Liminality, The Internet and Latent Fascism of Architecture
I know that Liminal spaces are a bit of a hot topic over the past few years, but a video my partner and I watched the other day took a sharp veer into soft fascist ideology regarding spaces and how they function. The "liminal" space that has grown as a concept to not actually describe liminality (a definition of the function of the space as it pertains to function in permanent nature) and more a non-place (as described initially by Marc Auge in his book of the same name).
The nature of many of these spaces is that they are either not intended for long term occupation (transitional in nature) or are non-anthropological spaces (those that do not derive meaning from their form but only by the context of the people within it). There is a desire in those that class these spaces as feeling "ominous" or "evil" to find a reason why and I think there's two paths on this line of logic that we can see.
One is a desire to describe these as giving you a bad vibe because it describes an order but not the "correct" order that a space can contain, insisting that there is a comfortable way in which our spaces SHOULD be. This often dovetails neatly into the "RETVRN" mentality that we've seen as a methodology to manufacture consent for fascist ideologies, where the modern architecture is framed as "unfriendly" or "malicious" and older styles are "friendly" and "kind".
The other view when you see these things as unfriendly visions is to understand that the uncanny feeling that exists here is the result of seeing a place that has a purpose within capitalism and is defined by its relation to capital. An empty hotel is scary because it is not being used correctly, ergo we are aware that the "correct" or at least intended use of the space is to facilitate a capitalist interaction of the space being rented. The fact these spaces aren't intended to be lived in is less important in many cases than the fact that these are spaces designed to fuel the capitalist machine and aren't doing that, allowing us to see them as a space that's being occupied by a company rather than people.
I'd argue the third option here is actually to repudiate the idea of these images being unsettling entirely. I feel a warmth from this style of image, but not because of the architecture or the design, the implication of these spaces being empty is that they will eventually be occupied, and I can see the vision of these spaces being reclaimed and used for real purposes, where they're no longer grim reminders of the hell that we all live in under the capitalist machine.
Remember to thank your Town Manager for a job well done!