Krista Jahnke

A Stable World That Will Last Forever is a constructed portrait of Vancouver by Krista Jahnke, in collaboration with hcma, displayed at the Olympic Village Station from January to April 2015. The composition uses recognizable Vancouver landmarks organized into a new configuration, which allows the viewer to imagine our city within a new landscape and context.

It is the designer who must attempt to re-evaluate his role in the nightmare he helped to conceive, to retread the historical process which inverted the hopes of the modern movement.

Toraldo di Francia, Superstudio

The piece is inspired by the languages of propaganda and graphic art favoured by the Italian Superstudio from the 1960s. Rather than casually viewing architecture as a benevolent force, the members of Superstudio blamed it for having aggravated the world’s social and environmental problems, while being equally pessimistic about politics. The group’s once radical theories about architecture’s environmental impact, the potentially negative consequences of technology, and the inability of politics to untangle complex social problems are now considered to be core concerns by self-aware, contemporary architects and designers. The piece examines the relationship between environment, architecture and society in the modern city and addresses the complex role of their interconnectivity and dependency.

By rearranging line, space and forms that communicate the power of architecture within the environment and how people interact with both, the piece invited viewers to envision Vancouver from a different perspective.