This is the synopsis for a request for proposals I applied to in Argentina. The place where the project was going to be developed was a building which used to be a mill in Buenos Aires in the 1900’s, a time of economic boom and technological advance for Argentina. The new building is done by a development group who have designed several of its surrounding buildings with Philip Stark, international mega-architect.

Proposal Synopsis
Just as the mill remains as a testimony of a key moment in Argentine history, a moment of innovation, progress and technological advance, that symbol of what used too be the present is now the past. Everything that used to be the present is now left behind only to allow us to understand how life used to be, how the world has changed, and how we live now. The recycling of the mill is in itself a re contextualization and actualization of Argentine history. It is a new footprint in time, the present. The new building allows us to understand what the now is, and incites us to dream about the future.
Just as the mill and what it symbolizes lets us picture and question the past, the project I propose comments on present contemporary life/culture to raise consciousness and to try to understand what is what we call “the now”, or present.
The Project will evoke the passage of time and the constant change of technology, how the mill, which before used to be a system of advanced technology is now a futile and archaic edifice, its only use, being an emblematic building of its own time.
Technology is moving faster, perhaps, faster that we can keep up with. This way of living, which is constantly bombarding us, so fast, full of energy, and in constant change is what I want to evoke.
Through the use of three artifacts of different technological degrees, I propose to transform the space “la catedral” (exhibition space) into a technological shrine.
These three artifacts will symbolize an airport:
. a series of runway lights will be installed in the larger wall of the exhibition space. A light pattern flowing from one end of the wall to the other will imitate the light pattern used in runways.
. a luggage belt/carrousel will be installed in the space close to the wall. The belt/carrousel will be shaped as a 0 (as specified in the different plan views), with no specific destination or practical function. The luggage belt/carrousel will activate itself depending on the light flow of the runway lights. The two pieces combined will give the space a specific narrative, where it will be implied that, depending on the direction of both, the flow of light and the belt’s/carrousel movement direction, that an airplane is either landing or taking off.
. a windsock will be activated and blown by an industrial fan. The timing of the activation of the fan will be random and unspecific to the timing of the two other elements present in the installation.