PRODUCTIVE CHAOS

THE URBAN FESTIVAL

Gabriella Morrone
ARC505 Thesis Preparation

Primary Advisor:
Brian Lonsway
Secondary Advisor:
Jonathan Massey
Productive Chaos: The Urban Festival

Introduction
Contention 01-02
Terminology 03-04

On Festivals
The Guises of Festivals 05-06
The Built Environment 07-08
Social Conditions 09-10
Power Structures 11-12

Comparative Analysis
Spaces of Festivals 13-28
Burning Man 39-34
Glastonbury Festival 35-40
Mardi Gras 41-44

On Identity
The Multiple Individual Subject 45-46

On Site
Site 47-50
The Issues of the Financial District 51-52
The Routine / The Spontaneous 53-54
The Production of a Festival 55-56
1: Designing Scaffolding to Deploy 57-58
2: Intervening on Existing Infrastructure 59-60
“An Ancient Comedy of Urban Errors” 61-62

Appendix
End Notes / Bibliography 63-64
Contention

“the idea that festival, like revolution,

marks both a break in everyday life
and a rehabilitation of the everyday...”1

In the era of modernity, society changes so rapidly, yet the built

environment is, by comparison, relatively static. New structures
require massive investments of capital, and thus are expected to
have a degree of permanence which will justify a high investment
through a long life. However, temporary architectures (which may
last an hour, a day, a week, or a year) provide a way for the built
environment to change at a pace similar to the extreme speed of
shifts in the consumer tastes, social trends, and flows of energy
and capital.

Thus, festivals, such as Burning Man or Mardi Gras, in their

temporary and temporal nature, provide examples of spaces
(designed by flexible and dynamic micro-societies or special-
interest niches) which are highly flexible and dynamic spaces, able
to change and meet the needs of a rapidly changing society. Note,
for instance, the rapid change of size exhibited by “Black Rock City”
over a 3-year period in which the inclosed area increased from a
perimeter of eight to nine miles, as projected attendance numbers
increased (and following the constant increase in the site’s size).
Yet the following year, the metropolis decreased again to an
eight mile perimeter, resulting from complaints of the attendees
and the removal away from the human scaled city, that the site
was becoming. This is an example of a space becoming highly
responsive and flexible to the needs of the “event” which creates
the space.

Festivals are special celebratory instances, desirable and defined

by their temporality. They provide counterpoints to and escapes
from our routined lives. Our existing systems are designed to
produce stability, yet we already introduce moments of ruptures
(festivals) to counteract the constant routines and to provide relief
from the existing state. The contention is to design an architecture
through the medium of a festival which provides a critique on
our current and primarily static architectural manifestations and
their relationships to our rapidly changing social environments.
The architectural artifact will reintroduce celebration, absurdity,
inversions, and play by the temporary rupture of a festival into the
existing urban routine.

01
 Just as an architect can explore spatial issues through the medium
of “a building,” an architect can likewise perform his/her art
through the medium of a “festival.”

This thesis is an exercise in absurd juxtaposition which will

illuminate disparities in iconic American cultures. I have decided
to transplant the infamous Burning Man festival in an unlikely and
somewhat incompatible setting: the bustling streets of America’s
capital center, Wall Street. In doing so I will call attention to the
existing problem of the highly regularized conditions of the Wall
Street worker of New York City by juxtaposing their circulation
patterns and movements in the city with the spontaneous ludic
conditions of festive activities achievable through the redesigning
and transformation of the existing cityscape (streets, facades,
sidewalks). By activating these differences, the festival will
reconstruct our existing notions of the street as a connector, and
redefine the street as a space of dynamic engagement.

transform

city
event
space

festival speculative
some portion
transform of street spa
needs to be
retrofit for
sleeping

The City Fabric

some street
space needs
be retrofit fo
relaxation ar

HARD SOFT
permanent flexible
existing temporary

5 02
steam emitti
 Carnival _”an explosion of freedom involving laughter, mockery, masquerade and revelry”2

City _a spatial entity composed by the built environment

Crisis _a turning point resulting from instability

Event _a temporal social activity that brings people together to work, think and act collectively;
_the combination of differences;
_an act or an action

Festival _the change in space caused by an event

Identity _a particular characteristic or trait of an individual

Intervention _the act or fact of intervening 3

Invention _to devise by thinking;4

_to produce (as something useful) for the first time through the use of the imagination or of
ingenious thinking and experiment 5

Revolution _a sudden, radical or complete change 6

_a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something 7

Spectacle _the activation of events with visual stimuli

Urban _a mental state

_“an entire way of being, thinking and acting” 8
_”a ‘totality,’ a ‘global’ phenomenon, shaping and influencing all of society” 9

Utopia _an idealized space

03
“When we evoke ‘energy’, we must
immediately note that energy has to
be deployed within a space. When we
evoke ‘space’, we must immediately
indicate what occupies that space
and how it does so: the deployment
of energy in relation to ‘points’ and
within a time frame. When we evoke
‘time’, we must immediately say what
it is that moves or changes therein.
Space considered in isolation is an
empty abstraction; likewise energy
and time.”10

04
The Guises of Festivals

“Carnival celebrated temporary

liberation from the prevailing truth
and from the established order;
it marked the suspension of all
hierarchical rank, privileges, norms
and prohibitions. Carnival was
the true feast of time, the feast of
becoming, change and renewal.”11

In the post World War II society there was a disappearance of the

mass ready to act and riot together as a collective body. Today
crowds mainly form in stadiums, for mass media spectacles; large
sporting events and the Olympics. Our posthuman society has
also brought about a decrease of physical urban environments
where individuals can act and create collectively.

