According to Guy Debord, the spectacle has reached and transform every part of our daily life. Therefore, this essay links Debord concepts from The Society of the Spectacle with The Beaubourg-Effect, written by Jean Baudrillard, as an example of how Architecture is part of the daily spectacle in our cities. As Debord states, the spectacle is not just a collection of images, is a social relation among people, mediated by images. In this context, what is the role of the Beaubourg Center as a social space that promotes images? Does the Beaubourg Center manifest all the characteristics of spectacle as a mass culture entertainment? This essay explores three concepts associated with both, The Society of the Spectacle and Baudrillard’s text: the alienation of the audience, the hypermarket of culture, and the contrast between content and container.
Debord states that the spectacle has alienated our modern life, changing our relationships and modifying our behavior in society. For example, he mentions the changes that the spectacle has done to the human senses: “Since, the spectacle’s job is to cause a world that is no longer directly perceptible to be seen via different specialized mediations, it is inevitable that it should elevate the human sense of sight to the special place once occupied buy touch”1. A social space without controversies and space of acceptance, is the example of the alienation of the spectator, into a submission to the contemplated object, “the more he contemplates, the less he lives; the more readily he recognizes his own needs in the images of need proposed by the dominant system, the less he understands his own existence and his own desires”2, Debord says. In this context, we can see how the Beaubourg Center as a social space, alienates people’s experiences. Baudrillard states the irony of Beaubourg “the masses rush there not because they slaver for this culture which has been denied them for centuries, but because, for the first time, they have a chance to participate, en masse, in this immense work of mourning for a culture they have always detested”3. As we can see, new desires and ways of behavior, as the elimination of voice and touch, and the overstimulated sight, has changed how we interact in the space. Therefore, the alienation of the human senses is a way to control the audience experiences.
As Baudrillard claims, “the hypermarket of culture, is already the model of all future forms of controlled “socialization”: the retotalization of all the dispersed functions of the body and of social life (work, leisure, media, culture)”4. In relation to this, the Beaubourge Center, has been transformed in the perfect example of the hypermarket of culture, a controlled social space for the mass: a continuous circulation of people in huge numbers, an elimination of individuality and personal space, a homogenization of the person by a ticket, among others. We could relate this idea to Debord’s impression of the spectacle as a commodity, were “The world the spectacle holds up to view is at ones here and elsewhere; it is the world of the commodity ruling over all lived experience”5. Moreover, today we can compare these ideas to companies such as WeWork, Google, and Facebook, that had created a new hypermarket of work. They transform the space of work into a controlled social space, a new re-totalization of all life aspects, from work, leisure, and social life. This is a contemporary example of capitalism controlling all aspects of life, in which the companies provide all necessary elements for permanent living at work.
In relation to the disconnection between signifier and signifies, between container and content, Baudrillard disagrees with the external aesthetics of the building in relation to its traditional internal content. In its exterior works as an urban advertisement device, though its architectural ideas of transparency, fluency, and interaction. In contrast, the interior is a static space without meaning. Thus, he satirically proposes the elimination of all the content inside the center, as a complete disappearance of the cultural meaning and the aesthetic sensibility. Hence, it is possible to connect Debord’s arguments of the spectacle at the exterior performance of the building, especially the external circulation. “Everything that appears is good; whatever is good will appear.”6 Jean Baudrillard also recognizes the importance of the external circulation in the Beaubourg Center, and at the same time, he critiques in a sarcastic way how this idea of circulation of fluids is not achieved by the Center. “All traditional fluids – exhaust, coolant, electricity – flow smoothly. But already the circulation of humans’ masses is less assured (the archaic solution of escalators moving through plastic tubes… they should have used suction, propulsion, or what have you, some kind of motion in the image of that baroque theatricality of flux”7. On the other hand, it is possible to find a different aim for this translucent plastic tube, regarding the spectacle. As Debord states in his thesis 168 “Human circulation considered as something to be consumed- tourism- is a by-product of the circulation of commodities; basically, tourism is the chance to go and see what has been made trite”8. The importance of seen and been seen in this case is relevant, it works as an image of spectacle from the building to the city and the vice versa.
In summary, the Beaubourg Center described by Baudrillard shares some of the ideas of The Society of the Spectacle by Debord, developed through the concepts of alienation of the audience experiences, hypermarket of culture for mass consumption and a disconnection between content and container. All of this, especially display in its façade as a maximum expression of the contemplation and the passive gaze of mass tourism.
1 Guy Debord. Society of the Spectacle. (New York: Zone Books, 1995), pp. 17.
2 Ibid pp. 23.
3 Jean Baudrillard, “The Beaubourg-effect: Implosion and Deterrance,” in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed. Neil Leach (London and New York: Routledge, 1997). pp.07
4 Ibid pp. 08.
5 Guy Debord. Society of the Spectacle. (New York: Zone Books, 1995), pp. 26.
6 Ibid pp. 15.
7 Jean Baudrillard, “The Beaubourg-effect: Implosion and Deterrance,” in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed. Neil Leach (London and New York: Routledge, 1997). pp. 03
8 Guy Debord. Society of the Spectacle. (New York: Zone Books, 1995), pp. 120.
Bibliography
Guy Debord. Society of the Spectacle. (New York: Zone Books, 1995).
Jean Baudrillard, “The Beaubourg-effect: Implosion and Deterrance,” in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed. Neil Leach (London and New York: Routledge, 1997).