The Aesthetics of Hope investigates architecture made outside the boundaries of official culture. It explores the methods and processes in which popular culture appropriates and interprets official architecture and speculates on how these might evolve.
The self-built tiny chapels found throughout Mexico represent faithful examples of how popular culture appropriates and interprets official architectural language. This is further evidenced by the tiny chapels that try to resemble the New Basilica of Guadalupe and raise the question of how archetypes emerge and how are they brought into cultural understanding?
The potential for a broader influence is manifested in the way popular culture and the DIY community have spread into the digital world. I use SketchUp and its 3D Warehouse to test these ideas and speculate on how such industries and cultures might affect each other in the creation of architectural meaning, style and taste.
The project proposes a third basilica: The Newest Basilica of Guadalupe lives inside the 3D Warehouse and is available to download for free. It has been designed through the arrangement of some of the most popular architectural elements of the 3D Warehouse. Through the use of film and social media the project tries to legitimise a new typology of religious space and demonstrate construction techniques that aid in the representation of the building in the real world.