While the modern movement of architecture searched for unified

utopias, in our current state, we are in an age of multiplicity.
Festivals are rituals, cultural events, leisure, and temporary
architectures which highlight the composite of multiple identities
of the city. They are an embodiment of multiplicity in a physical
environment.

Henri Lefebvre argues the rehabilitative properties of the

festival onto the existing society. Under every utopia there are
contradictions, problems, and there is what had existed. Under
every festival there is what still exists, the everyday. Festivals
simultaneously engage and disengage with their surrounding
environments while constructing, expressing, manipulating, and
exploring the multiplicity of space and identity. Thus festivals both
purify, while simultaneously, renewing the existing conditions
of the built environment, social perspectives, and power
structures. Existing at two ends festivals can either take shape
from a community, performing expressions of cultural identity,
or can uprise as an arm of the government, using the construct
of a festival to enhance a city’s global status and gain economic
prosperity. Existing in these various guises, festivals have both
been used to overthrow or celebrate existing conditions. There
is nothing to learn from a festival that exists only as a showcase
of the city. Simultaneously, festivals are not productive if their
05
goal is complete renewal. As Lefebvre argues, festivals provide
an opportunity to mend an existing state. As temporal entities,
festivals exist not merely to provide critiques on existing
conditions, but to provide suggestions for reinventing and
re-appropriating space.

Festivals simultaneously operate within and exist by their

manipulation of the built environment, social conditions, and
power structures. Beginning as forms of societal expression
through the performative demonstrations of cultures and
identities, festivals have always been a type of social manifestation.
As temporal constructs, time and space became momentarily
dissolved allowing for brief personal or group transgressions.
This movement between various social states inherently
constructed a new environment, a dressing of joy and liberation
on all surroundings. Festivals existed as the only temporal
manifestations that would allow for changes in social perspectives
and the liberation of identities subverted within the strict
rules and customs of everyday life. Consequently, cities were
temporarily reinterpreted as theaters and performance sites. The
built environments were inherently challenged to provide for the
extreme social states achievable by the festival.

“The laws, prohibitions, and restrictions that determine the

structure and order of ordinary, non-carnival life, are suspended
making the carnival the place for working out a new mode of
interrelationship between individuals, counterposed to the all
powerful socio-hierarchical relationships of non-carnival life.”12

Bakhtin’s idealistic view of carnival life defines the dominance

of political structures in the creation of a festival. The site of
celebration became one of popular expression rather than of
the official spaces of of everyday life. Festivals are not everyday
occurrences and therefore cannot exist in the same spaces and
under the same regulations of the normative. To design a festival
able to create spontaneous interactions and social engagement
must operate within the spectrums of the built environment, social
conditions, and power structures.

06
The Built Environment

Built Environment

the existing city

the festival revolution

Revolution
The existing conditions are completely overturned and negated
as a contrary entity (the festival) occupies the same space. Yet the
festival transforms the space by creating a new environment, a
desired condition which has and can only arise from critiques on
the existing.

Re-writing
The festival exists as societal expression and to celebrate a
common ideology, belief, or interest. It does not provide a
utopian or imagined state, but highlights the use of temporary
ludic events to negate everyday routines.

Movement along the Spectrum

In the model of coexisting, again the festival arises from critiques
on the existing but does not look to reinvent the new. The festival
is born as a single entity, it arises from a singular location and
out of a common set of beliefs. Spreading through the city, the
festival acts as a virus, taking over and inhabiting the existing.
The virus spreads through the city without complete domination.
Leaving a clear distinction between what had existed and how, in
response, the festival has radicalized and transformed the city into
a new and different social state. The impact has the repercussions
to transform what had existed into a revamped, newer model of
the normative. As a cyclical entity, the festival continues these
moments of interjections as critical commentaries on urban
conditions.

07
re-writing

08
Social Conditions

Conditions

LEADERS
work SACRIFICE
RULES
LAWS

LEADERS
play SACRIFICE
RULES
LAWS

refusal

Refusal
When we strip away laws, rules, authority what happens? If the
concept of work exists under these conditions, then play is the
opposition to these, having no leaders, no sacrifice, and not
following rules; the ability to carry out desires. Therefore, play
emerges as a reaction against these existing states. It exists as a
freedom from the state of work.

Coexist
How play emerges is not important here. However, what is
important is the impact play has. Play exists outside of the
confinement of the normative. For example, a game (a temporal
condition) removes people from the existing conditions and sets
up new parameters and rules to exist in a state of laughter and joy.

