Benjamin Edwards: Works, Projects, Archive

I. Expansion II. The Rational Services The Romantic III. Resistance is Futile IV. Taxonomy, Classification, Analysis V. Thematics VI. Collapse VII. The Welcome Bibliography

Thematics

The convenient landscape, now saturated by service and betweenness, is not new. Unchecked sprawl, suburbanization, and decorated sheds (see Venturi) have been around for quite some time- long enough for their image to outrun short-term profit, to become old and dated, and to be seen as the essence of blight and ugliness in the American landscape. A new category of ambiance consumption has been building in reaction against the modernization of the automobile-landscape and the desolation of the in-between, using the smoke-screen strategy of the theme.

Images and appropriations of tradition and history are everywhere, and have also been around for awhile- Disneyland, Las Vegas, and more recently theme stores such as Niketown. But this high level of spectacle has trickled down to the level of the mundane and everyday, from the fast food restaurant to the cafe.

Consumption has become theater: the theme creates a set where the employees are cast-members and the patrons are role-players, where reality is temporarily suspended (Disneyland refers to their employees as "cast members" and their customers as "guests"). To the consumer, hungry for novelty, waiting to be entertained, frustrated and dissatisfied with the real world, ripe for nostalgia, the traditionalist theme says "come, pretend, remember...we are un-Modern." This is, of course, a fairly transparent strategy which is designed to mask the fact that the place is the exact opposite. The theme thus represents, simultaneously, a reaction against the effects of (post)modern capitalism, along with its very continuation and advance. In both of these ways, the popularity of the theme as a strategy is frighteningly conservative.

These points of theatrical consumption, which absorb, seem to be re-conquering the point of relay and the condition of betweenness. Perhaps, the theme is just a different type of betweenness, an escape which is a sort of retreat into history, a mythologizing nostalgia, like Thomas Cole's, which pretends to eliminate the bad effects of a modernizing and rationalizing economy, while keeping its progress forever on the horizon.

The contradiction of the theme is most blatant at the fast food restaurant, seen in nostalgic tendencies which attempt to re-identify with a lost Americana and sense of tradition through particular historical references.

Taco Bell’s architecture is generically Spanish, with a terra cotta tile roof, arched entry, and adobe-like stucco texture. The old color scheme of brown, red, green, and yellow referred to the ingredients of its most popular menu item, while the new scheme of purple, yellow, magenta, and turquoise is appropriated from the bright and festive colors of traditional Mexican textiles.

Wendy's serves "old-fashioned hamburgers"; pictures as part of its logo an oval portrait of a freckled, redheaded girl in pigtails and a blue and white striped dress; uses a signature curly line which can be identified as a sign of decorative wrought iron; and uses a simulated roofing which is slightly curved and spray-painted metallic copper. These decorative styles romanticize the innocence, sense of tradition and morality, and the prosperity and progress of the late nineteenth century in the age of the railroad.

The red and white striped scheme of KFC is reminiscent of the checkered table cloth of a picnic of a family reunion, or simply the Sunday family supper, or, perhaps, with its triangular peak roof, a barn in the heartland of America. Along with menu items such as fried chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuits, corn-on-the cob, and pies, the theme plays off nostalgia for home and family, purity and values.

McDonald's relies heavily on nostalgia for itself as the original chain hamburger restaurant and its Founding Father of Fast Food. The Golden Arches and those familiar angled bars on the roof not only become giant french fries, but they are signs of all of the years we have had the pleasure of their presence in the American landscape. McDonald's has become a sign for its own place in history as the pioneer of the franchising and mass consumption which began in the 1950s. Their latest promotion, “Campaign 55," offers 55 cent Big Macs to commemorate the year Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald's. From McMemories, The Official McDonald's Collectibles Club, the hard-core consumer may purchase the "McDonald's Classic":

All of us share fond memories of our first visits to McDonald's. Ever since the first franchise opened in 1955, McDonald's has been a beloved part of the American scene- the place where good food, fun and family come together. And now you can recapture your own McDonald's memories with "McDonald's Classic," an authentic replica of the very first McDonald's franchise, officially authorized by McDonald's and brought to you by The Official McDonald's Collectibles Club. Crafted of fine ceramic, complete with electric bulb and cord set, Certificate of Authenticity- plus a free "Speedee" sign and free decorative Christmas lights- it's a great value at only $39.95. Order your "McDonald's Classic" today!

