I’m so 3008, suburbia is so 2000-and-late
BILL OWENS: “Suburbia” (2000)
I hate hearing about suburbs more than suburbia itself. I realize that urban sprawl is still a menace, so through the lenses of urban planning and sustainability, I’ll give it credit where it’s due. Mainly, I’m talking about suburbia in art and literature. Maybe it’s because of the time I spent studying architecture and cramming for tests on Levittown, or maybe it’s because suburbia is a huge part of the American cultural identity that I’ve never experienced and probably never will, but using suburbia as a metaphor seems sort of lazy and inherently classist. This is probably biased by my own feelings towards mass-produced architecture as a necessary monster - but the whole metaphor is flawed by the case that suburbs have a lot of cooperative qualities, but that’s an argument of its own. My point is, there are less dated backdrops for the pervasive loneliness of the American spirit, you’re just too lazy to find them.
*Bill Owens rules, though. He doesn’t count because “Suburbia” came out 1973.
**New Topographics is tight, too. I think I know too much about buildings and too little about the people who photograph them.