09
 LEADERS
SACRIFICE
RULES LAWS LEADERS
SACRIFICE

RULES
leaders LAWS
sacrifice

rules LAWS

coexist

10
Power Structure

ACTIVE PARTY ‘A’

Power

FESTIVAL

ACTIVE PARTY ‘B’

opposition

Festivals can emerge in two ways; either unexpectedly without

law or they are constructed and planned within the framework
of the existing society. The first acts in a similar way as a riot or a
flash mob. The conception of the festival is planned privately and
is created spontaneously. The latter, works within the boundaries
of the existing by manipulating the power structure to allow
for this temporary construction. The latter must negotiate how
to manipulate the existing rules in order to produce a space of
liberation rather than confinement.

11
MANIPULATING POWER STRUCTURE EXISTING POWER STRUCTURE
laws type
LAWS TYPE
PROGRAM PROGRAM
site duration SITE DURATION

FESTIVAL FESTIVAL

compliance

12
A Comparative Analysis

In understanding the categories of the built environment,

social conditions, and power structures the festivals of Burning
Man, Glastonbury, and Mardi Gras have been analyzed within
the subcategories of location, containment, expansion, access,
organization, and density. In understanding the built environment
we can use the categories of location, density, and organization
to see how our planning and spatial development effects the
manifested social conditions. “Development of self-awareness
takes place in a field that is already contoured by that invisible and
impalpable structure called power. And while there is still plenty
of mystery about how the self manages to emerge under these
circumstances, there is an even deeper mystery about how self and
power mutually constitute each other” (Stone 30). Therefore, to
understand the effects of power on self expression we can analyze
the categories of containment, expansion and access.

Burning Man, situated in the Black Rock Desert, removed from

society, celebrates uniqueness and the desire of freedom of
expression. A temporary metropolis is constructed to create
a temporal utopian city. While the Glastonbury Festival is also
removed from our everyday environments and located at a farm,
the dominant focus on leisure activities rather than the exploration
of self has developed a festival which is highly regularized by
dominant power structures. Mardi Gras existing within the
confines of the built environment of New Orleans creates a
temporary redefined city for a short period of time. However,
while recreating the city, Mardi Gras exists solely as a break from
the everyday but does not exist as a powerful proposal of how our
current conditions can be permanently transformed.

13
Location

the existing city

the existing city

the existing city

removed within

Containment
the existing city
removed within

removed within

the existing city

boundless constricted
removed within

the existing city

boundless constricted
removed within
boundless constricted

Expansion spread circumscribed

removed
boundless within
constricted

spread circumscribed
boundless constricted
spread circumscribed

open restricted
Access boundless
spread constricted
circumscribed

open restricted
spread circumscribed
open restricted

flexible strict
open
spread restricted
circumscribed

flexible strict
Organizationflexible
open restricted
strict

compact spatious
open
flexible restricted
strict

compact spatious
flexible strict
compact spatious

Density flexible
compact strict
spatious

compact spatious

compact spatious

Mardi Gras Glastonbury Festival Burning Man

14
A Comparative Analysis:
Burning Man
Glastonbury Festival
Mardi Gras

15
LOCATION
16
DESERT:
Burning Man

Transformation of the Desert to the 4th largest city in Nevada

2 miles

17
 Black Rock Desert, Nevada, U.S.

Black Rock Desert

The Playa

2006-2007

2000-2005
Surrounding Mountains
1999
1998

Black Rock City (Burning Man Site) Locations 1999 - 2007

18
FARM:
Glastonbury Festival

Glastonbury

2 miles

19
 Shepton Mallet

Town of Pilton

Worthy Farm, Pilton, England

20
CITY:
Mardi Gras

2 miles

21
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.

22
Burning Man
the Monday prior to Labour Day until
Labour Day

Glastonbury
on average the festival lasts 4 days

Mardi Gras
the festival begins 46 days
before Easter and ends on the
Tuesday before Easter (Fat
Tuesday)

1 = 1 day

23
DURATION
24
 Site Scale
(square feet)

Participants

Burning Man 130,000,000

51,454

Glastonbury 273,800
177,500

Mardi Gras 250,000

1,200,000

25
Ratio per Person:
(square feet)

2,526.5

222.5

.21

DENSITY
26
Burning Man
Desert Ownership:
Bureau of Land Management
Federal Land
“leave no trace” policy

1991: first legal permit required for land use

Laws:
no cars
leave no trace
no buying or selling goods (except at the cafe)
can only burn is a bin
can only burn wood or cardboard
no dogs
no illegal use of drugs
no firearms
no plants Laws:

Glastonbury
Farm Ownership:
Michael Eavis through his company Glastonbury Festivals Ltd.
environmental “leave no trace policy”

Some stages and areas are managed independently:

1 - The Left Field:
a cooperative owned by Battersea and Wandsworth TUC

2 - A Field run by Greenpeace

Mardi Gras
Streets: owned by the government
permits required to hold parades

Venues: private ownerships

Louisiana Superdome: State ownership

27
OWNERSHIP
28
29
Burning Man
Evolution of Black Rock City Design: 1989 - 2010

http://www.burningman.com/preparation/maps/10_maps/index.html

Scale: 1:24,000
30
CONTAINMENT:

Washoe County Sheriff takes over the gate (1997)

Burning Man creates a temporary airport (2002)
Entry Fee (starting 1997)

BARRIER: 8 mile long and 4 ft high perimeter fence

ENCLOSURE AREA: 904,100 square ft

PREVIOUS EXPANSION:
2008: an increase in the site to 987,500 square ft (a 9 mile pe-
rimeter) with an extra 3/4 mile within the inner circle

