Detroit Sucks: The Motor Shows Last Gasp
I'm more a road man myself: tarmac, verges, signs, road markings, bridges, roundabouts, and the timeless joy of the Little Chef on the lonely highway - all that kind of stuff. But cars never really got me. From Toad of Toad Hall to Clarkson (and endless architects who will bore you with classic car enthusiasms somehow justified as legitimate interest by a mis-reading of Corb), evidence indicates that an interest in fast cars compensates for a slowness of thought. Of course, I appreciate that they are the most significant product that human endeavour has produced. A massive industry fuelled by the liberating dream of escape, of individual freedom, of man-machine-motion. Cars are the most significant organising principle since the mid twentieth century, structuring land, stock markets, employment patterns, and environment. But the things themselves? I'm happy behind the wheel of my wife's Vauxhall Corsa. So I'm on a business class flight to Detroit looking suspiciously at a cabin full of men reading car magazines. Me? I'm reading a piece on the AOC in the Saturday FT. I'm hoping that somehow I'll be able to glimpse the heart of the military industrial complex amongst the shiny bodywork, gleaming chrome grills and jewel like lights. A car show is, of course, about cars, but it's also about the dream of the industry and culture that creates them. The cars perfect sheen is hallucinatory as a mirage - and it's meticulously preserved by teams of polishers who remove the publics greasy fingerprints as though wiping down a weapon. This year, despite the ultra confident, self-assured corporate visions lurks the possibility that their dream might vanish. The show takes place against a backdrop of local and international crisis. Motor City has lost thousands of jobs and the brands that defined US car culture are in decline. Globally, the dream is becoming obscured by the clouds of recession, the dust of oil field conflict and looming environmental catastrophe. The car show revolves around what's termed 'the reveal': the moment of accelerated strip-tease when the silky drape that hugs a cars contours like the dresses on the girls on the Italian car stands is whipped off to reveal the new model. Once exposed, cameras zoom in pornographically on chrome orifices, folds of steel and the sheen on its buffed skin. These events are carefully scripted and choreographed. At Land Rover, the build up is so monumental and portentous it sounds like an Imperial Star Ship with Jean Michel Jarre on board with a PA announcement by the same guy who voiced the Nuclear War warnings. Man, it's significant. It's here that you'll hear phrases like "A diesel powered Super Sports Car!" over a heavy rock sound bed, or a German accent shouting "The Power! The Tradition!" They are as much ideological rallies as they are a way of promoting a particular product. There are the events too, most of which are baffling. During the introduction of the new Audi TT, Bryan Adams wanders onto the stage for a bemusing acoustic version of 'The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me'. Over at BMW a troupe of satin jump-suited street dancers throw robotic shapes to euphoric trance in a space portal of rings. It's like a ritual dance from the future - lit in the kind of ultra-violet that makes you feel as though you are in geostationary orbit. Quite possibly it's a modern dance interpretation of the stands uber-Tutonic strapline: "More Efficiency". Each stand sets a scene for the brand and its models. Mini is shiny black and neon, like a 80's nightclub, complete with resident DJ and juice bar. Audi have a stage set version of a high Modernist villa; Dodge have a massive backlit ramshorn logo and moving message sign like a hyped up sports arena; Jeep creates a rocky outcrop with a skeletal Rocky Mountain lodge. Ford is super-brite, lit with a hint of ultraviolet and completely bland. If the Aztecs had had car dealerships, they'd have looked like the Infinity stand (The Temple of Vroom?) The concentration of brand identity is so saturated that the patchwork of floor materials could be an essay in contemporary corporate aspirations. As it changes from stone flags, to mirrored metallic to deep pile carpet to pseudo grass, via Hessian weave you feel the aspirations and values encoded into floor finish. You can feel this concentrated message encoded beneath your heel. The activities on the stands are just a brand-centric. Bentley have a craftsman wearing an apron who looks like he came out of the 1950's involved in some intricate work involving hardwoods and leather. Lexus have set up a spa where you can be massaged amongst silver birch trees and executive cars. At Land Rover, an executive club style lounge is filled with piles of culture books: Andy Goldsworthy, Chanel, one of those '100 architect' books, Art Forum, Wallpaper and Monocle and people drinking Guinness. In a thoroughly un-reconstructed display that only the Italians of Mazzerati, Ferrari and Lamborghini could possibly put on without a hint of irony, girls pout and pose, leaning suggestively across the bonnets of over-powered, ridiculously sculpted cars. It seems like a moment out of time - like pulling a 1970s ready meal out of a freezer. In an annex, past a security guard, down a staicase and behind a curtain, something else is happening. It's here you'll find the solar powered cars, cars from emerging manufactures, and a selection of pimped-up cars presented by Dub magazine which parody the obsessions with power, presence, technology and luxury. In a stand that looked like it should be selling strawberries in a lay-by there is a line up of cars produced by Li Shi Guang Ming Automobile Design Co that might well have popped out of a cartoon: Postman Pats van with a Yellow Submarine makeover. They have the most beautiful names: 'A Piece of Cloud', 'The Book of Songs', and the amphibious 'Detroit Fish - which carried the satirical marketing suggestion that it might suit "renowned environmentalist President Bush, ordering this car for his Texas Ranch". Along with the $2,500 Tata Nan recently announced by Indian manufacturer Tata it is possible that future of cars might deviate from the extreme Anglo Saxon obsessions that have characterised the industry since its origins: an alternative to the mantra of Harder, Faster, Stronger, Better. Cars in their current form are not inevitable conclusions; they are extreme conclusions of one strand of thought. There may well be other ways to perform the most important role of cars: devices that interpret the cultural idea of journey, that engage with the romance of the open road, and which become the physical manifestation of individual freedom in the landscape.
