Abstract:
Commercial Interior Architecture is particularly reflective of contemporary culture due to its fast turnover and high level of public accessibility. But in order for such spaces to extend beyond the everyday and banal we must consider the sense of atmosphere that is evoked within the user. This highly sought after and frustratingly elusive sense of atmosphere and identity often hinges on the consideration and treatment of materials and surface, which have the ability to simultaneously trigger our senses and draw on memory, evoking a powerful and deeply personal response. For this reason it can be seen to have strong links to the idea of the architectural ‘fetish’, a term explorative of (amongst other things) adjacent contradictions, the perception of value, and our physical and psychological relationship to material objects - as outlined by Hal Foster, William Pietz and Peter Pels especially. It is important to note that unlike Constant’s New Babylon – a city Wigley cites as being built on desire1, for the user fetish lacks both reason and conscious decisionmaking. Instead their experience is seemingly attributed to a supernatural quality or force, perhaps more akin to accounts of the Dutch Still Life paintings and Curiosity Cabinets of the seventeenth century. While fetishising was once a relatively hidden act, it has been made increasingly public through print and social media, and the ‘tumblr generation.’ Consequently fetishism has become commercially desirable rather than negatively connotative. Retail is at a turning point resulting from the triumph of the online store. And so consider how it is we can foster and manipulate the overwhelming and experiential feelings of the fetish to enhance the design of interior spaces, changing the way in which and reasons why we shop, thus securing a future for the physical retail store? This question has been explored in terms of the fetish itself, the material objects with which it is concerned and the way in which their re-composition and montage can be used as a catalyst for change; each providing elements attributed to the creation of atmosphere in architecture. These ideas have culminated in a proposal for a Department Store for the twenty first century; located within the shell of an existing Auckland building, and with a predetermined expiry date. It is intended to question not only what the role of retail is within contemporary culture today; but how the perception of space and atmosphere differs and can be manipulated in a way that ensures the longevity of the retail environment.