B18_#173 // The Salon // Oscar Maguire

In the salons of old, people would converse using only the knowledge of the world outside that they had brought into room with them at that time. Today almost all discussion or debate in any room can be performed with knowledge of the world ‘outside’ made accessible via the internet. 

If somebody were to make a bold claim on some topic in the salon of old, everyone present would have to wait for the next session to confirm or refute the claim. Today we can check someone’s claim or settle a matter of collective ignorance instantly.

But perhaps in a time where any claim can be confirmed or denied via the internet (depending on where you look), the salon’s walls must soak up these claims and allow them to be tested in public at the slower rate of the salons of old. In writing facts and claims on the wall and sanding back them back if they are refuted, a map of contentious (and non contentious) topics will merge slowly over time. Charting the topography of the salon a room for debate.   

Oscar is a part I architectural assistant who finished his undergraduate studies at the Bartlett School of Architecture.