Scale: 1:24,000
31
ORGANIZATION:
“Every dimension of Black Rock City is derived from a singularity, from one point in space: where the Burning Man stands”

30 full-time employees and independent contractors

BRC LLC formed in 1997

BRC LLC
(6) Senior
Staff
Executive
(18)
Committee
(5)

ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY
the singular Burning Man acts as the centripetal force
surrounded by a unified community

SPATIAL DIVISIONS
unprogrammed space
camp space

Scale: 1:24,000
32
PROGRAM:
Design and Planning of Black Rock City began in 1997
1999: first year for the city to be designed in a ring shaped (to allow for further expansion)
2005: rezoning of theme camp areas to integrate them into the main camping areas
Street spacing of 200 feet

ZONING
burn area
theme camps
center of camp
informal camping grounds

Scale: 1:24,000
33
EXPANSION:
Burning Man

With a current fence

boundary of 8 miles,
the Burning Man site
could expand to a
16 mile boundary
(roughly 1.9 times
the size). However, in
2008 Black Rock City
was increased to a
perimeter of 9 miles
with an additional
3/4 mile between the
camps. Following the
festival, this new layout
received complaints
that the city was too
difficult to traverse.
Responding to the
smaller population
projects and
complaints, the 2009
site returned to the 8
mile perimeter of the
2007 city layout.

California National Historic Trails

Maximum Size of Possible Expansion in the Black Rock Desert

34
35
Glastonbury Festival

http://www.glastowatch.co.uk/glastonbury-map/

1990 2008

2000 2009

2007 2010
Evolution of Black Rock City Designs
Scale: 1:24,000
36
CONTAINMENT:
Glastonbury Festival

ENCLOSURE AREA: 273,800 square feet

ENTRANCE / EXIT GATES
pedestrian
authorized automobiles
ENTRANCE FEE:
1970 & 1979 - current

RESTRICTED AREAS (no public access)

Scale: 1:24,000
37
ORGANIZATION:
Glastonbury Festival

ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY
venues/stages
resulting in informal growth

SPATIAL DIVISIONS
camping zone: 1.1 square feet per person
community zone: .46 square feet per person

Scale: 1:24,000
38
PROGRAM:
Glastonbury Festival

PROGRAM ZONES
camping
caravans and camping vans
markets
crew/performer camping
no public access
venues

SOCIO-GEOGRAPHIC ZONES
more commercial
family / relaxing
alternative
scared
dystopian pleasure-city
Scale: 1:24,000
39
EXPANSION:
Glastonbury Festival
Border Conditions:
minimal room for expansion due to the town of Pilton, major roads and forrest constraints

Main
Town of Pilton Roads

Forrest

Maximum Size of Possible Expansion on Worthy Farm

40
41
Mardi Gras

Parade Mapping: Krewe Routes throughout the city of New Orleans

ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY
streets are closed from automotive traffic and become pedestrian environments
parades are organized by the 28 Mardi Gras Parade Krewes
non-profit organizations
they are funded by their members
permits are required from the city of New Orleans to host parades

SPATIAL DIVISIONS
streets (parades)
bars / restaurants
banquetting halls (balls)

Scale: 1:24,000
42
CONTAINMENT:
Mardi Gras

BARRIER:
The buildings act as barriers of the parades, creating a total infusion of the city’s streets.

43
EXPANSION:
Mardi Gras

Possible Expansion of Mardi Gras

EXPANSION:
Mardi Gras can continue to be celebrated dominently in the streets and can create more parades to activate
these spaces. Or the festival can further use the city’s existing infrastructure to expand the event’s space.

44
The Multiple Individual Subject

“The governing artistic posture of

collectivism after modernism, as it
might be called, has rarely claimed to
find its unity as the singularly correct
avant-garde representative of social
progress. Instead new collectivism
gathers itself around decentered and
fluctuating identities that leverage
heterogeneous character of any group
formation.”13

In Segmented Worlds and Self Yi-Fu Tuan illustrates the creation of

the concept of the individual subject which has been produced
from the privatization of social and architectural space. His
research begins with the Middle Ages with, “the increasing number
of family and self-portraits; the increasing popularity of mirrors;
the development of autobiographical elements in literature; the
evolution of seating from benches to chairs... the ramification of
multiple rooms in small dwellings; the elaboration of a theater of
interiority in drama and the arts...” 14 The materialization of self
in turn led to a decrease in attention and desire of public space,
as our built environments, new technologies, and consequently
social developments focused on the individual. Allucquère
Rosanne Stone in The War of Desire and Technology at the Close
of the Mechanical Age is not arguing that the movement towards
individual isolation, mainly in the Western hemisphere, has been
a negative occurrence. Rather, she disputes that in the prominent
discourse, “the self appears to be a constant, unchanging, the
stable product of a moment in Western history.”15

Therefore, if the production of the individual subject has created

our predominant reading of self, that of a static condition, then
what is at stake here, rather than the argument between one
and a group, is the notion of identity and the role it plays in the
twenty-first century. Technology is changing our representations
of selves and how we conceptualize identity. Our identities are no
longer singularly “attached” to our bodies; they now exist in social
networks, online games, and profile networks. This duplication of
45
selves in various environments, is advancing the ease and desire
to generate and slightly or significantly alter multiple identities
of a singular individual. Therefore, we must understand that our
contemporaneous state is not that of a single self in a single body,
but rather a construction of multiple identities that constitutes a
singular self.

