Chapter 3: Fame and Architecture

In the inspirational architecture world, architecture is the platform that enables architects to visualize, live and feel those dreams. In other words, they are trying to create the Utopia. Most of the time designers are not able to achieve it through reality but in visual aspect. It leads to virtual reality which is physical and virtual, rather than real and virtual. Today, the space appears as a place of uncertainty and of invention. The concept of reality is the key to understanding a radical change in the manner of re-presenting new ideas. We have reached the point in technical development whereby it enables us to produce convincingly realistic models of space and form.

Figure: The two users interact with the virtual model through the glasses and computer vision techniques.

Virtual reality in architecture design is so impactful due to the rapid-paced, innovative and continually changing nature of technology development. It is an obvious scenario where by this technology has the potential to enhance design. During the design process, it helps designer to experience more in visualization and save more time in drawing many drafts of a particular building. Once designers are able to design their preference, they post and share it on their blog, personal website and competition to create ‘attention’.

Media is important in our daily life. Through different types of media, we are able to get connected to large number of people. It also informs us what is happening around the world which reflects everything about the society. The media is slowly shaping our perception through the visuals because the society is constantly facing media whenever we are. It has also shaped our perception of what a design is supposed to be. Beside books, there are a lot of magazines available which are published every month to keep the society up to date of what is happening around the design and architecture world. Facebook, Blogger, Youtube which are the popular social network services nowadays also influence the audience of what is the new thing that could ‘wow’ everyone which makes them to share it out.

Figure: Architecture and Interior Design Group that is created in ‘Facebook’ for students, professionals, and people who like design to join so that they will keep up-to-date of what is the newest trend in the design world.

Figure: There are a lot of websites/blogs created to show off projects and art works of various designers.

Figure: Various types of magazines to reveal what is the latest trend.

Fame is the lifeblood of architecture. Fame and architecture examines the dynamics behind the fame game in architecture from a historical perspective, impact on education and the way in which contemporary architects negotiate it. (Wiley) The media is the most powerful media tool to ‘born’ a celebrity architect as known as Starchitect. It sets out to display some of the most creative designs from works around the world. Designers seek the publicity and establish themselves and their work ahead of others. They need to establish a strong reputation in this most competitive professional field in order to become famous. In fact, there are a number of highly influential designers and architects who are bringing the architecture trend to the market through all these media. Somehow, it influences the design process to change and they may turn out to be asking themselves, ‘how to show off among the best in this Starchitect Century?’

In order to stand out among the best, designers would design something impressive in form but how about the function which is not a very healthy scenario. Fame has motivated architect to build ever more ambitious architecture in the starchitect world. Fame has made architects design because of publicity in the world. It, in other way, affects the mindset of designers, architects and students to design something to impress people and make people how to just to remember you but not the architecture. The society behaves such a way to expect a better or extraordinary design is because it involves the pride of an individual. It represents a sense of one’s personal status or ego emotion that is a product of praise on independent self-reflection. (Wikipedia) The architecture is now representing a self, a culture, a society and a country.

For example the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao which is a museum of modern and contemporary art by Frank Gehry, an American who achieved popular fame in Spain. It is a building structure made of titanium, glass and limestone was celebrated as the most important building at that time. The project was successful to get the attention in an architectural competition. The competition was held to actually redevelopment the city of Bilbao and the Basque Country by Basque government authority. Because of the use of unorthodox materials and inventive forms, Gehry’s design was selected to win in the competition.

During his interview, he mentioned that he does not get fuss to detail everytime he designs; instead he goes with flow of the construction. Although he brings architecture experience into play, he lets the form be the main thing concern. The reason why he has such idea is because the form is able to replace decoration of architecture. He is putting passion and feeling into the building without restoring to 90’s century model. He noted as well that architecture is becoming an icon and legion. Gehry is designing based on what looks good which have successfully caught the judges’ attention. The building function is following the form whereby the form has created something new to open the eyes of society. The society talks, discusses and critics about this museum. Regardless of how well or bad the building was designed; it has successfully grabbed the attention almost the whole architecture world.

Yet, in order to design something impressive, it often involves the extraordinary form of a building. The form plays important role here. This is a dangerous thinking which abandons the originality function of a building that would cause the crisis of form and function.

