Demolition, like architecture, is a political act. The built symbols of a society represent its values, priorities, and ethics. The converse function, its evil twin—unbuilding—renders violently clear what happens when architecture is deemed invaluable. The power to demolish a building is often concentrated in the hands of a powerful few: developers and city redevelopment authorities. At the same time, the public conversation around unbuilding is characterized by haphazard meetings and, in some cases, fiery debate at the building site itself. That conversation is spatialized and formalized at a building site with a long history and a complicated future: the L Street Power Station in South Boston.

Amidst the ruins of the old Edison-era buildings, the ground level houses a materials salvage operation and stockyard to recirculate building materials into construction projects around the city. Above, on elevated walkways, the public is invited in to the site to observe the unbuilding process and engage in conversation with government authorities and developers. The ruins of the Power Station become a site of occupation, a space where the intangible social and political conversation around building and unbuilding meets the physical material reality of those symbiotic actions.

The ruined state of the historic Power Station is dictated by the planned “redevelopment” of the site—what was deemed worthy of saving and what is too big to dispose of. The project acts as a lynchpin between the rapidly changing built landscape of the Seaport and the rest of South Boston, which has been built out in its current form for the better part of a century.

Assembly served as the culmination of research published in Alternate Endings and ideas investigated in Down Fall.