Festivals are manifestations of pluralism which allow for the

emergence of the multiple individual subject who can freely
float between spaces masking and unmasking desired identities.
Bakhtin sees dialogism as a fundamental aspect of the carnival,
being, “a plurality of ‘fully valid consciousnesses.”16 Each conscious
has a unique perspective and different identities that become
apparent in the constructed space of this ephemeral, ritualized
environment.

“‘Two voices is the minimum for life, the minimum for existence’
(Bakhtin, p. 252); if dialogism ends, reveals Bakhtin, ‘everything
ends’ (Ibid.). Bakhtin argues that by being outside of a culture can
one understand his own culture. This process is ‘multiply enriching’
(Ibid), it opens new possibilities for each culture, reveals hidden
‘potentials’ (Ibid.), promotes ‘renewal and enrichment’ (Bakhtin,
p. 271) and creates new potentials, new voices, that may become
realisable in a future dialogic interaction. Thus the outsidedness of
groups marginalised by a dominant ideology within non-carnival
time not only gain a voice during carnival time, but they also say
something about the ideology that seeks to silence them. Thus
two voices come together in the free and frank communication
that carnival permits and, although ‘each retains its own unity and
open totality they are mutually enriched’ (Bakhtin, p. 56).”17

the individual as a composite of multiple identities

46
Site

This thesis looks to create an

architecture that produces a
space of identity flux to mitigate
existing regularized conditions by
the removal of Burning Man as an
isolated spatial manifestation and
the retrofitting of the festival in the
Financial District of New York City.

People flee their existing But, what if instead of fleeing from

routines to temporarily society we incorporated festivals into
engage in the festive our urban environments to juxtapose
activities of creating a the normative conditions and to create
new metropolis. spaces of dynamic identity shifts.

47
48
49
Programmatic Distribution
PROGRAM ZONES
Commercial and Office Buildings
Mixed Residential and Commercial Buildings
Multi Family Residential
Public Facilities and Institutions
Transportation and Utility
Industrial and Manufacturing

Highlighting the high concentration of Commercial and Office Buildings in America’s capital center
of Lower Manhattan. The Financial District is a dense agglomeration of “working” buildings with
minimal residential spaces a fewer parks and public spaces existing within the core of this area.

50
The Issues of the Financial District

Productivity and change do not occur through overthrow

or celebration. Likewise, productivity and change do not
occur through removal or nonexistence. Therefore, an absurd
juxtaposition between Wall Street and Burning Man culture has
the potential to invoke change and renewal of our existing urban
fabric and how it forms and informs social and political structures.

The Wall Street worker moves through the city daily in a highly
ritualized mode. The same train is taken from the suburban
periphery, connecting onto the 4,5, or 6 subway leading them
to the Wall Street subway exit. They find their way to the closest
Starbucks for morning coffee and head to their office for the
beginning of the work day. This spatial movement consists as
a series of routine circulation patterns moving them between
distinct rooms of the city. This movement, focused on the
beginning and the end results and spaces, rather than the journey
of movement and encounters through the city, produces the
ritualistic behaviors and regularized days.

Festivals redraw the space and politics of permanent cities and in

doing so provide critiques on the existing urban conditions. More
productive than the festival which overturns all existing notions
and that which simply celebrates existing systems is the festival
that is able to achieve a balance between these extremities. To
do so will provide a temporal representation and imagination of
how a space can be reformed and manipulated. The introduction
of a temporal condition, that of the festival, on the Wall Street
worker’s paths of movement will reintroduce ludic environments
of absurdity and celebration into their ritualized world. Thus the
workers carrying out their daily schedules will be forced to move
through these temporary environs, choosing at will where and if
when to engage with the festival.

Henri Lefebvre argues that festivals provide the opportunity to

move from the dominance of consumption to the consumption
of space. Rather than moving between rooms of the city, to make
more money, buy more goods, and ultimately to consume objects,
by reclaiming the streets we can design a consumption of space,
of activities, events, and dialogue. As achieve by Burning Man,
the streetscape needs to become a dynamic landscape to attract
people to this part of the city at all times of the day and night
to create vibrant social interaction and the opportunity for the
community to design their own environments.