What is celebrated in the thematics of fast food is the story of the American Dream and of American capitalism, emphasizing its various historical traditions while ignoring the ever-increasing rationalization and standardization which served to unravel them. The reliance on nostalgia, a longing for a past that was somehow better, seems to contradict the fact that fast food restaurants are the very products of a rationalized market economy which has erased any sense of tradition or the ''old-fashioned."

While fast food restaurants romanticize the past, gas stations are eternally nostalgic for the “future," presenting themselves as always on the frontier, but not in an excessively dominating way: technology and nature can coexist in harmony for the benefit of all.

Mobil's theme is super-cleanliness and super-friendliness: everything is bright white and everything is new and clean, presenting the future utopia we all know from science fiction. Landscaping is more extreme than the average gas station, with beautifully kept grass and flowers around the sign. They offer a service called "Friendly Serve," where attendants wearing headset communications devices walk around offering to pump your gas, check your oil, or wash your windows. These attendants insist on being helpful and friendly in some way because it's their job.

As with Mobil, BP offers "clean" gas. Their primary color is green, which is of course odd since green signifies nature, however it is also a sign of environmentalism. BP says subtly to the auto-consumer, "We are enviro-friendly. We are the safe choice." Some of their stations also use a particular style of architecture: while most canopies and signs are square-edged with sharp right angles, BP's canopies and signs have slightly rounded edges to create an image of green tubing combined with brushed chrome tubing, the curves echoing the current trend of the bubble car. This "tomorrowland" architecture signifies the latest in automobile technology, however much it may be simply a caricature of what the future might look like in the minds of designers, analogous to the way the rocket and science fiction in the 50s influenced automobile design and the futurism of Disneyland.

Through the ever-popular red, white, and blue color scheme, many gas stations, such as Exxon, Chevron, Mobil, and Amoco, tap into a sense of patriotism in the activity of driving and consuming gas. Along with its tricolor stripes, Amoco's logo uses the symbol of the torch, which may refer to Liberty, or possibly the Olympics, since its grades of gas are color coded with gold and silver pumps. Combined with "Go for the Gold," the stripes may be translated as "Keep America Moving."

Texaco's "America" strategy is much more complex: the dominant color is black, which signifies mystery and the darkness of the unknown; the white star within the red circle refers to the Old West; and their slogan is "Star of the American Road." Texaco presents the road as the perpetual frontier, the always unexplored and mysterious. The driver is the pioneer playing out the romance of Manifest Destiny, with the shiny, white star always there to help keep you going, and to provide some order within the vast blackness of the unknown.

Gas station design on the whole celebrates the forward-looking and the visionary- the romance of the future. The irony and contradiction here is that the myth of the frontier must be maintained to "Keep America Moving," when in fact it had long ago run its course, shattered by its own forces of machine technology. While the oil companies seem to look forward through the design and marketing strategies of their gas stations, they do so only from the past, clinging to a technology of the early twentieth century. The signs of today's and the future's technology- the electronic pay-at-pump feature, the super-clean aesthetic, the "green," and the bubble- serve to mask the backwardness of the actual technology and the reluctance to truly progress. Gas stations must look back to the "future" because soon they will have made themselves obsolete through their own saturation.

June 1, afternoon, at the Barnes & Noble cafe

Mahogany is everywhere- the floor, the tables, the chairs, the bookshelves. The music is soft, conversations hushed. Everyone is either engrossed in the Sunday paper or working on a laptop with a pile of books to the side. Someone will periodically glance up and around at someone else doing the same thing. It reminds me of a study lounge.

The backdrop is a wall-covering poster/mural which illustrates various literary figures- Hemingway, Joyce, Sartre, etc.- engaged in the stereotypical intellectual discussion at a Parisian outdoor cafe. Throughout the bookstore are posters of writers, from antiquity to the present day, all illustrated in that now familiar Barnes & Noble style of the nineteenth century engraving, cream background, dark green borders, with gold trim. All of the authors, with the exception of a few, are removed from their contexts, and literature is rendered a-historical, trapped in the Victorian Era. Homer, Alice Walker, Jane Austen, Anne Rice- they're all great. Explore them and enjoy.

