This thesis explores how our environments -and the structures which produce them- shape us. It distills neoliberalism into a “Truth Game” from Foucault, a constructed truth which embeds itself in common knowledge and practice. One might call it ideology. From neoliberalism’s Truth Game emerges the fundamental conclusion: the market is best suited to order our society and it is people who must adapt to the needs of the market. To quote Margaret Thatcher, “economies are the method: the object is to change the soul.”

And so the thesis asks: how is the city as designed by this hyperobject, the market, changing the soul?

To play with this question, the work surveys the landscape of neoliberal policy and noticing particular environments which aggressively naturalize neoliberal subjectivity. These spaces were named “Capital Imaginaries,” as they take on the market’s utopian imaginary. Because these islands of capital are exaggerated and raw, their Truth Games float to the surface and expose themselves. Three Capital Imaginaries were selected: Hudson Yards in New York, Canary Wharf in London, and Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam, to deconstruct the Truth Games embedded in their architecture. In the final exhibition, the website was leveraged as digital medium to construct a network of representations. Design research took the form of policy timelines, mappings, subjectivity diagrams, voyeuristic films from week-long site immersions, and scripted Truth Games. This delamination of the city lead back to ideas of the radical architects: Superstudio, Archizoom, and OMA. The manifesto was taken as an operation, and it was revised－by extension the images used to explore those ideas were revised in relation to the three Capital Imaginaries. Through all these layers of representation, a new reading of the existing environment is built, one which comes from neoliberal policy and naturalizes neoliberal subjectivity.

The project was developed at the Syracuse University School of Architecture. Advisor: Francisco Sanin

KOOZ What prompted the project?

HD My fixation on the bizarre environments of neoliberalism started on March 3rd, 2018 with an unwitting journey to Canary Wharf during my abroad semester in London. Haunted by that eerie Saturday morning, I sustained and fed an obsession with the strange spaces designed by the market. It found its way into everything thereafter, including a studio traveling through Asia’s megacities, my employment at a Dutch architecture-slash-development firm, and a grant awarded to research remnants of American neocolonial policy manifested in Filipino vernacular. In each case, the built environment served as evidence for understanding the ideology embedded therein. When it came time to start my thesis, I was looking for a more fundamental theoretical framework through which to read the typology I kept encountering, which I later called the Capital Imaginary. Douglas Spencer’s, The Architecture of Neoliberalism, was my starting point, and from there I built a network of representations through which to unmask Capital Imaginaries.

KOOZ What questions does the project raise and which does it address?

HD Having gained some distance from the project, I find that it is raising new questions. The project laid bare once again how architecture is the tool of an economic system which is generating mass inequity. Moving forward, I am interested in evolving the work from speculations and observations into an operable theory which learns from the incentives of the market to leverage the current system for social ends.

KOOZ What drew you to explore the three sites of Canary Wharf, Hudson yards and Kop van Zuid? How do they each operate singularly but are part of a wider narrative and typology?

HD The selection of Canary Wharf, Hudson Yards, and Kop van Zuid was crucial to the trajectory of the project. Each Capital Imaginary represented one aspect of the Neoliberal Subject, the ideal subject according to the market.

Canary Wharf was one of the first Great Projects of neoliberal politics, and one of Margaret Thatcher’s greatest accomplishments. Primarily composed of white-collar offices, Canary Wharf exemplifies the uncritical laborer. Because of the strong relationship between Thatcher and Reagan ushering in neoliberal politics, it was fitting to identify a counterpart in the United States. Hudson Yards is one of the most recent Capital Imaginaries built and has received plenty of attention and criticism. With its luxurious shopping mall and endless experiences, Hudson Yards exemplifies theentertained consumer.

And finally, Kop van Zuid, a private-public experiment which radically changed the working-class character of Rotterdam. While the Netherlands is politically far more Social Democratic than the British and American governments, Kop van Zuid was a test of neoliberal policy which has had great impact on Dutch urban planning. Primarily concerned with views and image, both as a skyline and as an asset to real estate value, Kop van Zuid exemplifies the depoliticized individual.

Each case is tremendously interesting on its own, and it is difficult not to get lost in their specificities, but together they demonstrate a larger phenomenon of contemporary city-making being repeated across the globe and the subjectivity being naturalized along with it.

KOOZ How did the research inform the final project?