51
 The City Fabric

existing proposed

transform transform

city city
event event
space space

festival festival speculative architec

streets as connectors streets as hyper-active and dynamic event spaces some portion som
transform transform of street space sur
needs to be fac
retrofit for be
sleeping pro
pos
artw

The City Fabric The City Fabric

some street som

space needs to spa
be retrofit for be
relaxation areas com
dis
are

HARD / existing
HARD: permanent HARD
SOFT SOFT
SOFT: flexible / temporary
permanent permanent
flexible flexible
existing temporary
existing temporary

steam emitting gut

from the retr
manholes can pro
provide to t
nighttime light goe
to festival goers

52
The Routine / The Spontaneous

“Our intention is to generate a society

that connects each individual to his or
her creative powers, to participation in
community, to the larger realm of civic
life, and to the even greater world of
nature that exists beyond society.”18

More radical festivals, such as Burning man, celebrate anarchy

and diversity with a goal of creating an alternative culture and
community, to those which currently exist, in a temporary eight-
day metropolis. Created by Larry Harvey in 1986, the festival
arose from the celebration of the summer solstice. His critiques
and desires to be removed, if only temporarily, from the current
consumptive culture generated the festival’s current mission and
principles. The event is closely related to and understood through
the Russian philosopher, literary critic, and semiotician, Mikhail
Bakhtin and his philosophy of carnival. Bakhtin looks to the folk
ideals of “the many” and “openness” in defining his theories of
language and carnival. He argues that the lack of authority of
festivals creates a multiplicity of voices and meanings. “...Nothing
is fixed in Bakhtin’s carnival world, and everything is in a state of
becoming.”19 The site of a festival is an environment of adaptability
that generates constant possibility.

These ideas parallel with Burning Man’s four of ten principles of;
radical inclusion, radical self-expression, communal effort, and
participation. Each participant without limitations designs and
constructs the space of their camp and this conglomeration of
structures forms the temporal metropolis. While the immediate
site of the festival is confined to a roughly five square mile
pentagon, the location, as of 1990, in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert,
enhances the feelings of separation from society and of freedom.
Visually seeing no boundaries therefore, seeing no constraints.
The camp sites are then organized around a singular object, the
Burning Man. This symbolic gesture implies the importance of
the individual, rather than the market, as the center of our world;
and the Burning Man, as a constructed artifact, represents this
community theory. The body of the community, the circular ring
consisting of streets and camps, is then divided into a gridded
masterplan with equal plots to further illustrate the theory of
equality and the consequent multiplicity of identities and ideas of
the individuals.

53
A festival is a form of activism in which a collective body acts
together to change the built environment. The conglomeration
of identities in the space of the festival constructs a place where
diversity creates an environment of intensity and generates the
unexpected. Both social and architectural space has evolved
from the emergence of the concept of the interiorized cultural
individual. We read the Wall Street culture as a conglomeration
of a singular identity; that of the college graduate becoming a
high profile business worker, with a lifestyle dominated by work to
earn high profits ultimately to act as a consumer of luxury items.
This culture has conformed to the Enlightenment concept of the
sovereign subject and by the dominance of static architecture
and highly regularized schedules these workers have not been
able to evoke their subidentities. I am interested in creating an
architecture to advance and accommodate the notion of the
multiple individual subject. Festivals create environments of
plurality; in events, people, identities, and structures. By situating
Burning Man in the Financial District of New York City, a new
landscape of multiplicity, formed within a landscape of similarity is
provided, to re-envision what Lower Manhattan can become.

The Ten Principles of Burning Man:

“Radical Inclusion: Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist
for participation in our community.
Gifting: Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a
return or an exchange for something of equal value.
Decommodification: In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are
unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such
exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.
Radical Self-reliance: Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.
Radical Self-expression: Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the
individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should
respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.
Communal Effort: Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and
protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.
Civic Responsibility: We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for
public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility
for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.
Leaving No Trace: Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our
activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a
better state than when we found them.
Participation: Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change,
whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve
being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions
that open the heart.
Immediacy: Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek
to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us,
participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this
experience.”20
54
The Production of a Festival

Location

Containment

Expansion

Access

Organization

Ownership

Program

Duration

55
 The Production of a Festival

Location
the existing city

removed within

The festival will be re-situated in the Financial District of NYC.

ntainment
The festival will be contained within the exterior public areas of the district.

System of Scaffolding
Expansion

Centripetal camp design Designing a piece of scaffolding to

allow for efficiency to add or replace the existing scaffolding of
subtract the amount of camp NYC will allow for the fluid growth
and theme camp space of the festival throughout the city.

Access Existing Spaces of Transportation to the Festival: Existing NYC Spaces of Transportation:
Automobile Streets
Airplane Highways Designing a new route for these modes of transportation
Bridges Designing new modes of transportation
Subways

Single Point Entrance Multiple Entrance Points

ganization
The Man
The Man
Art Zone
Camp Sites
Center Camp Re-Organization
Theme Camps
Theme Camps
Center Camp
Camp Sites
Art Zone
Open Space

Ownership

Program Sleeping = 4 Spa / Healing = 8 Christmas = 1 Fashion = 4 Food / Drinks / Bar = 136
Panorama Views / Parks = 8 Spiritual = 18 Radio = 4 Music = 14 Martial Arts / Sports = 16
Sober = 4 Services / Vehicles = 86 Photography = 10 Lighting = 2 Clubs / Dancing = 52
Queer = 12 Smoking = 4 Film = 10 Performance (Workshops) / Parade= 24 Fire = 5
Relaxation / Discussion = 80 Education / Inventions = 24 Design / Art = 54 Love / Porn= 8 Games = 70

Duration

59 56
1 : Designing Scaffolding to Deploy

Instead of the scaffolding that makes up a large quantity of the

streets and facades in NYC, I will design a prototype, a structure
that transforms the way we inhabit our city’s scaffolding and can
be incorporated and infused into a streetscape to allow for “festival
use.” Each piece will be designed according to programs that
engage and provide a specific use (camping artifacts from Burning
Man such as tents, RVs, tipis will need to be retrofitted to function
in this urban environment). The scaffolding prototypes will be
deployed into the urban fabric as temporary architectures and
will create distinct rooms of participatory event-based experience
allowing for extreme participation and heightening identity
fluctuations of the festival participants and the business workers.