What they've done thematically, by blending literature to its average representation, Barnes & Noble stores have done to bookstore options and book selection in general. Better than the typical mall bookstore, which is awful, but not as specialized as the small, independent bookstore, Barnes & Noble has performed a great service as well as a great evil by wiping out both. Unfortunately, the mall breed seems to be much more resilient than the independent, with the mall crowd obviously vastly outnumbering the intellectuals. Public and civic space has also been affected. As budget crises affect community colleges, state universities, and local libraries, an appropriation of a traditional aesthetic and a welcoming strategy of absorption and comfort make Barnes & Noble the attractive, if not inevitable, replacement.

I now feel incredibly guilty yet resigned when at Barnes & Noble. It makes me think that literature had its golden age in the nineteenth century but has now been thematically embalmed and parodied.

June 3, morning, at the local Starbucks

I have just ordered a tall coffee and a pound of whole beans- house blend- and settled into the only available table. Jazz is playing, a festive version of Duke Ellington's Caravan. Conversations merge into a hum, with an occasional word or phrase emerging above the rest, then receding. To my right a person is reading; behind me someone is studying. There is a couple with a baby and stroller, two gentlemen discussing, a group of three talking...

The "baristas" were friendly. They have their own lingo- short, tall, grande, venti, "cap" for cappuccino- and they seem to know what they're doing. The last time I was here and bought a pound of beans, I was issued a Passport, my “Guidebook to the World of Starbucks Coffee." With every purchase of a half-pound of beans, my passport gets a stamp, and with ten stamps the next half-pound is FREE, explained the barista.

Actually quite useful for the aspiring connoisseur, this guidebook explains to me the importance of Flavor, Acidity, and Body, how to judge them, and how to determine what combination is right for the moment. For example, coffees of the Americas are ideal for breakfast; Coffees of the Pacific are exotic, earthy, deeply satisfying, and contemplative; Sulawesi is a superb after-dinner coffee; Yukon Blend is robust- great for breakfast on blustery days.

I also have the recent issue of "Coffee Matters," in which I can learn about the history of how Starbucks saved the day, from the original quality and care in coffee, to its demise as a canned and mass-produced product, to the triumphant return of tradition and hand-crafting at Starbucks- a history of modernism up to postmodernism in a nutshell.

I like the coffee here- it's good and strong. I have been converted. It is now difficult for me to buy grocery-store coffee, or Dunkin' Donuts' coffee, or the random cup here and there. The first Starbucks I experienced was at Dupont Circle in Washington D.C. three years ago. I didn't go in and try the coffee, but I thought it looked like an interesting place. I thought it was a unique place. The next time I experienced a Starbucks was a year later in Manhattan, the one on 86th and Broadway. I loved going there. The coffee was great, and I enjoyed the atmosphere of New Yorkers reading the Times on a Sunday morning with their dogs waiting outside. Then I experienced another, and another. I would always go to Starbucks because I could count on the coffee. I've had a burnt cup here and there, but generally it's fresh. I began to think that I was addicted, not just to caffeine, but to Starbucks caffeine. And as I experienced the same furniture, the same music, the same atmosphere, the whole thing began to wear thin. It was no longer possible to have an experience there. I backed off. But they're hard to miss, the coffee is still as good, and so what anyway?

Now, when I walk by a Starbucks and see people sitting outside, or sitting at the window, the whole phenomenon just seems a little silly. They're looking at me; I'm looking at them. When I'm at a Starbucks, I feel slightly embarrassed, as if I'm playing a pre-determined role in a pretend cafe- the intellectual, the yuppie, the connoisseur. Reading, studying, or writing in a Starbucks always makes me feel very self-conscious. I always order just a tall coffee, or "drip," which feels a little bit like feeling underdressed, everyone else ordering a fancy espresso drink, a grande double-decaf-non-fat latte, or whatever.

I am always simultaneously contemptuous and self-mocking at a Starbucks. Do other people feel this way?