The response? Like a dieter tucking into low-fat eclairs, car design is pushing the limit of bigness, fastness, and luxuriousness while simultaneously claiming sustainability as a kind of mantra of self-preservation. Even bull-bar bearing American trucks now come in biofuel flavours - though they are so macho that probably means a tank full of fried food and beer. The new Dodge pick up - launched in cod wild west frenzy with cowboys and a cattle run along Washington Street - makes its own contribution to a sustainable future: 5% better fuel efficiency. Hummers - those extreme mechanical fantasies - response is to make a slightly smaller model which only exaggerated its similarity to a kids mechano-military toy. According to press releases, sustainability can also be a feeling or an aesthetic.
Posted by anothersam at February 24, 2008 3:32 PM.
Contents:
More Scenes In Cartoon Deserta
Generic Powerpoint Template: Delivering Bad News
The Best New Building In London
Book Review: The Infrastructural City
The Michael Jackson Monument Design Competition
Now Showing: John Baldessari Sings Sol LeWitt
Obscure Design Typologies: Life Guard Chairs
Osama bin Laden Cigarette Lighter: Novelty Products as Congealed Culture
Absurd Car Crashes: A Eulogy for J.G. Ballard
Now Showing: Dan Grahams 'Rock My Religion'
This Concrete 'O': On Serotonin, the M25, and the Motorik Picturesque
Church of the Literal Narrative
Philadelphias Floating Architecture
Now Viewing: Married To The Eiffel Tower
Le Corbusiers Image Hoard: Poeme Electronique
Giant American Signs: Original Learning from Las Vegas Footage
Giant Soviet Signs Cut Into Forests
Bricks Melted Into Icicles: Napalm Decorative
C-Labs 'Unfriendly Skies' & 'Bootleg' Volume
2 The Lighthouse: Self Storage & Architectural Hallucinations
Ceci N'Est Pas Une Pipe: Infrastructure as Architectural Subconcious.
Viva Sectional Cinematography!
Now Showing: The Installation of an Irreversible Axis on a Dynamic Timeline
Sim Seasons Greetings! The Rise of Neo-Winter
Geography in Bad, Festive Drag.
Simulations of Industry: High Tech Architecture and Thatcherism
From The Factory to the Allotment: Tony Wilson, Urbanist
Koolhaas HouseLife / Gan Eden: The Revenge of Architectural Media
Ruburb-ric: The Ecologies of the Farnsworth House
Telly Savalas Looks At Birmingham Redux
Acts of Un-Building: Timelapse Demolitions
Yard Filth: Next Years Hot Look
Stonehenge: A Black Hole At The Heart Of British Architecture
The Popemobile: Mechanised Robes & Motorised Architecture
The Secret Language of Surface
Information Fields: Agriculture as Media
My Bloody Valentine: Sound as Substance
A Cubist Copse: Gehrys Serpentine Pavilion
Spouting Off: Some Thoughts On The Fountainhead
Form Follows Dysfunction: Bad Construction & The Morality of Detail
Vintage Tradeshow Surrealism: International Grune Woche
Moving Houses: Buildings In Motion
Desktop Study: The Strange World of Sports Studio Design
Married to the Eiffel Tower: More Objectum Sexuals
60 Years of The Crazy Horse Memorial
Married to the Berlin Wall: "The Best and Sexiest Wall Ever Existed!"
