What Was Lost Book

A few weeks ago, Borders across Sydney had a massive 75-90% off clearance sales. Not expecting anything good, I went into them looking for anything that looked like it would last more than 10 pages before I trash it in the bin and still, somehow, ended up with just 4 books. One of them was Don DeLillo's Underworld, I got it because it was insanely cheap and thick at the same time. The other two were 19th century classics that I planned to use as birthday presents (I know, but hey, I'm sure they would be more appreciated than Target chocolate).

What Was Lost was the last one I picked out of a pile of sad looking $5 paperbacks lying on the ground. I was initially intrigued by its cover, which reminded me of Douglas Coupland's Shampoo Planet





So despite its tacky title font, I brought the book home.

And I was pleasantly surprised by WWL's sophistication. I wrote my architectural theory term paper on the danger of chained Shopping Center (or The Mall) homogenising consumptive experience and contributing to the lost of place-specific locality. Baudrillard once said that shopping centers have became the genius loci of the urban landscape, and that was only 20 years ago. I'm not sure how much O'Flynn knows about contemporary architecture, but she was spot on in the dissertation of that dreaded, air-conditioned experience of working in a mall. Marc Auge called it Non-place, Koolhaas called it Junkspace, both signifying a dissatisfaction of such retail architecture and how it is stripped of any possible symbolic meaning. There are some fairly profound ideas explored (or maybe I'm reading too much into it, I think I'm still stuck in the paper writing mode), and I enjoyed the way she toys with the concepts, provoking her audience without being too academic (I'm looking at you Koolhaas. I would like you more if you stop writing books that are longer than 800 pages).

That being said, What Was Lost is a light read. The opening is humourous and while the last two chapters more contemplative, the philosophy is very light hearted and introductory. Now, if only all the arch theory books on retail are this easy and short.