Arguably nothing encapsulates the self-image and the external image of the United States of America more universally than the concept and the physical reality of suburbia. Nothing says United States of America quite like suburbia.
But what is 'suburbia'? Why is 'suburbia'? How is 'suburbia'?
With Suburbia. Living the American Dream the Architekturzentrum Wien invite us all to explore the (hi)story and culture of that most American of locations and thereby to better approach not only suburbia, but American society, the American Dream.......
An exploration, a tour through, that Suburbia. Living the American Dream stages in four... five... chapters opening with The Planning of a Dream, a retelling of the earliest days of suburbia from its origins in the early 19th century that includes the arguments that the development of suburbia was advanced, enabled and empowered by contemporaneous developments in transportation, and that the earliest suburbias were stimulated by, inspired by, a vision of the pastoral associated with the rolling west of the first settlers from the eastern seaboard; that suburbia was the settling on the land, the establishment of a home with a piece of land, the claiming of one's own corner of America, that occurred in the interior of the contemporary USA in the 18th and 19th centuries, on a much smaller scale. And closer to the comforts of an urban centre. Was, essentially, an approaching of a romanticised image of an America past.
An argument, if one so will, that the dream of a house and a piece of land was the essence of an American Dream long before that American Dream became rising from dishwasher to billionaire. An age when that American Dream was less about financial success and more about personal contentment. The question of land ownership in that American Dream, and in suburbia, we'll leave to one side, much as those first settlers did as they rolled west. Enjoying the endless freedom of the 'unoccupied' prairies.......
An opening chapter that also helps elucidate that the houses of the earliest suburbs were often relatively grand affairs, and that the earliest incarnations of suburbia often contained elements similar to the villa colonies that arose in the course of the 19th century on the edge of a great many European cities, physically and conceptually similar, before developing into something intrinsically, inherently, identifiably, American.
A transformation in which, as the curators argue in the opening chapter, one Samuel E. Gross played a not insignificant role via his initiation in the late 19th/early 20th century of a large-scale building and ground preparation programme, the latter providing serviced land on which individuals could construct mail order flat-pack houses bought from the likes of Pacific Ready Cut or Sears, Roebuck & Co. Houses often less grand than many other suburban homes but that not only fulfilled the same function in an American Dream, but pose the question why in our age when everything comes mail order, we don't have mail order flat-pack houses? Thoughts which automatically lead one to Monsieur Luftarchitektur – Hans-Walter Müller. Architekt, Ingenieur, Künstler; 1967 bis heute at the Luftmuseum, Amberg, and questions of what if we embraced pneumatic architecture? And a large-scale building and ground preparation programme, and variety of company's offering mail order flat-pack houses, that tends to an appreciation that the early-20th century building of suburbia was driven more by commercial considerations than as a consequence of reflections on the structure of American society at that period.
Then, as so oft in early-20th century America, came the Great Depression. Something, potentially, partly, co-caused by the amount of credit being supplied for the building of suburbia. In which context see not only the Wall Street Crash of 1929, but also the Wall Street Crash of 2008.
A building of suburbia that, as the second chapter The Suburbia Boom discusses, was only stalled not stopped by the economic malaise of the early 1930s; the commercially focussed baton being quickly taken up by one William Levitt. A William Levitt who in the early 20th century developed an essentially industrial approach to house building based on standardisation and novel technology; an industrialisation of house building that poses the question why in our age of standardisation and novel technology we don't have industrialised house building? An industrial system which allowed Levitt to fundamentally contribute to a rapid increase in the construction of new suburbs in the middle of the 20th century and thereby to become a near synonym for suburbia: Levittown being a community on Long Island, New York, built by Levitt, and a by-word, and a generic term, for the boom of suburbia in the mid-20th century.
A boom, a transformation, that, as one learns, was enabled and advanced not just by Levitt but by a combination of financial support from the federal Government, by the end of the 1939-45 War, and by the economic and baby booms of the 1950s and 60s; thus a Suburbia Boom that needs must be considered as a component of American Mid-century Modernism it isn't normally considered a component of.
A boom, a transformation, powered by marketing; by the selling of a promise encapsulated in a new house in suburbia. By the selling of a dream. As were the first suburbias. As, arguably, were the first settlements on the 'unoccupied' prairies of the interior of the contemporary USA.