Inflatable Icebergs: Sublimated Guilt Has Never Been So Fun
The Cinderella Effect: Phantom Architectures of Illumination
Two Deaths and a Retirement: The Strange Shape of British Architecture
If London Were Like New York: Antique Schizo-Manhattanism
If London Were Like Venice: Antique Geo-Poetic Speculations and Hydro-Fantasy
41 Hours in an Elevator: The Movie
NASA: Mapping the Moon with Sport
Lemon Squeezy: Design Tendencies after the Juicy Salif
The Nihilistic Beauty of Weapons Arranged in Patterns
Dogs: Britains Greatest Design Obsession
Detroit Sucks: The Motor Shows Last Gasp
Authentic Replicas: Football and the Franchising of Place
Folk Football: Landscape, Space and Abstraction
A Wishing Well with a Fat Up Pipe
The Camoufluers and the Day-Glo Battleship
Pseudoccino: Instant Coffee Foam
Blown Up: More Inflatable Military Stuff
On Christmas Trees, Folk Forests and Staples Office Supplies
Hampton Courts Shrouded Sculptures
Named Fabric: 20 Sponsored Pieces of Architecture at the New Museum
Form Follows Felony: The Secret Home of the Un-Dead Canoeist.
Architectural Magazines: Paranoid Beliefs, Public Autotheraphy - More on Clip/Stamp/Fold
James Bond Lives Next Door: Suburban Imagery as Industry
The Ghost of Christmas Futurism
Chapters for an Imaginary Book About Architecture
Shrouded Plinth - Urban Striptease
In the Night Garden - Surreal Landscape of Nostalgia
Kim Jong II, The Great Architect
Place Faking: Instant Heritage for the Thames Gateway
The Marc Bolan Memorial Crash Barrier.
Enjoy The Silence: Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones
Telly Savalas Looks At Birmingham
In Search of Britains Vehicular History
Scary Suburbanism: Why Horror is at Home in the Suburbs
I Like Your Manifesto, Lets Put it to the Test-o
How to Become a Famous Architect
Northampton - Sci-fi Pop Planning Promotion
Advertising Central Milton Keynes
The Velvet Underground at the Glass House
Duplikate: Kate Moss on the Production Line of Individuality
Hollow Inside: Starbucks Foam and the Rise of Ambiguous Materials
Revisions to the Architecture of Hell
Crufts: Dogs, Design and Aesthetic Genetics
Eos Airlines: Executive Bubbles over the Atlantic
Google Earths Vertiginous Mapping
Church of the Ascension and Descension
Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles
Reading Lines: Skateboarding and Public Space
Chris Cornish: Prototyping History
The Most Visited Location in the UK
Anything to Feel Weightless Again: The Cargo Lifter and the Tropical Island Resort
'Its beauty will know no season'
2000 Years of Non Stop Nostalgia. Or How Half Timbering Made Me Whole Again.
Backpeddling into the Future: The Historical-Futurism of British Architecture
Miss Selfridges' Feeling for Fake Snow. The Oxford St. Lights and Why We Need Artificial Winter
New Tory Logo: A Hazy Shade of Politics
Jeff Koons, Rem Koolhaas, Hans Ulrich Obrist at the Serpentine
Celebrity Scents: The Bittersweet Smell of Success
Imperfect Pitch - Football, Space and Landscape
Product Placement: Making the Impossible Possible
Suburban Growth: Matthew Moores Field of Dreams
Perfect Sound Forever: The Secret Function of High End Stereos
A Little Light Product Placement
Some Advice To A Young Designer
Useless Proclamations for a Beautiful City
Topsy Turvy VSBA: Inverted Heros of an Upside Down Avant Guard
Everything Flows: ideological cartography
How Geostationary Was My Valley?
The Psychotic Utopia of the Suburbs and the Suburbanisation of War.
In a Lonely Place - Under Construction
Mach 3 Nitro Gel - Design that's foaming at the mouth.
Marchitecture. Architectural things to do in London this March
What happens when you cross a pen with a car?
Football Pitch: Best of British
The First Cut is the Cheapest - Blenheim Palace: pop architecture that goes for the jugular
Holiday Snap II : Giant Glowing French Balls
Holiday Snap: Canadian War Memorial, Vimy, France
Anatomy of an Architectural News Story
Its All About the Big Benjamins
Poundbury, unexpectedly, in the rain
The Exploding Concrete Inevitable. Lou Reed and the Casa da Musica
Untitled (Plastic Sack and Timber)
Berlin 1945 - The Obscene Picturesque
Interview: Jeremy Deller & Alan Kane
An Incredible Smell of Roasting Coffee
Langlands & Bell - The House of Osama Bin Laden
Architectural Criticism gets Sharp
Venturi, Scott Brown and my love that dare not speak its name.
Douglas Coupland: Design and Fiction
Christopher Dresser at the V&A
Fugitives and Refugees' - Chuck Palahniuk
Just What is it That Makes Yesterdays Homes So Different, So Appealing?
Everything Counts - The Sound of Geography Collapsing.
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