Confounding the notion of being without or losing one’s bearings, Glenn Walls’ most recent works, under the title Superlost, connote a condition of considered abandon rather than an ominous predicament. Many of Walls’ previous projects have verged on the obsessive in terms of their preoccupation with modernist architecture and theory. His practice has paid homage to some of the most iconic architectural works of the last century, referencing the likes of Philip Johnson, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Yet these tributes have always been tempered with a degree of derision of their conceptual ideologies. Past works have involved detailed dioramas of architectural structures, serving as exemplars of modernist ideology and aesthetics. The representations, extracted from the formal qualities so exemplified by their creators, have been sullied with the addition of peculiar animals and dirty jokes. This tactic undermines the integrity of the architectural form through the new dialogues created by the relationship between the buildings and the inhabitants.
Superlost: Prototype for Sophisticated Living was presented across two separate rooms at The Carlton Hotel & Studios as part of the larger curated exhibition, Broke. With the absence of the architectural forms which had previously been prominent in Walls’ work, he has been able to create a project that utilises the vernacular of modernist architecture whilst distancing itself from the structures themselves. Through this, the works become more domestic, as a collection of internal environments in their own right rather than an appropriation of extant architectural structures used as a device to question the ideologies and legacy of modernity. The work develops into something more spatial, rather than a critique of the architects’ deployment of space. This