And a boom, a transformation, in the course of the 20th century that, as Suburbia discusses, also saw suburbia become an established location in popular culture, primarily literature and TV; a discussion that allows one to better appreciate, to comprehend, that when America is portrayed in popular culture it is invariably suburban America that is portrayed. Rarely inner-city America. And thereby to better appreciate the role of popular culture in establishing suburbia as the self-image and the external image of the United States of America. And the role of popular culture in establishing suburbia as an American Dream.
American TV programmes, for example, are invariably set in suburbia, something tending to be underscored by the fact the Simpson's, that most American of families, live in suburbia. As they must, they can't live in inner-city Springfield because that's not where Americans live, that's not where life in America unfolds. Inner-city America only exists in gritty crime dramas as populated by characters on the edge of society you don't want to be, or in context of dystopian contemporary or future Americas. Or in Friends. Which is arguably all of those things.
Standing in Suburbia we came to the opinion that the last American writer to deal with inner-city American life was James Baldwin. It probably wasn't, we certainly hope it wasn't, we're sure that if we thought longer someone else would occur to us. But standing in Suburbia we came to the opinion that the last American writer to deal with inner-city American life was James Baldwin. That Baldwin was so prominent in our brains at that moment, inarguably, being related to the reality discussed in The Suburbia Boom that over a great many decades only white Americans were able to to enjoy the boom, non-white Americans were excluded from the boom. Often violently. Much as those peoples who had long occupied the 'unoccupied' prairies of the American interior were violently excluded to enable the settlers to establish their American Dream. And although the 1968 Fair Housing Act outlawed such discrimination of an American Dream, there is an argument to be made, to be had, that that was, at least initially, solely a paper ban; prejudice is rarely negated by a law. But is often reinforced by a law. Thus for the greater part of Suburbia's timeline suburbia was white, the American Dream was white. Non-white's were in the inner-city. Thus a James Baldwin couldn't write about suburbia, he wasn't allowed to live in suburbia. Suburbia, the American Dream, wasn't for the likes of James Baldwin.
Suburbia as a location of, as a form of, segregation reinforced by a tacit understanding the develops through viewing Suburbia that suburbia is exclusively for those who can afford it; that suburbia as an American Dream is for those who can afford it, much as dental care, legal representation, eduction as an American Dream is for those who can afford it. Suburbia as a divider between rich and poor in America, between the haves and the have-nots. Suburbia as social segregation via urban planning.
Something also tending to be reinforced by the image in Suburbia of a cheery suburban housewife sat on a Saarinen tulip chair at a Saarinen tulip table on top of which stands a pile of, what we assume to be, Tupperware boxes. An image of suburban bliss, a placing of Eero Saarinen in a blissful suburban home, that guides one towards an appreciation that much of the furniture of 1950s and 60s America that today forms the much vaunted Mid-century Modern canon, was designed for the suburbs, was certainly bought by those in the suburbs, by wealthy white folks. Wasn't the furniture those denied access to suburbia on grounds of wealth or colour bought for their inner-city apartments. The families in the Harlem James Baldwin grew up in didn't own works through Knoll and Herman Miller. Nor did Knoll and Herman Miller actively develop objects for those living in 1950s and 60s Harlem. They developed furniture for Levittown. An important, unexpected, but very, very welcome, refocussing via Suburbia of what is meant by Mid-century Modern and for all of how Mid-century Modern relates to American society and an American Dream.
And a discussion on the development of suburbia in context of racism and segregation that guides one to thoughts on suburbia, on an American Dream, as having a dark side.
A darkness behind the white picket fences also explored in, advanced by, popular culture, one thinks of works such as, and amongst others, The Stepford Wives, Edward Scissorhands or Blue Velvet, those tellings of suburbia as an American Dream superficially covering a wasteland of alienation, brutality, hopelessness, domination, toxicity, prejudice, resentment, self-deceit, captivity, et al. Suburbia as a fragile facade. The American Dream as a fragile facade. America as a fragile facade.
An image, a belief that there is an unspoken tragedy and darkness beyond those stereotypically perfect front yards tending to be reinforced in Suburbia's third chapter The Residential Nightmare via Angela Strassheim's photos of suburban murder scenes, of suburbia as a crime scene.
