︎
Paradoxical Shadows: Design Combat + Tectonic Monsters
by
Gabriel Farid Guerra
Rather than being a service of power, architecture can utilize spatial narratives as a tool to produce new realities. Through cinematic architectural intervention, political and capital agendas are analyzed in order to reevaluate the organization and operations of constructed space within unfettered Capitalism.
PARADOXICAL SHADOWS
Responds to the social/financial dichotomy in human expansion
and draws a map in a time of unprecedented earthly responses by commenting on
unfettered capitalism‘s impact when not tied to the benefit of humanity. The
thesis proposes to launch a conversation of fluid thinking regarding current
systems by peeling back the false facades and documenting a collection of
stories of the fractured terrestrial through the perspective of its built
environment. Apparent in the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, it aims to
expose a paradigm in which current political and capital actors operate in
unviable institutional practices and examine the potential losses in future
geopolitical realities. Architecture presents a tool through which these global
agendas that prioritize economic growth over collective continuity can be
analyzed through spatial narratives.Presented as a cautionary tale, the work performs as a mediator between spatial narrative and informed speculation aimed at empowering the public through stories that give objective distance to the struggles of their everyday. The public is presented with alternative perspectives on the geopolitical structure to enact action in the present and reinstate their own agency as the many. The work begins to open a new territory for architects to operate in. Sited on the Latin American Landscape, the three transnational phenomena examined unveil the destruction and creation of constructed space for power acquisition at the expense of those from the margins. The documented narrative is triggered by the shadows monsters make...