Rendering by Mark Clayton“No Loitering” signage is commonplace not just in New Orleans, but in many cities. In Rob Walker’s Hypothetical Development Organization, the N(ew) O(rleans) Loitering Centre would invite the public to come in, and loiter.Last summer, the magazine published an article about the fund-raising site Kickstarter. It was by Rob Walker, a contributing writer, and started like this:
We had this idea, some friends and I, for a small public art project in New Orleans last year. The problem was, it involved some professional printing that would cost a few thousand dollars, which none of us had. Usually that’s where such conversations end: it would be cool if we could do X, but we’re not going to get a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, even if we knew how to pursue such a thing. So let’s get another round of beers.
But this time something occurred to me: What about that Kickstarter thing?
The article wasn’t about Rob’s project. In fact, after that first paragraph, the only further description of it appeared in this parenthetical: “(It involved artists creating signs advertising absurd hypothetical uses for neglected buildings in New Orleans.)” But Rob and his wife, Ellen Susan, and his friend G.K. Darby made their Kickstarter goal for their project, which they called the Hypothetical Development Organization (tagline: Implausible Futures for Unpopular Places), produced an exhibition and now have been chosen to be included in the official U.S. presentation at the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale, Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good. How cool is that?
Rob always has a bunch of interesting and surprising ventures going on. (He is, for example, a co-founder of Significant Objects, for which writers make up stories about thrift-store objects. A book of these stories is coming out soon.) If you want to know more about Hypothetical Development Organization, you can read Rob’s tale of how it came about and his discussion of fictional architecture on Design Observer.
Rendering by Kirsten HivelyFrom the Hypothetical Development Organization: “If you need a velvet rope, you don’t want just any old mass-produced velvet rope; you want a handmade rope from a recognized velvet rope artisan. This is the place to get velvet ropes as impressive as those handmade in Los Angeles, London and Hong Kong.”
Morris BrumMembers of the Hypothetical Development Organization post renderings of the proposed Velvet Rope Artisan Workshop on an actual site in New Orleans.