Cut-Paste-Build: The Exquisite Corpse of The Chelsea Sugar Refinery

Abstract

Collage methodologies, the Paranoid Critical Theory, critical fictions, the commodification of sugar and an oneiric acropolis. Cut-Paste-Build: The Exquisite Corpse of the Chelsea Sugar Refinery is an architectural point of interest that addresses sugar’s hegemony over society. The research examines the sugar epidemic as the moral point of inquiry. In That Sugar Film, Gameau argues that the western world is increasingly sicker due to the accessibility and lack of control when consuming refined sugar products.1 Gameau argues that the excessive consumption of refined sugars is stronger than the casual nicotine addiction, as it has become intrinsic and detrimental to the daily diet. Gameau’s findings suggests that the everyday dietary consumption of sugar is likened to an epidemic. Looking towards an architectural intervention, the thesis aims to engage with architectural narratives through the representation tool of collage and Salvador Dali’s Paranoid Critical Theory. These modus operandi are used to juxtapose elements of reality and fantasy, to ponder and imagine radical spatial propositions. The architectural narrative becomes a “critical fiction”. The use of critical fictions is a methodology stemming from the synthesis of architectural representation and storytelling influenced by Superstudio, Rem Koolhaas and Point Supreme. The critical fiction exploits architectural fantasy to critique on the historical, political and social conditions of a particular urban situation. As a result of these architectural provocations, architecture is diverted from actual building and rather portrayed as a critical media. The design-led research intervenes on the Chelsea Sugar Refinery, reworking it to become an oneiric acropolis. The proposal oscillates between a private industrial estate and conservational space, along Auckland’s controversial littoral environment, whilst exhibiting the hedonism and depravity attributed to sugar consumption that the Chelsea Sugar Refinery enables through their consumer products. The architectural intention is twofold. Firstly, it is to question the rigidity of architectural design by injecting the speculative nature of fictive architecture. Secondly, the research aims to critique and reveal sugar’s intrinsic consumption as a modern vice.