This article attempts to explain how the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930 was uniquely different from previous exhibitions and sought to resolve a longstanding tension between a vision of the future and longing for the past. In particular, it addresses how ideas of the everyday were redirected towards functionalism in a joyful festive context through the agency of consumer desire. It also explains how the exhibition attempted to relate to Skansen, a nearby museum of the Swedishvernacular and how Gunnar Asplund’s concepts (...) of functionalism reflect Heidegger’s principles of dwelling. Finally, using Foucault’s concepts of ‘other’ spaces, it shows how the Stockholm Exhibition served as a heterotopia of the future that collaborated actively with a heterotopia of the past to make a more convincing case to a mass audience about the appropriateness of functionalism in Sweden. (shrink)

This article addresses a project by Bernard Lassus, a celebrated French landscape architect, for a rest area on a highway outside Nimes, France. Using this project as a lens, it asks whether a tourist can approach any sense of Heidegger’s concept of dwelling. It goes on to inquire about fresh visions of places, citing familiar modernist approaches and postmodern ones advocated by Lyotard. After dealing with cultural differences in the promotion of tourist sites, it attempts to dissect Lassus’s motives and (...) references in the design of the Nimes-Caissargues Rest Area. Finally, it places Lassus’s project in the context of earlier gardens about cities, use of simulacra, Heidegger’s theory of dwelling, and Lyotard’s concept of “unpresentable.”. (shrink)