Andrew Dennison

In ‘A Grammar of the Multitude’, Paolo Virno describes the conditions of two opposing terms: ‘people’ and ‘multitude’. The people represent a unified entity with a ‘general will’ – a oneness that exists in the transfer of power and rights from the individual to the State. The multitude, on the other hand, is a plural, heterogeneous entity: the many, seen as being many. Subjects of the multitude are not atomised or isolated, but enmeshed in social relations and speech.

This project is a dialogue between the multitude and architecture; it uses architecture to synthesise Virno’s ideas. We see more clearly the relationship between the multitude and the state when the two are positioned alongside one another in plan. Cumbernauld is the site in which Virno’s ideas are put to work. The proposed demolition of Cumbernauld Town Centre is a symptom of state-withdrawal: the removal of capital, labour, and affect from the town. The multitude inhabit Cumbernauld as a result of this withdrawal. The project develops a spatial grammar – a set of rules, a structure, an architecture – to frame the contemporary multitude. It gives space for collective autonomy and interplay and all that exists between us as subjects. It configures the multitude.