The project stems from a concern about the representational role of the US embassy, a role which is a sine qua non of the institution. Given the recent embassy design standards, predicated fundamentally on security concerns, and as such, resulting in embassies being built on the outskirts of cities instead of city centers, how can a US embassy injected in the urban fabric still maintain a representational voice while being secured against any possible attack? What is the embassy a representation of, the government or the culture, and how is the logic of representation conducted? More importantly, how does this critical intervention affect the urban condition of the host city as a whole?
The project proposed in Mexico City inverts this relation, brings back the cultural venues to a single protected nucleus, and disperses the administrative functions, the office of the ambassador included, throughout the city in non-disclosed locations, the driving argument being that vulnerability occurs at the level of the symbol and the ensuing symbolic programme, the cultural dimension being the epitome of such symbolism. The new embassy would be located in the same site as the actual embassy, on Reforma Avenue. The building, in how it extends and shuts down streets, while simultaneously being porous and accessible is supposed to represent the “split personality” disorder that the contemporary US suffers from: A nation that is belligerent, yet vulnerable and prone to being attacked.
The SUPERCHURCH today mimics the role that the YMCA played a century earlier: a religious institution attempts to leave its imprints on society by cloaking its missionary tenor with secular garb of recreational activities with the aim of attracting the masses and keeping them in line; however, the YMCA model did not succeed, and the institution’s religious outlook conceded defeat to its secular activities. How can an institution with such an articulated ideology and equally pronounced premises succeed where the YMCA failed?
The SUPERCHURCH rests on 3 fundamental tenets: firstly, unlike many other forms of organised religion, the institution targets the individual not the mass. Secondly, it is conscious of a gender economy of patriarchal families, where the man comes, and the family follows. Thirdly, it resists the enclave, and seeks to branch out to its host society, since “hell is a gated community” as one of the pastors states.
The design brief was given with an exhaustive programme comprising a chapel, gymnasia, a pool, basketball courts, a bookstore, a library, a café, classes, seminar rooms, and administrative spaces. The design task that I had undertaken was employing the operative methodology of the institution as my operative methodology of design. In other words, how do the tenets of the individual, gender consciousness, and contextual openness feature in shaping up the design? Moreover, doesn’t the prevalent typology of massive congregations and football stadia that is hallmark of the SUPERCHURCH belie, at least in scale, spaces catering for individuality and openness?
The SUPERCHURCH faithful to its own claims is designed by fragmentation. The diagram that is a precursor for a plan for a section for a space is produced by fragmentation of the given program by the institutes tenets.