The not so magic roundabout
Originating in considerations on architectural development and the environmental impact of motorway interchanges, the “Four Stack” series draws its inspiration from the name of one of the biggest and most complicated of them.
When they first appeared in 1930, these interchanges were the response to a need to organise increasing automobile traffic in a fledgling mass consumption society, which had barely recovered from an unprecedented financial crisis: remind you of anything? 1930-2009, a simplistic view, perhaps, but from one speculative crisis to another, it makes you think. These interchanges refer us back in particular to the development of our society and its ethical and ecological upheavals.
In architectural terms, these concrete monsters provoke strong reactions. The giants that they are, they seem to have just landed from another planet. In ecological terms, they are the subject of various controversies, noise and visual pollution... but however undesirable they may be, it is difficult to imagine how to reverse the way things are going.
Witnesses of a particular time, the dance goes on, the incessant flow, should the not so magic roundabout be perceived as a dead end or, on the contrary, as a symbol of hope and possible re-direction?