HD Research was a fundamental aspect of the project. The argument could be made that it is solely research, without design, though that’s not something I would agree with. I had a lot to learn, and still do, about history of neoliberal politics and the ideology it stems from. At Syracuse University, thesis is broken into two semesters, with the first (Thesis Prep) focusing on research. This allowed me to construct timelines, economic diagrams, and mappings of the three subjects of my investigation as well as diagrams unpacking neoliberalism itself. This research backs the first half of my argument, that Capital Imaginaries are created by neoliberal policy. Supporting the latter half of the argument, that they naturalize neoliberal subjectivity, was the task of design.

KOOZ How did you approach the presentation and representation of the project?

HD I presented my thesis in May of 2020 from my childhood bedroom. This was not quite the circumstance under which I expected to graduate, but as Tschumi so delicately put it, we architects tend to have a masochistic love for rules and constraints. I had been working in several mediums, from large drawings to films to a physical exhibition. After coming to terms with presenting online, the infinite list of possible mediums boiled down to three. I could make a book, a video, or a website. I had already made three films and was not interested in spending more time in Premiere, and a book was too static of a medium. And so, a website. In hindsight, this was likely the best medium from all possible mediums for the research. However at the time, it was simply the only one I had. To get out of my there-is-a-global-pandemic-life-as-we-know-it-is-over slump, I started playing around on wix.com. Over the next four weeks, from the constraints of wix’s toolbar, I pushed the website as medium to create a digital exhibition which allowed for a simultaneity of looking at the city and its truth games. With its multiple paths that take one through layers of representation, the structure of the website became akin to the layering and unmasking of the project, and began to construct a truth within itself.

KOOZ What informed the choice of the manifesto as a format? How relevant is this within our contemporary society?

HD Through the project’s many layers of representation and the Truth Games which were emerging, I arrived at an overwhelming complexity, and I needed to test how these things came together. I found an echo of my work in the radical architectures of the 1970s. This moment of the 1970s was a crisis, economically and socially. It was a moment where the ideology of capital was reaching a breaking point, and its truth games were floating at the surface. Superstudio, OMA, and Archizoom saw these Truth Games and used spatial provocations to unmask them and represent the city underneath. That moment of crisis in the 1970s was saved by a new ideology, neoliberalism, but now again it reaches a breaking point. I wanted to test this parallel.

I saw that the idea in Archizoom’s "No-stop City", that the city had become something obsolete to capitalist production, was similar to my idea that the city has become a simulacrum of what is in reality a factory constructing subjectivity and ideology. So, I proposed to revise their manifesto, recontextualizing it in today’s neoliberal city.

In the tradition of manifestos as forward-looking or maybe retroactive, I wrote a revised manifesto. The act of revision as a form of design concludes that it is not new ideas that we need, but instead to think deeply about old ones and what they reveal about the environments we find ourselves in today. By extension, I took the images that Archizoom, Superstudio, and OMA used to explore their ideas and reedit them in relation to my Capital Imaginaries.

To edit, to defamiliarize, allowed me to re-represent what is right in front of us.

KOOZ What is for you the power of the Architectural Imaginary?

HD For me, the power of the Architectural Imaginary is its ability to show instead of telling. Architects are constantly analyzing the built environment, and it is safe to say most have ideas on how it could be different. However, this better built environment can be difficult to communicate, especially outside of the discipline. The Architectural Imaginary, and the images it generates, go ten steps further in order to achieve a possible single step in the right direction. In the same way Sci-Fi has inspired real technological innovation, the Architectural Imaginary shows us something which is radically different from what we have become inured to and shakes us out of our complacent slumber.

KOOZ What is for you the architect's most important tool?

HD For me, the most important tool the architect has at their disposal is their mind. The architectural way of thinking has broad applications and sets architects apart from other professionals. The ability to read the built environment, quickly make analysis, and to think of iterative solutions through the visual and spatial languages make architects incredibly valuable additions to a multitude of discussions. Moreover, the fundamental responsibility of the capital-A-Architect towards their society should position the architect as an advocate for those left behind by market-driven interests in building today.

Bio

Hanneke is a recent graduate from Syracuse University’s School of Architecture, awarded the Dean’s Citation for Excellence in Thesis Design for her thesis Truth Games: Naturalizing the Neoliberal Subject. As a first generation American, she grew up between small-town Minnesota and the Netherlands. In addition to work experiences in Rotterdam and Barcelona, Hanneke has lived and studied in New York, London, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Currently based in New York City, Hanneke continues her research on the ideology embedded in the built environment and how current systems can be retooled for social ends.