A tragedy and darkness, and a criminality, and a Residential Nightmare, also very much inherent in architecture critic Kate Wagner's photos of what she refers to as McMansion Hell, a McMansion we reject as a term, a Hell we fully embrace: the depicted houses being as they are in all regards appalling, repugnant. Houses indicative of the aforeopined shift in the American Dream from contentment to Capital. Indicative of the aesthetics of ego in contrast to the aesthetics of the soul. Houses worthy of a place not just in circle three of Dante's Hell, where Cerberus watches over the gluttonous, but in an Ugly Belgian Houses USA Summer Special. Or an identity parade of mid-19th century European Historicism.
Houses that, if one compares with the houses at the start of Suburbia's timeline, one appreciates that although those of the early-19th century are, arguably, often just as large, they possess, in contrast to the monstrosities of today, an engaging character, are works you want to spend time with, that don't appal and disgust. Are large but not loud. Yet contemporary suburban villas which very obviously the owners approve of, are potentially as proud of as those first suburbanites were of there tasteful abodes; a reality that for all you're gut reaction is to question and argue against, is presented in Suburbia as something to accept and to seek to approach. Which you do.
Similarly Gabriele Galimberti's photos of suburbia as a world of guns; photos of families in suburbia who believe every house needs enough guns to arm a small nation. A fascination with guns, a belief in the necessity to own an inordinate and infeasible number of guns, that, again, must be, can be, compared with the bearing of arms that was such a key feature of life for those first settlers who headed west establishing the American Dream on the 'unoccupied' prairies of the interior, but in a very different context. And, again, for all it is very easy to be alienated by and to question such a reality, Suburbia demands it be accepted and approached. Which you do.
An approaching of not just unfeasibly appalling houses and armaphilia, but also an approaching of a contemporary suburbia that is same same but different to that of the early-19th century, and an approaching of a contemporary America that is same same but different to the America of the early-19th century, Suburbia not only effortlessly stimulates, but that in doing so tends to enable one to develop a more probable appreciation of not just suburbia but of suburbia as a self-image and external image of the United States of America, of suburbia as an American Dream, than popular culture, that lens through which suburbia is normally observed, is able, or willing, to provide.
Not least through the discussion on the role the development of novel transportation methods has played in the rise and subsequent development of suburbia; a role explicitly noted in the opening chapter, but which as you move along the timeline you begin to appreciate that the ability to move to and from suburbia was key to enabling suburbia's rise and is fundamental to its ongoing existence. An "ability to move to and from" that in context of a United States of America that has never really embraced sub-urban public transport, means cars. Thereby helping reinforce why not only the car but the freeway are so key to America, why the car and freeway are so fixed in the popular American psyche, why American's need, demand, cheap petrol: it's not about exploring open highways, nor about limitless freedoms, nor about fostering democracy: its about the quotidian middle-class banality of getting to and from suburbia. The car as the means to achieving, and maintaining, an American Dream. ¿And in a contemporary world in which we're all too aware of the problems not just cars but roads and car infrastructure provision cause, of the visible and invisible resource usage of the private car? ¿And what if you can't afford a car, or reject car ownership out of principle?
Thoughts on the necessity of car ownership in order to access and sustain an American Dream which bring you back to the segregation inherent in suburbia. A segregation that in the age of the Suburban Dream and the Suburbia Boom was desired, actively sought, be that the 19th century middle class fleeing the pollution of the city caused by the industry they relied on for their wealth but weren't prepared to accept responsibility for, see also those contemporaneous European's relocating to villa colonies, or the wealthy, and white, mid-20th century Modern Americans fleeing the social confusions of the post 1939-45 War inner-city rather than contributing to the discourse inherent in such confusions; but that today is, and looking back needs to be appreciated as always have being, problematic. Can lead to suburbia to be considered a ghetto. Can lead to an American Dream to be considered a ghetto ¿For is a ghetto not the aforeopined "social segregation via urban planning"? ¿Are the contemporary McMansion abominations not an alternative take on the hovel of yore, a moral squalor rather than a physical?
Suburbia as problematic not just on account of the lack of social mixing inherent in a practice of housing part of society unreachably removed from other parts of society, a recurring and well-researched theme over the (hi)story and geography of urban planning, but also via the entrenching of opinions and views, of prejudices and stereotypes, and also the risk of the development of violence, that invariably occurs in communities in isolation. See not just Gabriele Galimberti's aforementioned photos of heavily armed suburbanites, of suburbanites armed, one strongly suspects, against an enemy they know is there but is oblivious to the rest of us, but see also Lord of the Flies. Or Don Quixote. Thoughts on the risks of spatial separation particularly pertinent in an age where the echo chamber of social media, itself a form of isolation, has become the primary popular culture, where social media has replaced literature and TV as the primary framer and former of perspectives on the world. ¿Can any dream flourish and blossom in 21st century isolation? ¿Other than a dream of violence and unlimited power over others?
