A Situation Constructed from Loose and Overlapping Social and Architectural Aggregates

Cities structure our lives, resources, interactions, and identities. From Sebastiano Serlio to Rem Koolhaas, architects have used the metaphor of theater, presenting the city as stage, as comic sets for comic acts, as a delirious city for delirious subjects, generic city for generic subjects, and so on. Today, however, we are social anywhere, actors on- and offstage. So what happens when the city no longer structures us, or when basic urban elements – streets, buildings, facades, and addresses – have been augmented, superimposed, and untethered by or replaced through technology?

First presented at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, A Situation Constructed from Loose and Overlapping Social and Architec-tural Aggregates is a playful investigation into urban alternatives. Employing neither the holistic worldview of mapping nor the isolated islands of architectural typology, MOS imagines a proposal where the city is everywhere… 

Includes essays by Jack Self, Curator, British Pavilion, 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale; T. Conrad Therrien, Curator of Architecture and Digital Initiatives, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum; and Ana Miljački, critic, curator, and Associate Professor of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.