Abstract

Cube Living 221A is the most recent iteration of the Cube Living project, initiated in 2008. It appropriates the language, media and social practices of real estate development campaigns to engage in speculation about spatial ontologies, examining how social, legal and financial conventions determine the creation of space in our cities.This paper describes the staging and production process by which Cube Living 221A performs the creation of a spatial commodity. Drawing on the concepts presented in Žižek’s 2009 talk “Architectural Parallax: Spandrels and Other Phenomena of Class Struggle”, it goes on to speculate that urban real estate development results in an architectural parallax: real estate property must function simultaneously as a financial asset and also as a residence. Similarly, the property owner must play simultaneous but irreconcilable roles as both investor and citizen. The Cube object can be regarded as a spandrel at the hinge of this parallax