Then there is the appreciation won from viewing Suburbia that suburbia is in many regards a product of not only marketing and commerce, but of romanticised idealisation and invented identity. That suburbia didn't arise in context of in-depth, collaborative, multi-stakeholder discussions on potential models of urban and spatial planning resilient and responsive to the development of society, far less as a component of an integrated, inclusive, organic, spatial and urban planing process. Rather suburbia arose from marketing and commerce and romance. Viewing Suburbia an appreciation develops that suburbia is based on the selling of a collective identity associated with visions of a romanticised American Dream, rather than a concerted working towards the building of a Dream America. ¿And in a contemporary world where, in all contexts, the discrepancy between marketing and reality is becoming ever clearer? ¿In a contemporary world where we all know the prairies weren't unoccupied, whether we admit to that or not? ¿In a contemporary world where identity is increasingly political rather than social and cultural?
What future for suburbia? Does suburbia have a future? Should suburbia have a future?
Questions approached in and by the fourth and fifth chapters of Suburbia.
A fourth chapter somewhat disappointingly titled Post-Suburbia; not only an example of the lazy, meaningless, use of 'Post' before a noun that is becoming such a pest and hindrance in cultural discussions, but that also implies a misunderstanding on the curators part of everything that has been discussed in the preceding three chapters and the elucidations therein of how not just suburbia but society, America, always has been 'Post' what it was. It's the nature of these things. You are, then you're Post. At no point do you stay the same. The Smiths once asked How Soon is Now?, one could also ask When was Post?
A fourth chapter that once you've overcome your annoyance at its use of 'Post', stopped kicking the walls in frustration, introduces a discussion on possible futures for suburbia post that which it is was, but pre that which it will become, via, and amongst other discussion stimulants, an introduction to three contemporary perspectives on suburbia, three contemporary perspectives that in their own way challenge appreciations of what suburbia is, and propose alternatives to that discussed thus far in Suburbia: the suburbia of Taipei born, Monterey Park, Los Angeles raised, Jessica Chou whose photo series Suburban Chinatown explores contemporary multi-racial suburbia through a focus on Chinese communities and thereby not only helps elucidate that while the racial segregation of the past is waning, that suburbia is becoming as mixed race as America, the social segregation remains in new contexts; the suburbia of Seaside on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in western Florida, a suburb from 1990 in which not only residents are encouraged to get around without a car, if still needing a car to get to and from, but whose planning rules mean there is no risk of a McMansion popping up to scare the neighbours, thus an indication that it is possible to negate some of the darker aspects of contemporary suburbia, but that it is an active process, won't happen organically. And involves a form of collectivity, a form of communalism, many Americans confuse for Communism.
Or the suburbia of Huntington Beach, Los Angeles, as viewed by Ed Templeton, a, to quote the curators, hipster, and former professional skateboarder turned artist, who still lives in the Huntington Beach he grew up in despite that fact its swing right, not least in context of the contributions of Donald Trump to contemporary political discourse, doesn’t align with his world view. Is a Huntington Beach to which he is native, but, in many regards, no longer belongs. And which tends to focus one's attention on the problems of isolation and segregation, of the need for communities mixed across all strata, and where discourse is based on open, honest, airing of a different perspectives. And thus focuses one's attention on how one achieves that mixing in a suburbia that has its origins, arguably its raison d'être, in segregation. And also focuses one attention on the gentrification that such 'hipster' artists tend to initiate in the inner-cities, a ghetto building, a segregation, of a different type. Another challenge in contemporary urban planning.
Three perspectives which in being contemporaneous to the unfeasibly appalling houses and armaphilia of The Residential Nightmare not only further underscore the idiocy of 'Post', of the urgent need to move Post-Post, but also reinforce the inherent diversity of contemporary society, reinforce the ever increasing complexity of society that is the primary change that occurs over time, but which we all like to ignore, all prefer to pretend contemporary society isn't complexer than it once was, despite knowing it is, thereby making things ever harder for ourselves. And three perspectives which not only causes you to continue the questioning of what future for suburbia, does suburbia have a future, should suburbia have a future stimulated by the preceding three chapters, but that also better enable you to better employ suburbia as a starting point for more general questions on how we develop our urban spaces, how housing is supplied, how the physical spaces within which communities and societies develop are formed, regulated and allowed to grow.
