To be continued
Endpiece
Ritual TV watching is over now. It will be viewers who will rule the schedules rather than the schedules ruling the viewers – thundered the media experts years ago. Fortunately, they got it slightly wrong. Matches, pre-election debates and disasters – we still want to watch some events together, live and on a good screen. And even if we have something and are able to watch it on demand, we still shuffle our feet impatiently while waiting for it to come on.
The coming to an end of something is always an interesting subject. How much can you talk about the demise of a phenomenon? Architecture, investment market booms, the demand for offices, civilisation. Everything ‘dies’ according to some interview or some more or less credible research, about two times per year on average. Of course, if it actually does make a comeback, this again means fodder for a bestseller or a presentation. The internet and films on demand have genuinely changed the TV landscape (which, it has to be admitted, still tends to resemble a rather gruesome battle for our eyes and ears). And anyone who argues with this is simply deceiving themselves. Or they have never met Frank Underwood’s fans. They will not sleep or eat, they will take the whole day off just to watch the entire series in one go. On their own, in company, before or after midnight. However they prefer. The quality of TV series has risen and they are likely to stay up there for some time.
Yet it is a shame that there are so few real estate representatives in all of that. Today they are rather sadly in the background, as subplots or extras, to be frank. And really, why is that? After all there is no shortage of real estate stories that could make you cringe or your pulse race. Building sites, architectural studios, sales and law offices. All these places are packed with full-blooded dialogue, unforeseen twists and even romance. And when the completion date of a project approaches, well, then the plethora of film motifs bursts through the walls. There is probably enough drama for ABC, HBO or Amazon (yes, they make series, too) to win an Emmy award.
Perhaps real estate is simply no longer a hermetic enough industry? It has been clear for some time that the best stories and intrigues for a box office hit are generally provided by ingredients outside the ken of the ordinary person on the street. Presidency and the pursuit of it. An internship in a hospital full of the best equipment and specialists available at any time of day and night. The murderous games of those in line to the throne who are in an incestuous relationship. Even though such things obviously do sometimes occur, they have one thing in common: they happen in a different world from the one the masses (for want of a better word) live in. They are like the apartments in the Cosmopolitan
building in Warsaw. They are great to look at and walk around for a while – and then you slowly walk back down (or take the lift, although the lifts are really fast there actually) to the ground-level, concluding that although the visit was admittedly interesting, it wouldn’t work in our lives.
Particularly considering the fact that such a dwelling, when you take a closer look at it, means a whole bundle of “problems”: too much space (how many times can you look at the same Palace of Culture?), the access to it is too good (when are you supposed to listen to or read books?!). Too good to be truly good.
