Pandora's Signal Boxes

Abstract

Included here, dear reader, is a discussion that took place between media and design author and scholar Shannon Mattern and perennial continent. probationer Jamie Allen. The conversation occurred on a rather rainy and cold day, on a walk that Shannon and Jamie took through Basel, Switzerland, toward the Central Signal Box building. Shannon Mattern had come to Switzerland at Jamie’s invitation, as part of a lecture series called “Medialogue”, held jointly by the Critical Media Lab Basel and the Medienwissenschaft group at Universität Basel. The Signal Box is an infrastructural landmark that delimits a transition between residential and (formerly) industrial zones in Kanton Basel-Stadt. The building was designed by locals, stalwart innovators and ‘starchitects’ Herzog and Herzog & de Meuron, whose numerous offices and archives in Basel are all but a few minutes’ tram-ride away.