TEMPERANCE

Tom Sawyer, the Temperance Tavern is exposed as a fraud. In the increasingly self- righteous discourses of 21st Century culture, we detect the same note of hypocrisy.

What will the discourses of the culture of the city of tomorrow be? Will they be two-faced? Hypocritical? Self-righteous? We o er a space that embodies a journey, a transition, a crossing of a threshold.

We reference the にぎり口 (Nijiri-guchi), the crawl-through entrance of the Japanese tea house. Anecdotally, the low entrance meant everyone entered the room in a humble posture. Although society was built of strict hierarchies, everyone was equal in the tea house.

To the extent that our discourses are in our hands, what will we make of them? As liberalism, social democracy, and its related ideals are challenged
by the authoritarian right and left, will we go forward in a posture of humility? As we cross the threshold into the city of tomorrow, what will its culture be? What will we make it?

Client: FabFest

Location: Westminster, London

Design Team: Steve Jensen, Tzu-Yuan Chen, Pennie Dawes, Stefanie Misch, Patricia Ntagoma, Julia Samplawska, Devan Skuban, James Watts