architecture and special politics. My name is Joshua McWhorter and the immediate wake of the protests that are repeated across the U S following the murder of George Floyd, the Philadelphia Enquirer published an article by architecture critic. INGAA saffron under the title buildings matter to now, the articles grotesque headline quickly became the subject of intense backlash and a top editor responsible for printing. It actually resigned from the Inquirer, but largely ignored amidst. This controversy was Saffron's actual argument, which can be summed up by the pieces new softened title, and a quote damaging buildings. Disproportionately hurts. The people protesters are trying to uplift this controversy aside. I recently sat down with two of my fellow failed architecture editors, Kevin Rogan from New York city and bused them sod from Beirut to hear their thoughts about this claim and how discourse around looting and the destruction of buildings and property has generally played out across the U S and in Lebanon in recent months.
Speaker 1 00:01:10 Sorry, Nicole came out with the title buildings matter too. There is a huge fear or an uproar, and I think very justly. So, um, you know, so it's a shit title because it seems like for the editors slap the title onto the right. I don't think, um, Angus saffron, the Philadelphia inquires architecture critic would have given it that title. But I think that there is still a sort of like insidiously chauvinist thing with some core to the piece. And then I, I, you know, I couldn't help, but notice like this sort of endless appeal to like practicality to rationality of let's be civil to, let's not batter our beautiful city and so on and so forth. It was just like, you know, obviously making a moralistic, um, without, you know, trying to explicitly say, so like the first title, it sounds to me, and like, you know, very curious to see how this is modulating in your experience in Beirut, but when there's a sort of rhetorical focus on social ownership.
Speaker 1 00:02:18 So like, you know, we have to protect our city. Like we have to co-exist within our city. It is just so, I mean, it's one of those things where like, you kind of had to set back for a second and just be like, wow, like, you know, even though these are people that I personally disagree with, I'm sure you just agree with that sort of sentiment. Just like you have to kind of Marvel at the fact that they've taken something like that could potentially be real power, like the right to the city or something like that comment, turn it right. And turn it into this vague idea of social ownership where it's like, that's our, you know, like, that's your, Wendy's how dare you burn it down. It becomes more shit like that. Right. And it's like, who actually owns the fucking Wendy's, like, that's not, that's our win anybody's except for whatever international food conglomerate owns that particular Wendy's franchise, like the slippage there is like, it's just so masterfully done.
Speaker 1 00:03:10 And so ideologically and rhetorically, like perfect. It's one of those things you kind of want to be like, wow, ironically, it even starts to become like, even the same argument that's used in Beirut, which is like actually the city centers for the blacks and the whites. And it's like kind of coexistence, which is here in similar to that. I'm not even though that nothing can be extrapolated from Lovenox, it's really singular kind of, but like, there's always this discourse of like coexistence between Muslims and Christians. It's like, we need to coexist in the city center and like, we shouldn't charge it. And that always obscures like class and different, like different being subjected in different degrees to stay funds in the firsthand experience I'm speaking, uh, from comes from late last year in Beirut when we basically, the protests started on October 17, when there was the, the last kind of the last straw was this new tax on WhatsApp calls.
Speaker 1 00:04:12 And it kind of triggered this major, um, like that's on the popular upgrade and like the uprising began, but, and those for the F it was the first two days we had a lot of looting and writing and then it kind of was like packaged into this more civilized than peaceful movement. And kind of like the actors who had been involved at the beginning, who were a bit who were, who caused the damage to private property were kind of cast as sectarian supporters who, who somehow had shown up in the uprising, but now weren't there anymore. Or it was just kind of like a package as it was just like the spontaneous start of it. But now we've, we've made it peaceful. And you would see that, uh, graduate also deployed by people on the ground. Like as soon as, as a fight breaks out or anything, people would start yelling like, uh, like we're a peaceful movement.
Speaker 1 00:05:07 Like this shouldn't happen. It would be just kind of like, it becomes the cop in your head. Like you're an uprising, but you're also policed at the same time. Um, and yeah, and then there's, there's kind of really like, there's no room whatsoever to construct this argument about, um, about destroying a neighborhood. That's the that's that supports the livelihood of the protesters, because the main, the streets that got the most damage were in the heart of the, the ad, which is this private public joint stock company that reconstructed the center of Beirut after the civil war. And there was like in making an, in the initiation of that company, there was a lot of dispossession of a small business owners. And it was just like, there was a lot of repossession of property and stores that was then, um, economic related into this larger, uh, like dissolve then made into this joint stock company.
