This Is Not A Wall: Collected Short Stories On The Moma Ps1 Party Wall [Paperback]

This Is Not A Wall is conceived as an epic of one architectural entitys lifespan, depicted through a unique collection of illustrated short stories. The entity in question is the temporary pavilion Party Wall, designed by CODA as the winning entry of the 2013 Young Architects Program organized by MoMA PS1. This Is Not A Wall recounts Party Walls complete 9-month lifespan, from its initial nomination in November 2012, through its design-build process, to its dismantling at summers end in September 2013. The central intention of the collection is to chronicle Party Walls unique contextual environment, and elucidate upon its role as a mediator of complex relationships amid the individuals, institutions, and companies to which it owes its existence.

The experimental nature of this publication  outside what is often practiced in the architectural monograph  is to intertwine critical texts with personal accounts from a range of perspectives: in short, to consider a work of architecture as a performative endeavor built upon a full chorus of disparate voices. This Is Not A Walls aim is to craft a bookwork in the same spirit as the original act  by emphasizing various modes of language to tell a collective story, showcasing episodes with a range of durations, formalities, and orientations. In this way, the book accompanies a reader from Party Walls set to its strike, in both sickness and health, witnessing the changes of tack, pleasant surprises, unforeseen setbacks, and logistical successes that comprise any complex process of collaborative labor.

This Is Not A Wall also works to frame Party Wall in a larger contemporary discourse. Concerns include: architecture and its correlation to installation; experientiality and public performance; and a reconsideration of the sign in architecture as it pertains to legibility and meaning. Longer, essay-style stories by architectural journalist Cynthia Davidson, art historian Lisa Pincus, CODA principle Caroline l³’