57
58
2 : Intervening on Existing Infrastructure

The architecture consists of a new and interesting series of

architectural interventions within the traditional city fabric of
the Financial District. These interventions will use the existing
infrastructure of the city (streetlights, manholes, facade systems,
highway infrastructure) to emphasize the importance of producing
strings of dynamic spaces between existing built and static
architecture. Using the principles of Burning Man I will design
an architecture that allows Burning Man to function in an urban
environment.

Again, the premise is to create distinct rooms of participatory

event-based experience allowing for extreme participation and
heightening identity fluctuations of the festival participants and
the business workers.
Narrative
speculative architectural artifacts
some portion some vertical fire stairs can some portion some portion some vertical the apertures
of street space surfaces / provide vertical of street space of the street surfaces need of and into
speculative
needs to be architectural artifacts
facades need to movement needs to be space needs to to be retrofit for buildings
retrofit for
some portion be retrofit
some for along
vertical thecan
fire stairs retrofit for
some portion be
someretrofit to
portion public perfor-
some vertical (windows) can
the apertures
sleeping projection,
of street space surfaces / building
provide vertical dance parties
of street space provide skate
of the street mance
surfacesareas
need create bridging
of and into
needs to be posters,
facades need to facades.
movement They needs to be parks, bike to
space needs to be retrofit for architecture
buildings
retrofit for artwork can create
be retrofit for along the retrofit for ramps
be retrofit to public perfor- over the street
(windows) can
sleeping projection, second,
buildingthird, dance parties provide skate mance areas for perfor-
create bridging
posters, fourth,
facades. They parks, bike mances
architecture
artwork streetscapes
can create ramps over the street
above
second,the third, for perfor-
existing
fourth, mances
streetscapes
some street some street some
aboveartifact
the the facade street lights can some portion some street
space needs to space needs to needs existingto be scaffolding provide of the upper space needs to
be retrofit for be retrofit for designed to could be direction to bay water can be retrofit for
relaxation
some street areas communal
some street provide
some artifact retrofit public
the facade festival goers.
street lights can be
someretrofit to
portion food
some street
space needs to space needs to communal
discussion needs to be sleeping
scaffoldingcamps The
provide of color
use provide a
of the uppersite accessibility
space needs to
be retrofit for areas
be retrofit for drinking
designed to or
could be and
acting or size of ato
direction for
bayburning
water can be retrofit for
relaxation areas communal portals
provideusing street
retrofittheater
public newly
festivaldesign
goers. activities
be retrofit to food
discussion the existing fire
communal sleeping camps system
The usecanof color provide a site accessibility
areas hydrant
drinking or acting and regulate
or size of a for burning
infrastructure
portals using street theater specific zones
newly design activities
the existing fire of
system canor
activity
hydrant can denote a
regulate
infrastructure specific time
zones
during theor
of activity
festival
can denote a
specific time
steam emitting gutters can be cranes at during the
from the retrofit to construction festival
manholes can provide music sites can be
provide
steam emitting to the festival
gutters can be used
cranesasat
nighttime
from the light goers
retrofit to amusement
construction
to festival goers
manholes can provide music rides or vertical
sites can be
provide to the festival transportation
used as
nighttime light goers devices
amusement
59
to festival goers rides or vertical
transportation
devices
Precedent: Steam Tunnel Music

“According to the Municipal Art Society, Pratt’s steam-powered plant “is the oldest privately-owned,
continuously operating, power plant of its kind in the country”—and, once a year, it gets turned into a gigantic
musical instrument. One of the whistles used has even been repurposed from an old steamship, the S.S.
Normandie.

The implication here, that you can attach pieces of musical instruments, and even old ship parts, to your city’s
existing infrastructure and thus generate massive waves of sound is pretty astonishing; this might be a very
site-specific thing, to be sure, and something only Pratt has permission to do to its own steam tunnels, but the
mind reels at the possibility that this could be repeated throughout New York. For instance, on any point of the
existing steam network as documented last month by Urban Omnibus:

Every winter, a typically unseen machine becomes visible in the streets of Manhattan: Con Edison’s
District Steam System. Seen from the street as steam leaking from manholes, or more safely vented
through orange and white stacks, leaking steam hints at an underground energy distribution system
that is the largest of its kind in the United States and offers a chance for the public to become more
aware of and more involved in how the city works.

As Urban Omnibus adds, ‘the steam system is largely ignored by the public until things go wrong’—or, of
course, until that system is turned into a city-scale musical instrument through a maze of well-placed reeds,
valves, and resonators.”21

60
Precedent: An Ancient Comedy of Urban Errors

“For his final thesis project this year at the Cooper Union in New York City, student Andrejs Rauchut
diagrammed and modeled ‘a constellation of architectural set pieces’ meant for ‘a day-long performance of
The Comedy of Errors’ by William Shakespeare. Rauchut’s project presentation included an absolutely massive,
wood-bound book: it started off as a flat chest or cabinet, before opening up as its own display table.