Speaker 1 00:06:09 So no one is under any impression that, uh, that study that or downtown supports the livelihood of any kind of, um, slightly impoverished population or that half of the population can even afford to go there. But still there's often, again, this rhetoric of the downtown being like the center for, um, this beacon of coexistence or this like this, whatever glamor we have left the country that we need to hold onto as part of a, yeah, just like, as part of a nation building, just like an image of a, of a nation. But yeah, I feel like the, the, the looting, and maybe it was really condemned, but it did not occupy as much time in the media as the looting and rioting in the U S now that in the article we're referencing like the one from, from the Philadelphia Inquirer, as someone who was writing that, that polemical piece of writing, or you're making the name, that it is not in the interests of the protesters to destroy these buildings because they won't be reconstructed.
Speaker 1 00:07:18 It's kind of like, you need to just think of who you're pointing at and who you're directing this rhetoric to. Like, like, as comedians are told to punch up, not punch down, like this is just like on a very basic level, like, who are you addressing your discourse? So are you addressing it to future protestors in a way where like you make this team and you make this call to nonviolence, and then if it continues to happen, there's been like kind of a notice event. And now it becomes like even more, um, criminalized or what is, and that's why I feel like instead of, instead of condemning the protesters, because these, uh, these streets may not be, rebirthed why not just directed at the stakeholders that have that, um, power to rebuild after a kind of uprising after some kind of damage that happens in an uprising, whether it's insured, whether it's not insured, whether it's big business or small business, or in this city center that, um, is not in any way affecting the livelihood of the most impoverished or whether it is in a more, uh, community that directly as a sustains the, the, the people there.
Speaker 1 00:08:29 Yeah. I just feel like there's a responsibility in making that kind of statement. And then this is beyond the headline that the scandalous headline that was snapped onto the article. Yeah. Uh, and I think you're obviously 100% correct. And this is a point that saffron tries to make in the article. I'm just going to read this quick little blurb and incredible 56 years of fast since the Columbia avenue riots up through north. And yet those former shopping streets or graveyards of abandoned buildings residents. So can't get a supermarket to take a chance on their neighborhood, which is just, you know, it's mind boggling because it's trying to plug in, you know, the barge, like, so the Bart's collapse of social programs over half a century and turn it into this like, well, you know, like, you know, why don't we go, they, they did destroy those buildings and, you know, who would want to come back if they did it once?
Speaker 1 00:09:26 It's like, okay, well, we rebuild and flood Plains, like, you know, the entire Midwestern tornado alley, where I'm from is a Testament to the continued stupidity of like private capital development and just building over and over when, you know, there's a very high likelihood it's going to be destroyed. That's not the problem here. The problem is that, you know, social reproduction can not be allowed to happen in these spaces. And therefore that is withheld. Um, and so like trying to conflate those things, it's just, is this really, again, kind of like one of these things where you gotta be like, my God, how did, how did they do this? Like, just, and like, if it is true that there wasn't any kind of proper reconstruction in that first wave, like in Columbia avenue, then now you're going to use it against the protest. Like, how were you not further propagating the logic of that by, um, yeah, like moving the onus of responsibility and reifying as being on the shoulders of protestors.
Speaker 1 00:10:28 One thing that you, the board size of that's so brilliant is that he says that you can't deny the beauty of, um, these, the, the looters stealing refrigerators when they might not even have electricity in their own houses. And that was that for me, also resonates with when we were discussing the lootings in Beirut class here. Um, what a lot of the, like one funny moment was that, um, a lot of the looters stole the cell phone shop. So they still like a lot of recharge cards for their lines. And that actually the protests that the whole uprising had started when there was like a new fee imposed on WhatsApp, um, a proposed fee imposed on WhatsApp texts, which is actually like a third party application. And I don't, I don't even know if, if elsewhere in the world there are taxes imposed by the government on specific apps, but that was a plan that was being pushed forth.
Speaker 1 00:11:24 And, yeah, and like, get a word in this text, the decline and fall of the spectacle kind of like says that looting sort of short circuits, um, that chain of, uh, like just like the chain of production and it short circuits that last link in the chain between the consumer and the commodity. Um, and he was kind of rising to the occasion of, of those riots. He was trying to defend the black population of Los Angeles that participated in the Watts riots against basically all these different factions of the political spectrum, like against the police and the booklet and rhetoric against that NAACP, which was, has a much more, a very fine mist perspective and against like the, what he calls, I think the vacuous international left, which is kind of like primarily Hawaii, um, left. And he just wants to like, basically defend the logic of the, of this, of the rioting crowd or writing, what, what would be referred to as the, yeah, I think that the language of the, like the mob, um, is kind of a double-edged sword because on one hand, you know, if you've been to an action, like, you know, there's sort of a like crowd mentality that can definitely take over things where people do kind of decide something all at once and, you know, move together, develop like similar objectives and, and so forth.
