BDES1020 'Continuous City' <Andrew Kim>

Abstract

I went to Tunisia in 2009 for two weeks and what I no¬ticed was the personality cult of the president. The gigan¬tic portraits of the President Ben Ali were everywhere, on façades of buildings, news papers, major streets... Some people even had a photo of the president framed inside their shop. Having come from a South Korean background where we are well aware of the brutal propaganda of “the Great Leader” in North Korea, I decided to design “the Presi¬dent Centre” as a multifunctional monument dedicated to the President Ben Ali – but one sole purpose of propa¬gandizing the country so that the personality cult of the President Ben Ali would be more effective and would continue in Tunisia. There are three main functions within the building and it is divided quite distinctly. At the bottom floor, there is a museum and the visitor’s information desk and this is where the locals and the tourist can learn about the president. T At the top, there are gigantic digital screens displaying news, photos, videos and quotes of the President. Very similar to “Brave New World” by Adolf Huxley, or “Brazil” a film by Terry Gilliams, people cannot escape from the constant wave of advertisement and propaganda. Government offices are located on the body of the building and they act like a filter – the raw truth is censored and edited, ‘filtered’ through to the screen and the museum and to the soci¬ety. The importance of satire should not be forgotten – it allows us to enjoy our right to free speech and question and challenge our values, but with a few chuckles along the way. I hope that the people who look at this project realise the potential influential architecture can have in the society, which might be for better or for worse.