Abstract

In 1966, Konrad Wachsmann began to research and design a city hall for the new speculative development of California City. For six years, the Institute for Building Research at the University of Southern California (USC) worked on a design to signal California City’s transition to public authority while redefining architecture as a media system that actively transmitted, processed, and stored information. Incorporating emerging telecommunications technologies, architecture served as a feedback loop of governance. And while the project failed to secure funding, representation became a substitute for the building. Drawings and models were superseded by machined prototypes and full-scale mock-ups. The project reveals the collapse of fantastical design speculation and the real, all manufactured in the controlled environment of the laboratory. Just as the proposed televisual media system sought to deliver effects of the real—bodies and voices broadcast live—the mock-ups delivered evidence of the real that rendered the building unnecessary.

摘要

1966年，康拉德·瓦克斯曼开始为加州城市的新投机发展研究和设计一座市政厅。六年来，南加州大学 (USC) 建筑研究所致力于一项设计，以表明加州城市向公共权力的过渡，同时将建筑重新定义为一种积极传输、处理和存储信息的媒体系统。结合新兴的电信技术，架构充当了治理的反馈循环。虽然该项目未能获得资金，但代表成为了建筑物的替代品。图纸和模型被机加工的原型和全尺寸模型所取代。该项目揭示了幻想设计猜测和真实的崩溃，所有这些都是在实验室的受控环境中制造的。