McDonalds Drive-In Maribor

The McDonalds Drive-In Restaurant in Maribor, Slovenia, is an attempt to reformulate the existing, globally-used typology. It reiterates the semiotics of the American and fast-food stands in general, whilst still maintaining the corporate guidelines of the client towards a new possible standard. It was initially conceived as an ordinary McDonalds shed, topped by a fenced basketball court, but finally built without a sports function, due to shortage of time to get a permission from the McDonalds' Chicago Headquarters. The cage-like roofscape, now devoid of function, takes on the legacy of conceptual art as a point of departure: Duchamp's caged sugarcubes, Giacometti's Palace at 4.00 AM. The virtual 'playground' becomes a coded signal for a drive-in public, deriving its aesthetic from inflatable ephemeria and accentuated by floodlights whose intensity varies according to the cash-flow in the restaurant.