Speaker 1 00:12:55 And we really kind of, you know, exciting and bizarre to get caught up in, especially if you're not used to it, but on the other hand, the like treatment and the sort of, you know, characterization of people is this like vast sort of idiotic bumbling, like mob saying that's lashing out and like destroying parts of themselves and like wounding themselves, like an animal in the chat. Like on the point of like, you know, the strata, it comes up a lot when, especially I think with like the more recent waves of like tearing down statues where it's just like, sort of conservative commentators and, you know, morons saying stuff about like, oh, the mob has struck again, like the mob is like, you know, they're destroying their history. Like the mob is going to come for all these works of great beauty and like the mob hates culture and intellect and art and civilization.
Speaker 1 00:13:46 And I think it, you know, then that obviously has a server flexive thing where it says, oh, that means the mob is sort of violent inherently. The mom can't do anything that isn't violent. Um, and I, I think that's just something that we have to take extreme care to push back on. And, you know, like you mentioned where people are, you know, it goes all the way up to like the distraction of a statue and all the way down to the looting of, you know, cell phone cards, both of which are like very reasonable and very like coherent expressions of a definite political program. Even if nobody is like sitting there and writing a manifesto or something like that, maybe it's maybe we could call it like a political program and it negative or something, but it's like, we know the enemy kind of working towards what are positive responses to that enemy is going to be.
Speaker 1 00:14:41 But in the meantime, we know what the enemy doesn't like, and so we can start there and work our way forward. I, yeah, I just, you know, I always have to be a stickler and like bring in Manfrotto to furry. Um, just because I think it is, you know, certain concepts make, make so much sense here just as universalism us where like, you know, instead of thinking of the city as the body, uh, which, you know, these critics are liable to do nine times out of 10 and the sort of language of violence plays into that. Um, it's makes much more sense to call it, like, you know, situates that is in what he calls the university of precision or call it studies themselves as sort of a social machine and recognize that that machine, you know, lies within and without the cycle of production, um, distribution, and then circulation consumption, like you mentioned, and, you know, intervening at any particular point within that system.
Speaker 1 00:15:44 And within it's sort of spatial, you know, to try to assist spatial edifice that we all live in is, you know, probably one of the most interesting and most thought provoking acts that anyone can particularly do. And I think, you know, we see this full well when protests start losing coverage and sun, and then like the restaurant burns down and all of a sudden everybody's back on it and Chang video and stuff like that. And, you know, there's some things that the media cannot avoid and that seems to be one of them. And that I think makes it a good thing. Also, one thing I feel like one way, I think of kind of like material damage to property that happens in riots. Like maybe this is a really kind of vacuous point, but I didn't like if, as materialists we're, we're, we're trying to like, always understand like the substrate for a certain rhetoric or a culture that why don't we look at material damage as like the substrate for demands that are being propagated.
Speaker 1 00:16:51 Like that is kind of like, if we want to think among the, yeah. Just like how spaces are produced or how it's disrupted from being reproduced. Like this is, I feel like just like a very present material, um, substrate for any kind of demand or any kind of radical demands that may seem completely implausible. I feel like if you were to ask anyone, like if you were to knock down a building, would that be considered an act of violence? And that, I think you'd be very hard pressed to find a single person that would be like, oh yeah. Even, even these people that, I mean, maybe in some sense where it's like a beautiful cultural artifact or something like that, maybe you could like broadly construe it as violence, whatever that's kind of irrelevant. I think the, the point here is that I'm trying to not, I'm trying to get at, is that the concept of violence, which seems to depart almost from, you know, say kneeling on somebody's neck for almost 10 minutes and all of a sudden, like get invested in sort of the urban body, the social body, the urban fabric, whatever the, whatever you want to call it is stretching the, the concept of violence, like as an abstraction to almost like its absolute limit.
Speaker 1 00:18:09 And so it makes it utterly meaningless, you know, just in terms of when we talk about it, like tonight given to those very easy sorts of like rhetorical flourishes, just because it sounds like powerful. And it sounds like, like, you know, not to be too lean here, but it packs a punch. I'm like, you know, just steering away from that type of shit. And like, thinking of like, how do we actually describe these things? Like, this is what, like, I think if any, one of us were given the opportunity to go back and like rewrite and get Saffron's article, like how would we, how would we be able to do that? Not just in terms of like taking it to a different conclusion, but like issuing the language that she uses in which the, her final point is already baked in. Like once you start using that language, there's no real, I mean, I'm I'm of the mind that there's really no other place that you could add that other than, yeah. Everybody calmed down, let's protect satisfied.
