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News & ArtsTuesday, January 19, 2010
Architecture A Reading of the Wonder Bread Sign
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 12:15 PM
I passed by this new condo on Jackson...
[T]he factory was a body that contained its internal forces at the level of equilibrium, the highest possible in terms of production, the lowest possible in terms of wages; but in a society of control, the corporation has replaced the factory, and the corporation is a spirit, a gas.
The condo complex has replaced the factory, a space of organized and regulated labor. When the Wonder Bread bakery was in operation, people left home, parked their cars in the lot, and entered the site of production. This factory was the negative of the worker's home, which was positive, personal, a place to be oneself (practice a guitar, play checkers, make love, walk around with slippers—you being you). The factory was not about you, but someone else who was hired to perform specific tasks and obey direct orders.
That bakery—the kind of place where one is not one's own self but someone else who might even be your own worst enemy, someone who is always working against your own interests—is gone, but the sign remains. What does this all mean? It means that life (bios) is now the site of production. No need to go to the factory; the system can exploit you as you at all times and places. Even as you snore, there is no slowing or stopping of the extraction of your surplus value. Capitalist production has become a gas; it's everywhere in the air. This is the substance of control society.
1
As soon as I saw this, it reminded me of Bakery Square (BkSq) which just opened in Pittsburgh. It was an old Nabisco plant, now it's retail and office space. The two look very similar as well.
2
I don't know about all your mumbo-jumbo, but I'll be damned if I'd live in a place that had a fucking Wonder Bread sign hanging over it.
8
As an aside, these are not condominiums, but "market rate" apartments, brought to you by Legacy Partners, who have since 1968 developed 58,000 apartment units in the western states.
9
Seems like more of a statement about gentrification than anything else, given the neighborhood it's in.
10
@9: I wouldn't call it gentrification when (1) what used to be there was a shuttered factory for a major national corporation (i.e. the man), and not boutiques, mom and pop stores or bars.
(2) they put in apartments, which doesn't usually fall under the gentrification banner unless you're tearing down some cheap housing to put in expensive/high rent units/single family homes.
(2) they put in apartments, which doesn't usually fall under the gentrification banner unless you're tearing down some cheap housing to put in expensive/high rent units/single family homes.
12
irony from an architect: plain, boxy apartment buildings, with a single central double-loaded corridor with apartments on each side are usually referred to as a 'loaf of bread'
13
ever read venturi on las vegas? i'm thinking about how in a space built around the automobile, with huge parking lots between the road and the buildings, he asserts that the signs *become* the architecture. this case is a bit different but maybe one could say that in a city of indistinguishable "bread loaf" multi-family developments, these, um, "design features" are the real architecture? kind of like the apartments that house pcc in fremont: it's a typical cheap development with that stainless steel garbage tacked on. rather than practicing actual architecture, the adornments/decoration are chosen to catch the eye, to *be* the architecture lacking in the building itself.
14
JC, it's really much more simple and wholesome than you'd like to believe.
Much like ZymoGenetics's smoke stacks this city's unique sensibilities allowed redevelopment to proceed with just a quirky, visual nod to the past.
When our neighborhood weighed in on the redevelopment of an eyesore of an idle factory we didn't say yes or maybe, we asked if we could, as a community, keep the sign as a keepsake. The developer went to great lengths to work with the community, my community, and the sign was licensed back by Wonder Bread (I don't think many of the people asking eat Wonder Bread), rebuilt, and reinstalled.
There is a double message... the factory had become an eyesore but, in decades past, we had regularly, as a community, worked to give them what they needed (street vacations, etc.) because they were providing a huge amount to the community.
This was the most recent, cognizant act of support of that land by the community. Many didn't like the options but understood that added density in the city was best for the city as a whole. Given that we allowed redevelopment with the simple, honest, and modest request that the sign be retained.
I personally feel the new building is almost as ugly as the factory was but at least it's now useful. AND they were willing to work with the greater community in allowing us a tip of the hat to the past.
Mudede, your smug superiority wore out its welcome 3 (or more) years ago. You cannot simultaneously be an insider and an outsider telling EVERYONE how they should live.
I'm tempted to give you some instructions but I'll just say that making baseless assumptions and forcing your ways and opinions on those of us who took part in and are happy with these decisions is not a good long-term plan.
Thank you for mocking a successful, cooperative neighborhood redevelopment based on your assumptions and "intellect".... asshole
More...
Much like ZymoGenetics's smoke stacks this city's unique sensibilities allowed redevelopment to proceed with just a quirky, visual nod to the past.
When our neighborhood weighed in on the redevelopment of an eyesore of an idle factory we didn't say yes or maybe, we asked if we could, as a community, keep the sign as a keepsake. The developer went to great lengths to work with the community, my community, and the sign was licensed back by Wonder Bread (I don't think many of the people asking eat Wonder Bread), rebuilt, and reinstalled.
There is a double message... the factory had become an eyesore but, in decades past, we had regularly, as a community, worked to give them what they needed (street vacations, etc.) because they were providing a huge amount to the community.
This was the most recent, cognizant act of support of that land by the community. Many didn't like the options but understood that added density in the city was best for the city as a whole. Given that we allowed redevelopment with the simple, honest, and modest request that the sign be retained.
I personally feel the new building is almost as ugly as the factory was but at least it's now useful. AND they were willing to work with the greater community in allowing us a tip of the hat to the past.
Mudede, your smug superiority wore out its welcome 3 (or more) years ago. You cannot simultaneously be an insider and an outsider telling EVERYONE how they should live.
I'm tempted to give you some instructions but I'll just say that making baseless assumptions and forcing your ways and opinions on those of us who took part in and are happy with these decisions is not a good long-term plan.
Thank you for mocking a successful, cooperative neighborhood redevelopment based on your assumptions and "intellect".... asshole
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