Thoughts, questions, inherent in Suburbia's four main chapters and continued in the fifth chapter, an additional chapter to the curator's initial four chapters, added by, and specific to Suburbia's presentation in, the Architekturzentrum Wien: And in Austria?
A chapter that, as the title neatly implies, explores suburbia as adopted in Austria, an exploration, certainly in our, perhaps singular, viewing of Suburbia, that tends to reinforce all the problematic aspects of American suburbia: they are all there, shouting at you from the photos. Not least the problems of social segregation in suburban estates, ghettoes, for the haves of contemporary society, and also the inevitable and predictable consequences of a reliance on private cars inherent in suburbia. The latter very neatly echoing the discussion on the relationships between transportation and spatial planning made by and from On the Move! Frankfurt and Mobility at the Historisches Museum, Frankfurt, that the decisions we make today about transportation will impact on and directly affect the urban and sub-urban spaces, and the society, we develop going forward. That transportation decisions always have affected urban spaces, sub-urban spaces, society, and always will. And thus the necessity of never considering one aspect of society, be that employment, eduction, health provision, housing, transportation et al in isolation, they are all interlinked and impact on one another. One needs must always take a wider, inclusive, view. Complex, and irreducible to a catchy political slogan, as that is.
If a discussion on Austrian suburbia that regrettably only includes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to, arguably, Austria's original suburbias: the Wilde Siedlungen that arose on the edge of Vienna in the late-1910s/early-1920s as the urban poor, and those returning from the 1914-1918 War to an Austria Republic that hadn't formally existed before that War, autonomously settled the land bordering the city, built their own houses with vegetable gardens by way of escaping the privations, and unhealthy housing, of inner-city Vienna. A Siedlungen movement that after rising as a decentralised institution was increasingly supported by the city authorities, over-time became an ever more regulated, centralised, initiative to which the likes of an Adolf Loos, a Josef Frank or a Margarete Lihotzky contributed, the latter with an early incarnation of that kitchen to which she is so unjustly popularly reduced to today. A movement that was initiated and advanced by the users, not by commerce, not by marketing, not by popular culture, not by romanticised associations, but by need, that most elementary of design stimuli, and by questions of how that need could best be met in the interests of all.
And thus an Austrian Dream that, arguably, is not only more sustainable and durable than the American Dream of the 19th century, but that is more focussed on society than American suburbia. Provides a better model for development extraurbanum. A comparison of that suburban Austrian Dream with the suburban American Dream we would like to have seen, had hoped to see, undertaken more extensively that it is and was in Suburbia. But a comparison which we will make ourselves at a later date. As we recommend you all do.
And a final, extra, Austrian, chapter that in context of its discussion on contemporary Austrian suburbias also makes a conditioned, cautious, but, we'll argue, obvious and resolute, defence of the single family home, argues that the single family home, despite appearances to the contrary, can be responsive to, and reflective of, contemporary realities and speculative future realities. A defence and argument that you are very much empowered to challenge, admonished to question if the single family home is justifiable, defensible, future-orientated? Is suburbia justifiable, defensible, future-orientated? Socially, ecologically, economically, morally.
And if it isn't, how do we house contemporary and future society?
How do we arrange our urban spaces to ensure they are sustainable, democratic, robust and responsive?
How do we arrange our urban society to ensure it is sustainable, democratic, robust and responsive?
The two questions are the same.
Questions the rise and development of suburbia over the past century and a bit should have been a component of, but, as one appreciates through viewing Suburbia, never really were.
Questions that are becoming increasingly urgent.
Questions the (hi)story and contemporary reality of suburbia can help us formulate.
Co-curated and co-organised by the Architekturzentrum Wien and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, thus two very much non-American organisations, which can one view as positive or negative, we tend to a positive appraisal, Suburbia is essentially a poster presentation, which in addition to bilingual German/English texts employs, photos, posters, films, archive documents, et al to allow its narrative to unfold. Which isn't a criticism, simply an observation, and in many regards plainly obvious given the scale at which suburbia exists, physically and conceptually.
