Preview
SUB-URBAN
The Collective
Cube Gallery
Designer Bruce Mau uses the term "lifestyle," in his book by the same name, to suggest our path through life is a choice – something we style to suit our fluctuating awareness of ourselves within the world. A citizen’s impact on a city, much like a resident’s effect on their house, is inherent – people have a substantial impact on the identity of place.
In an upcoming exhibition at the Cube Gallery, the Collective – consisting of Anlanda design team Cam Christiansen and Maureen Hodgan; McKinley Dang Burkart (MDB) architects Mark Burkart, Ben Klumper and Walker McKinley; and Lemermeyer Photography’s Robert Lemermeyer – will transform familiar landscapes through creative commentary ranging from video and photographs to alternative concept home models and drawings. Sub Urban is the Collective’s attempt to dispel the myth that Calgary lacks culture and focus on people defining place, instead of the other way around.
Christiansen believes "there is too much emphasis on where we live," and Hodgan suggests that the sensibility of urban life, which implies an alternative lifestyle, exists as an attitude as opposed to a place. For her, the phrase "downtown is a state of mind," which she read by chance in a magazine, is extremely resonant and has since informed her lifestyle.
Anlanda, the design team and couple, recently bought and renovated a 1960s bungalow in suburban Calgary. Living in the suburbs "is like tourism of our past," observes Hodgan. The couple has lived in several urban centres including Barcelona, New York and Calgary. Both grew up in the suburbs, as did McKinley of MDB.
"We all grew up in the suburbs, everyone (in North America) grew up in the suburbs," McKinley says. "They are like oxygen. It just is what we deal with."
Because North America's car culture essentially made the geographically disparate suburban landscape possible, Christiansen and Hodgan consciously try to make their car – the mobile home necessary to traverse Calgary’s suburban landscape – an active space. So the cars that take us into, out of and around the suburbs are as much a part of the suburbs as the palette and lot size restrictions.
MDB engages with what already exists – a dominant car culture and substantial urban sprawl – as a means of offering commentary and options. McKinley suggests that not only are cars present, but that "suburbs are cars" and their presence is a form of public space – through the common link of the radio – that is otherwise absent in the suburban landscape.
Sub Urban is motivating subject matter for MDB because suburbs are, and have always been, an issue for architects precisely because they aren’t an issue – there is a limited amount of individual design innate to the cookie-cutter construct.
By embracing suburban guidelines, MDB proposes alternative suburban residences as architectural commentary. The architects says there is an implied lack of freedom and individuality in suburban housing – homes are made for anyone and everyone and do not generally incorporate a variety of lifestyles.
MDB’s designs attempt to provide alternatives to individuals by focusing on some of the positive notions behind the creation of suburbs – the lawn, for example. One of the four concept homes takes the dream of a personal piece of land "to the extreme," leaving the entire lot above ground as lawn while the residence is below the idyllic green space.
The Collective’s photographer, Robert Lemermeyer, contributes photographs of suburban icons, including an abandoned drive-in movie theatre. Present in his photographs, and in his attitude towards our surrounding landscapes, is a sense of awe for the beauty and stillness of this urban decay. He suggests that we should "offer a positive alternative if you are going to make judgments."
Christiansen and McKinley acknowledge that they owe part of their accelerated success to Calgary because the city has afforded them opportunities that can't be found in saturated markets like Toronto and New York. In Calgary, both feel as if they are working with a blank slate, rather than following precedents that might be inherent in larger, more established centres.
Not one of the three parties in the Collective deny the bleakness of the suburbs, but rather than slag the place they have chosen to live, Sub Urban's contributors embrace Calgary’s urban sprawl "blank slate" in order to imprint their own lifestyle choices while fostering dialogue about our surroundings. |
