No. 4/2009, Theme: Rhetorics

Magazine for Scandinavian Architecture, Interiors and Design.

“If parliament is formed from one party as a result of its winning an election, it becomes a parliament of the winning party and not of the people. It represents the party and not the people, and the executive power of the parliament becomes that of the victorious party and not of the people. The same is true of the parliament of proportional representation in which each party holds a number of seats proportional to their success in the popular vote. The members of the parliament represent their respective parties and not the people, and the power established by such a coalition is the power of the combined parties and not that of the people. Under such systems, the people are the victims whose votes are vied for by exploitative competing factions who dupe the people into political circuses that are outwardly noisy and frantic, but inwardly powerless and irrelevant. Alternatively, the people are seduced into standing in long, apathetic, silent queues to cast their ballots in the same way that they throw waste paper into dustbins. This is the traditional democracy prevalent in the whole world, whether it is represented by a one-party, two-party, multiparty or non-party system. Thus it is clear that representation is a fraud.”

The Green Book (1975)

 

Rhetoric is the art of convincing. Forum is busy preparing its forthcoming November issue which has the art of convincingas the recurring theme, especially within architecture, interiorsand design. What is required to win commissions, what is nec-essary to sell proposals, what is needed to avoid starting overfrom the beginning? Is an offer of a 300-year-old guaranteeenough? What does it take to be allowed to build vertically?Perhaps a retroactive manifesto drafted in advance? Why do the renderings of architects, unless the project at hand relatesto an old people’s home, always include young, healthy, happyand white people? What argument did François Mitterranduse to erect triumphal arches over himself? And what kindof rhetoric has the Finnish architectural firm B&M employedover the past fifteen years so that it has been asked to design congress halls, libraries, water towers, even whole cities in the Libyan desert?
  This last question alone makes the next issue of Forum worth reading. Hopefully the editorial team will get their vi-sas in time to head down to Libya before the magazine goesto press. Even if the article from Libya doesn’t go further thana visit to Helsinki, the Libya article is still worth reading. Evenif the Libya article (or any of the other articles) isn’t finished intime, Forum’s rhetoric issue is worth reading. This is more orless an explicit guarantee! The rhetoric issue of Forum is likelyto be the best issue of Forum ever, regardless of the Libya ar-ticle’s existence, or non-existence for that matter. That’s whyyou should definitely read Forum’s rhetoric issue. If you don’t,you will miss out on something valuable. Thus, for your own good, you should read the rhetoric issue of Forum.

Daniel Golling, Editor-in-Chief

Photo: Mohammar Khadaffi, 1973. Copyright: DN/ Scanpix