Phalanstery Module by Jimenez Lai

published Feb 19, 2008
Phalanstery Module by Jimenez Lai
Opening April 4th at Materials & Applications, Los Angeles: A new installation by Jimenez Lai, titled Phalanstery Module.

Mr. Lai is a designer, a comic book author and currently is the LeFevre Fellow in the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State University.

Lai hypothesizes that in zero-gravity, one can rotate (in) architecture and treat all elevations as plans - i.e., walls, ceilings and floors.

Without gravity, all surfaces can be occupied.

In essence, the distinctions between orthographic drawings become obsolete.

To this end the installation will be a large constantly rotating structure which visitors will be able to approach and use differently every time.

The installation is inspired by a comic book he created to assert commentaries regarding the Broadacre City - a 1932 Frank Lloyd Wright vision of a Utopian city where each family own a one-acre agrarian plot and commutes by private automobile.

Wright never really took into account that space and natural resources are limited.

We are witnessing such an impact today.

Wealthier citizens have fled cities for sprawling suburban sub-divisions.

Downtown cores are left to the poor, and cities are becoming increasingly ineffective in controlling energy consumption.

Lai takes Broadacre City to outer space.

Flipping it on its side and making it an Ark are ways he signifies that resources are finite.