On Memory Part 2: On Beginnings
By Wes (9.5.26)
By Wes (9.5.26)
Editor’s note: This blog post is a contribution from Wesoly (@sowesoly), a designer and thinker based in Brooklyn, NY. Working between art and architecture, he is interested in thoughtful ways to engage with the accumulation of media and matter.
This is part 2 of Wesoly’s two-part contribution. Click here to read part 1.
Extraction, production, and accumulation of physical matter is, in essence, the current driving force of our culture. The architecture industry is arguably the most tunnel-visioned in terms of the production of space. In A Moratorium on New Construction, architect and researcher Charlotte Malterre-Barthes offers a radical way out: stop building, and use what we have.
“Pulling the plug on architecture as simply the facilitator of productive capital, a moratorium halts the damage while taking stock.”
(Malterre-Barthes, C. (2025). A moratorium on new construction. Sternberg Press.)
This is part 2 of Wesoly’s two-part contribution. Click here to read part 1.
Extraction, production, and accumulation of physical matter is, in essence, the current driving force of our culture. The architecture industry is arguably the most tunnel-visioned in terms of the production of space. In A Moratorium on New Construction, architect and researcher Charlotte Malterre-Barthes offers a radical way out: stop building, and use what we have.
“Pulling the plug on architecture as simply the facilitator of productive capital, a moratorium halts the damage while taking stock.”
(Malterre-Barthes, C. (2025). A moratorium on new construction. Sternberg Press.)
The only reasonable path forward is a rejection of the modern commodification of newness, an embracing of forgetting and decay, and a worldview shift towards the circular nature of all things.
As we have said, the dilemma of contemporary media and abundance is the flooding of visual culture. And this trickles down to art and architecture. Multiple architecture instructors informed me that “you cannot create something new,” likewise, a digital art professor taught me that
“everything is a remix”
A confounding question remains: what are the ideal grounds for progress? Is it better to build on pre-existing knowledge/structures, or is the blank canvas preferred for creating an authentic image?
The potential of a “fresh start” is seemingly a matter of space. Mars College, an experimental project exploring semipermanent architecture in the harsh climate of southern California can teach us a lesson on the power of beginning anew. For 3 months of the year, between December and March, a group of researchers and artists culminate in the arid outskirts of Bombay Beach and begin constructing their campus, primarily out of industrial palette racks and plywood sheets.
“We start on barren land”
I looked down at the raw desert earth and thought of the dense layers of ruins, pipes and tubes, a brick from 1947, infrastructure, a cigarette butt from 1983, construction debris, a candy wrapper from 2013, bludgeoned soil and buried memories beneath the epidermis of New York City. It seems this is too chaotic of a beginning to construct something authentic.
To conclude the 3 month semester, the group collectively disassembles their shelters and infrastructure, effectively leaving no trace. Each year, successes and failures are noted and worked into the next generation. What I found so productive in the project was a philosophy of pausing and unwinding. This is an approach to community building that is distinct from the common ways we see cities
“We start on barren land”
I looked down at the raw desert earth and thought of the dense layers of ruins, pipes and tubes, a brick from 1947, infrastructure, a cigarette butt from 1983, construction debris, a candy wrapper from 2013, bludgeoned soil and buried memories beneath the epidermis of New York City. It seems this is too chaotic of a beginning to construct something authentic.
To conclude the 3 month semester, the group collectively disassembles their shelters and infrastructure, effectively leaving no trace. Each year, successes and failures are noted and worked into the next generation. What I found so productive in the project was a philosophy of pausing and unwinding. This is an approach to community building that is distinct from the common ways we see cities
developed. Where efficiency and profit drive the production of space, architectures constantly compound upon each other and rise up to the heights. The industry is seemingly “asleep at the wheel.” This is the sedimentary buildup of urbanization, like compounding scar tissue. But is this progress, or mindless accumulation? Eventually all sense will be lost and the leading facade is but a tired scab dolled up. In our thirst for a visceral novelty (a taste of ecstasy) we wade through the shallow waters of memory and experience, but the stale dust of these antiques is hampering our movement. It is overlooked that we have the poetic power to invent and reinvent meaning in the most mundane of our environments. Henri Bosco describes the caretaker's felicitous daydreams as she “washed, dusted, and swept in the company of angels.” We can learn that, when it comes to the city, the shelf, and the mind, we may be better off polishing our possessions before eternally seeking new ones.
End of Part 2
End of Part 2
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