The diagrams therein are extraordinary: they map character movement not only through the ancient city of
Ephesus, where Shakespeare’s play is set, but through the ‘constellation’ of set pieces that Rauchut himself later
designed...

Urban design becomes public dramaturgy.

The bulk of Rauchut’s work went into producing a series of timelines and graphic depictions of character
movement in Shakespeare’s play...

He then went on to experiment with overlaying these character paths onto Staten Island, part of the New
York City archipelago, as if trying to draw an analogy between the seafaring, splintered island geography of
the ancient Mediterranean—with its attendant heroes and unacknowledged gods—and the contemporary
commuter landscape of greater New York.

This transposition of Shakespeare’s characters’ movements onto Staten Island, Rauchut explains, became
‘the backbone for the design of a series of architectural set pieces inserted into the suburban fabric of Staten
Island. At each of the points where characters interact, an architectural set is built.’

Ultimately, the project aimed for the indirect choreographing of a public, urban event—it was to be a ‘guerilla
instigator of public space,’ as Rauchut describes it:
The final design is a constellation of architectural set pieces that would be used for a day-long performance of
The Comedy of Errors. Actors would travel along their scripted routes through the city dressed in plain-clothes
crossing paths and delivering lines. The audience would consist of interested citizens, gathering, following,
growing, leaving, and occasionally returning as they continue through their daily routines.

‘After the play is over,’ he concludes, ‘the architecture would remain and would be used by the locals of Staten
Island’—the remnants of a play incorporated into everyday urbanism.” 22

61
62
End Notes

1 Henri Lefebvre, Critique de la vie quotidienne [Critique of Everyday Life], 2nd ed., trans. John Moore vol. 1 (New York: Verso,
1991), pg. xxviii.

2 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/FlyerJ18.jpg

3 Merriam-Webster Dictionary, s.v. “Dictionary,” http://www.merriam-webster.com/ (accessed December 08, 2010).

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Henri Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution (Minneapolis: Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2003).

9 Ibid.

10 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1991), pg 12.

11 Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), page 10.

12 Ibid. page 112.

13 Nato Thompson, ed., The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life, trans. Gregory
Sholette (Massachusetts: MASS MoCA, 2004), 150.

14 Allucquère Rosanne Stone, The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age (Cambridge, Mass.:
The MIT Press, 1996), page 19.

15 Ibid. page 19,20.

16 Caryl Emerson, The First Hundred Years of Mikhail Bakhtin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), page 9.

17 “Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975),” Vanderbilt University, http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth206/mikhail_

bakhtin.htm (accessed September 27, 2010).

18 “Mission Statement,” Burning Man, http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/about_burningman/mission.

html (accessed October 2, 2010).

19 “Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975),” Vanderbilt University, http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth206/mikhail_

bakhtin.htm (accessed September 27, 2010).

20 “What Is Burning Man,” Burning Man, http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/about_burningman/principles.

html (accessed October 2, 2010).

21 Geoff Manaugh, “Steam Tunnel Music,” BLDGBLOG, http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/steam-tunnel-music.html

(accessed December 06, 2010).

22 Geoff Manaugh, “An Ancient Comedy of Urban Errors,” BLDGBLOG, http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/ancient-

comedy-of-urban-errors.html (accessed December 06, 2010).

63
Bibliography

Conrad, Ulrich, ed. “Constant: New Babylon.” Theories and Manifestos. 1960.

Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. New York: Zone Books, 1994.

Emerson, Caryl. The First Hundred Years of Mikhail Bakhtin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Festivals, Tourism and Social Change: Remaking Worlds. 8th ed. Edited by David Picard and Mike Robinson.
Tourism and Cultural Change. Tonawanda: Channel View Publications, 2006.

Lefebvre, Henri. Critique de la vie quotidienne [Critique of Everyday Life]. 2nd ed. Translated by John Moore.
Vol. 1. New York: Verso, 1991.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Cambridge: Blackwell
Publishers, 1991.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Urban Revolution. Minneapolis: Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Lootsma, Bart. “The New Landscape.” Mutations. Barcelona: Actar, 2001.

“Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975).” Vanderbilt University. http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth206/

mikhail_bakhtin.htm (accessed September 27, 2010).

Mitchell, William J. Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City. Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2004.

Roche, Maurice. Mega-Events and Modernity: Olympics and Expos in the Growth of Global Culture. London:
Routledge, 2000.

Sassen, Saskia. “The Global City,” Edited by Koolhaas Rem. Sanford: Mutations. Actar, 2005.

Shanti Elliott, “Carnival and Dialogue in Bakhtin’s Poetics of Folklore,” https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bit

stream/handle/2022/2327/30(1-2)%20129-139.pdf?sequence=1

Stone, Allucquère Rosanne. The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age. Cambridge,
Mass.: The MIT Press, 1996.

Thompson, Nato, ed. Sholette, Gregory, ed. The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of
Everyday Life. Massachusetts: MASS MoCA, 2004.

Tschumi, Bernard. Architecture and Disjunction. Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1996.

Tschumi, Bernard. Event-Cities: Praxis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994.

64