A scale, physically and conceptually, that, as one is all too aware while viewing Suburbia, makes capturing suburbia in an exhibition all but impossible; as you move through the presentation you are consciously aware that for all the depth and insight of the individual components of the presentation, that which is before you is but one very small aspect viewed from one very limited perspective, you know there is more, know there are alternative perspectives to be explored, alternative voices to be heard, as the curators also know and knew but which inevitable limitations of time and space forced them to omit. Which for all it sounds like a weakness of the presentation can also be accepted as an invitation to explore more on your own after leaving the Architekturzentrum Wien; can be accepted as an invitation to view Suburbia as an overview of suburbia, a curated introduction to suburbia, by way of enabling a more focussed approach to aspects of suburbia.
An overview that not only allows for an introduction to the (hi)story and development of suburbia, nor only allows suburbia to neatly serve as a conduit for access to thoughts on contemporary urban and spatial planning, but that allows one to better appreciate not only that suburbia is as much an immaterial location as a material location, but that suburbia isn't a definitive thing, is a myriad physical and conceptual things and thus that one can only approach 'suburbia' generally or in a very specific context. Which not only reinforces the inability of an exhibition to capture 'suburbia' in its entirety, or indeed TV, literature or film to capture 'suburbia' in its entirety, but also highlights the myriad complications that inherent dual existence brings going forward.
Viewing Suburbia you sense the Culture War that is waiting to be played out on the streets of 'suburbia'.
A Culture War in waiting because on the one hand 'suburbia' will further develop, must further develop, can but further develop, When was Post?, in which context the tackling of racism in America, or the changing roles of females in American society, being examples flagged-up in Suburbia of struggles already played out in 'suburbia', there will be more; on the other hand, as Suburbia elegantly reinforces, the development of 'suburbia' since the early-19th century is inherently linked to, inextricably inter-twinned with, the development of America since the early-19th century, there's an open two way inter-play there, and thus the future of 'suburbia' is inherently linked to the future of America. And as things stand the path to that future America is via a Cultural Civil War.
And on the rare, and thus all the more valuable third hand, because of the role of 'suburbia' in an American Dream, a role that, as Suburbia allows one to better appreciate, in the 19th century was the romanticising of the first settlers, was, arguably, the result of popular national storytelling akin to that which helped establish untold 'traditions' in Europe, saw 'suburbia' become a 'traditional' component of American national identity akin to the kilt of Scotland — Americans live in suburbia, Scots wear kilts — before in the 20th century that storytelling, identity invention, was taken up by popular culture, exploited by commerce and unquestioningly, uncritically, passively consumed by Americans. And equally so by non-Americans.
A state of affairs that in our contemporary realities, against the background of contemporary political discourses, is ripe for weaponising. An American Drean ripe for weaponising.
And that more generally helps reinforce the very real dangers of allowing culture to be led by commercial interests and/or a romanticising of the past. What if 'suburbia' wasn't the self-image and the external image of the United States of America it is? What if 'suburbia' wasn't the a central location for popular culture in the United States of America? What if 'suburbia' wasn't an American Dream? What if suburbia was a housing provision model from the early-19th century?
Would Americans be so attached to their cars and freeways? Would American society be so segregated? Would the American Dream have evolved from the dishwasher to billionaire narrative? How would political discourse proceed in America?
Questions that arise from the questioning of 'suburbia' enabled by Suburbia that not only help reinforce the importance of being aware of who and what is leading cultural and social discourses, why they are leading and how they came to be leading, and of the importance of being aware of the role of popular culture in all its hues in validating and challenging contemporary cultural and social discourses, but that also admonish that for all 'suburbia' in its contemporary realities is very much something singular to the United States of America, 'suburbia' as a conditioned self-image and external image is everywhere, 'suburbia' as a popularly aspired ideal is everywhere, 'suburbia' as unfiltered romance is everywhere. 'Suburbia' as a collectively consumable Dream, is everywhere.
Thus of the need to question what is 'suburbia'? Why is 'suburbia'? How is 'suburbia'? What future for 'suburbia'? Does 'suburbia' have a future? Should 'suburbia' have a future? wherever one meets 'suburbia'.
Suburbia. Living the American Dream is scheduled to run at the Architekturzentrum Wien, Museumsplatz 1 im MQ, 1070 Vienna until Monday August 4th.
Further details can be found at www.azw.at
