One of the most important moments in art history occurred in 1917, when Marcel Duchamp submitted “Fountain,” a urinal he bought and signed under the pseudonym R. Mutt, to a New York exhibition. “Fountain” was one of Duchamp’s readymades: found, often mundane, mass-produced objects he designated as art. Many consider this moment the birth of conceptual art—art about ideas rather than skill or materials. An artist didn’t even have to make anything.

Duchamp’s readymades continue to influence artists today, including Christoph Büchel, who proposed in 2018 that the prototypes of Donald Trump’s border walls be designated as art because of their “significant cultural value.” Art critic Jerry Saltz called the proposal “brilliant,” writing that, in a post-Trump world, the walls would serve as a “memorial to how close the United States came to giving in to the ghosts of racism, xenophobia, nativism, white nationalism, mediocrity, and a cosmic fear of the other.” Trump’s recent reelection has further complicated the reading of the walls as readymade memorials.

The beauty and absurdity of readymades is that they could theoretically be anything and everything. They elevate ordinary objects to art through their exhibition, prompting viewers to see something through a new lens and to ask questions about their value and meaning.

Since “Fountain,” readymades have almost always been objects. But what if we applied the thinking behind readymades to buildings and spaces? Can a readymade building upend our preexisting understanding of architecture in the same way that Duchamp’s urinal changed the art world?

A readymade building is not just a cheeky, postmodern structure that visually resembles an oversize object, like Ohio’s “big basket” building or Florida’s guitar-shaped Hard Rock hotel. Instead, a readymade building is exactly that—a building—in the same way a readymade object is not an imitation of something else. A readymade building exists as itself.

And just like a readymade object takes on new meaning and significance through its exhibition, a readymade building must do the same. Since the building’s original function has changed through its designation as a readymade, its architect’s original design intent and the building’s original use are superseded by its new form of existence. A readymade building communicates something different by being seen, used, and experienced as a readymade.

There is a building in New York City that satisfies all the criteria of a readymade: 75 East Broadway, a Chinatown mall located beneath the Manhattan Bridge. It is not perceived as a building deserving of critical attention (at least not yet), but the ideas it embodies through its ordinary, day-to-day existence are profound and complex. When designated as a readymade, the mall challenges traditional ideas about how architecture can be analyzed and critiqued.

Perhaps you know this building. It’s the result of the intangible economic and social dynamics of gentrification, which includes the cultural trends that make this kind of space “cool” today. In its current state, the two-story structure serves two radically different types of people: On the first floor, traditional Chinese mom-and-pop stores offer cheap, sometimes counterfeit goods to an older, immigrant, Chinese, working-class population. Upstairs, high-culture boutiques sell avant-garde clothes, bespoke jewelry, and experimental art to a predominantly white, millennial creative class. Despite the drastic differences in age, culture, and socioeconomic status, everyone shares the same space, as shown in the mall directory.

The mall directory is itself a readymade, a readymade object within a readymade building. Meant to serve a utilitarian purpose, the objective list of tenants does not have a single author. But what would this object, if displayed as art in a museum, say? If Trump’s border wall prototypes reveal a kind of xenophobia and racism when displayed as art, what does the mall directory say about those issues?

Although the readymade building can have readymade objects within it, it is more than just a container of things. An architectural readymade is composed of readymade spaces: the walls, rooms, windows, and stairs, and the relationships those material elements create. These spaces are both literal and psychological. The feelings of discomfort that some people might feel in a space—from the Chinese shopkeeper who can’t relate to the crowd at a gallery opening upstairs to the white twentysomething vintage-store owner who never speaks to her Chinese neighbors below—are part of the readymade building too.

Unlike the readymade object, the readymade building is in constant flux. While Duchamp’s urinal will remain in the same state for as long as a climate-controlled museum allows, a readymade building is continuously changing, as people move in and out of it and the objects within it are bought, sold, and replaced. Even its appearance shifts depending on the weather and time of day.

And so, a readymade building cannot be analyzed in the ways buildings typically are, because its value is not in its form or materiality. The readymade building was not designed or planned. It is understood only in how people currently use and experience it, how it exists “as is.”

In this way, the readymade building is all-encompassing. It is not just the spaces or the objects within it. It is everything—the rumble of subways crossing overhead, the glaring fluorescent lights, the fleeting instant when the mall’s intergenerational visitors pass each other in the hallway. This moment could be a readymade performance piece.

What about virtual space? Is that also part of the readymade building? All the TikTok influencers discovering this “hidden” Chinatown mall and sharing it with their thousands of followers?

If a readymade transforms something ordinary into something extraordinary with a totally different meaning, what does this readymade building mean?

Maybe it can be read as a celebration of culture, an unexpected place where young creatives can foster a community of art and fashion. Maybe it’s a sign of hope that these kinds of spaces can still flourish in Manhattan, in Chinatown, without the exorbitant rents of SoHo or Tribeca. And doesn’t the foot traffic generated by the mall’s second-floor businesses support everyone in the area? After all, what’s better than getting tasty dumplings after a day of shopping and gallery-hopping?

Or maybe it can be read as the perfect manifestation of the confused and contradictory place of Asian Americans today as “people of color”—simultaneously a minority group capable of being victims of racism, yet also the highest-earning and most educated “model minorities.” The mall directory suggests that we are okay with this version of segregation and cultural appropriation, with galleries such as “OCDChinatown” sharing a space with “JIAQI PHONE CARD INC.”

In the publication that first featured “Fountain,” in 1917, an anonymous writer summarized the value of the readymade: “Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance,” the person declared. “He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that object.”

The readymade asks us to focus our attention on ordinary things that we would normally ignore. In the mall, and in New York’s Chinatown at large, there are thousands of objects, interactions, and spaces that require our fresh attention, focused and deliberate consideration about what they actually signify.

One might think about the awning at Kiki’s, a trendy Greek restaurant in the neighborhood that not only kept the signage of the Chinese print shop that previously inhabited the space, but also made a new awning displaying only Chinese characters. What is the sign actually communicating, and to whom? Why is this aesthetic so common and appealing for non-Chinese businesses in Chinatown?

Or consider the stereotypical exchanges on Canal Street, where Chinese (and African) immigrants hawk counterfeit purses to primarily white tourists. If these exact moments were recreated by actors in a theater performance, would they inspire new questions? Would the audience ask, “Why are the racial dynamics in these interactions so consistent, so predictable?”

We need to question these objects, buildings, and moments in Chinatown—and beyond—and analyze them as readymades. Not just because doing so may be an interesting intellectual exercise, but because it allows us to confront the uncomfortable racial and economic dynamics at play in our everyday built environment. We need to see Chinatown as the readymade it is so we can understand how it should change.

For Duchamp, all readymades need to be titled. My title for the mall? “Split Screen: A Sign of the Times.”