ABSTRACT
There is an expanding body of knowledge on architectural psychoanalysis seeking to penetrate the underlying unconscious processes which influence design. Certain realities about architecture are not directly evident through historical scrutiny or empirical observations. In investigating the grounds for what has been often referred to as the failure of the Boston City Hall Plaza in functioning as a vital public space, mere reference to evident facts is carelessly inadequate. What is needed, on the contrary, is a different lens revealing the “unknown” of the project. The unconscious of architecture is shaped through, and emerges out of, an intricate network of social and political underpinnings which—despite their manifest intentions—are structured by repressed desires. This latent content is not immediately accessible to those involved in the design decisions. The message embedded in the mute language of architecture therefore, could be in blatant contradiction with the initial, occasionally utopian, intention(s). Using Boston City Hall Plaza as the embodiment of conflictual expressions, this paper employs a psychoanalytic approach as a theoretical basis in interpreting the project. The Lacanian notion of desire through Fredric Jameson’s The Political Unconscious and Žižek’s The Parallax View serves as the theoretical framework to explicate the psychoanalytic dynamics influencing the life of the plaza. The failure of similar urban renewal projects of the 1960s resides precisely in an inherent contradiction between the official institutions’ unconscious desire for maintaining their control over basic internal processes and the public’s demand for a fully democratic system. Recently, the attempts to revitalize the space have been focused on re-naturalizing the plaza by providing more trees. Hence, the solutions have been directed toward stormwater ecology, rather than human ecology. Similar to the “democratic” spaces of the 1960s that were never truly democratic, the contemporary “sustainable” designs are occasionally limited to a cynical representation of sustainability. The return of the repressed of Victorian brick walls of Scollay Square along with the paradoxical nature of utopian politics of the 60s constitute two major discourses elaborated within.
