This book is an exploration of the tension between private and public spaces as it critiques the design of our personal spaces: the architecture of the house. This is done by visually and typographically retelling an essay by the philosopher Vilem Flusser.
In his essay, Flusser argues that the design of the house, constructed as one’s-own-private-castle, is an obsolete and destructive means of living space. It is built to isolate the individual (empowering them with the concept of privacy) but gives a false sense of independent sustainability because every house needs holes to connect to the outside world. These holes are literal (such as a windows, doors, vents, electrical sockets and drains) but are also more metaphoric (such as televisions, computers and radios). Although these holes invade the private space, they are vital to the castle’s existence: the individual, in other words, cannot live completely cut off from the public.
With so many holes demolishing the private castle, living in the mist of the rubble of the past, we are presented with perpetually re-living this dead architecture or to take a risk in building a new way of living.
