More than just a kiosk
more than a newspaper stand, more than
a lottery stand, more than a flower shop,
a ticket booth, or a post office, …
I am a stage –
a place for stories to be exchanged.
A daily ritual –
a marriage between architecture and industrial design.
But I am not a house, nor an object.
I am a system for urban imagination.
I was born in 1966
to an architect father, Saša Mächtig
and my mother, Yugoslavia.
In a few years, I grew
from just two intersecting plastic pipes
to a reinforced poly-fiber body.
I grew up in a time of unity –
a time of striving
for a better future for all, a time
when architecture’s role was to be a symbol
of collective pride, and solidarity,
a time when architecture was powerful,
forceful, consistent, static.
I was adaptable, flexible, limitless, nomadic, and playful.
I could be anything you wanted me to be – free for urban imagination!
For a while…
Then the war broke out.
After my country dissolved,
many of my siblings found themselves
in ongoing battlegrounds. They are afraid
of those that vandalize them
and dream of those who will refurbish them
for new uses in a new world.
Only a few of my 7500 siblings remain,
but those that do, continue to bring people together,
create social networks, and create memories…
So, let me re-introduce myself.
I am a memory,
I am hope,
I am a place within a place, a daily ritual…
even more than that
I am a protagonist in the story
of my home and all its people.
I am Kiosk K67
Houston, February 7, 2023
