It was Rem Koolhaas who introduced the notion of junk space into architectonic discourse at the beginning of this century. The word has been successfully adopted not only in the jargon of architects but also of wider public as it metaphorically denotes places which have lost thier meaning, characteristics, and conceptualization in environments created by people. Koolhaas' notion of junk space is similar to the thinking of Marc Augén who calls this homogenized, ungraspable environment "non-places". He understands non-places as opposite to the tradinional notion of a place; non-place takes up all ills of supermodernity. Airports, supermarkets, highways, or multinational hotel chains are exemplary non-places. They are places of circulation, communication, and consumerism which need no history or identity. They mediate their users the illusion of being a part ofthe big global project.
The popularity of Koolhaas's term is also determined by its pivotal role in the critique of architects' apathy who have renounced the possibility of being active creators of new ideas - on the conctrary - they willingly cooperate on the completion of the big global project. Architecture is being made responsible for not being able to take a stance about the complexity of the world, it is not functional even in solving the practical minutiate of the global projects in the form of airport halls or highway junctions. Hence the question is whether the remedy of the spatial pollution can really arrive from a critical stance on the part of architects. Is not the artistic expression, which can provide non-space with autonomy and the possiblity of tranformation, a more viable means for the renewal ofspatial identity?