Figure: There are many new buildings designed which involve outrages form published on media to the pleasure the eyes of society.

Many of the architects or designers see the potential to become famous by designing an outrages form of building. Therefore, they are having a mindset to create attention during design process. A lot of visual drawings are produced with the advancement of technology regardless of whether it will be built or not. Having design competition is also one of the reasons that drive them to produce more. The drawings may be seen exciting to the judges, critics and public as they portray what may be physically impossible or unrealizable. However, some designs normally generate controversy in design competitions. The design now is going insane. Designers are trying hard to impress in a way causing the form is not functioning. They are trying hard to ‘pleasure’ the audience eyes as human are normally judging things by the way they look.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, although it has successfully revived the town by having the iconic building, it does not really work as a public space. Critics arise that the form might be great but not for the architectural spaces. The large scale has ignored the human perception which created uninviting up close distance.

Some even named the building as a Hall of Shame as it does not fulfill the requirement as a public space. It actually ignores the relation to its context although it is near to the centre of the city. Secondly, there are too many of randomness used on the form throughout the design process. To many, it is an art piece rather than a building which abandons the original function of a building.

Similar to those creative design works, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao affected many of the new designers to design something impressive which adapt the randomness to apply into the design. There is no objective-oriented design process where everything is created by random. It will eventually also produce buildings with only the aesthetic value but without the functionality of a building.

Figure: New generation designers’ art work with bombastic form.

The visual culture has affected the process of designing which contributes to produce our architecture nowadays. It has affected the new generation of designers to design also something just to impress people’s eyes in future. At the end, randomness seems to be applied in the design and thus there is no objectivity in designing a building in future anymore.

Previous Comment:

The last paragraph in this chapter needs to be more controlled and validated. I understand that this is still a draft, but your passion for this is obvious. You need to direct that passion and ensure that the points are communicated clearly; with adequate explanation, examples and, most importantly, objectivity.

Frank Gehry in the Studio

It surprised me when I first saw how our famous Frank Gehry generates idea by just using card boards to build his preference building. He actually build based on how the building is going to look like rather than concerning the function first. It makes me think that visual is the first priority in designing a building for a Starchitect to give good impression, good looking to audience. Visual is affecting the mindset of designers to build with extraordinary, crazy yet able to leave impact to public.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Visual culture is concerned with everything that we see or visualize or in other word, every aspect of culture which communicates through visual means. (Visual Culture) It simply means that the way we react or portray a situation is through the experience of what we see or have seen before. Visual is studied as a reflection of culture and as something that has cultural efficacy in its own right by contributing to the production and the changes of culture in one society. Today we live in a visually oriented society. The visual culture has driven us to see things differently. We are the visual thinker who rely on visual or image to understand the world rather than mastering information verbally. Visual culture is often affected though the visual media such as magazines, television, internet, advertisement and any other medium that has a crucial visual component. (Wikipedia) It happens because we are connected very close to the visual media each and every day.

For instance, what is the first impression when we think of “YellowMan”? Exactly! It is a trademark for Digi, a mobile service provider in Malaysia. Advertising’s messages are designed to produce feelings of lack and inadequacy that might be treated by the consumption of the image of a product. (Science Jrank) Digi has been promoting its’ products and services through different kind of medias. The advertisement no longer serves as a purpose of providing information nowadays. Instead the visual is so strong where they apply the image of “YellowMan” to implant the impression into the audiences’ mind.

Figure 1.0: The YellowMan is in action with different advertising approaches.

The way of doing it has given a strong effect produced of an experience or perception upon the mind. It, in this way, creates an influential visual culture among the mobile telecommunication market in Malaysia.

In architecture design term, visionary drawings are produced to convey some general indications of some of the intended qualities of the proposed design. (Lawson, Bryan) It is generally concerned with “what” is the design rather than “how” the design can be during presentation.

Figure 1.1 Examples of visionary drawings proposed during presentation by using computer software.

(Giant Vegetated architecture community design project and super sustainable star city design project)

The architecture world is constantly moving one step ahead to create something new, creative, inspiring, and impactful. New technology is used to produce impressive drawings are important nowadays. Therefore, designers are trying to produce impressive drawings just to give an impact in architecture world. The speed and sophistication of computer modeling have increased rapidly over the last decade. Computer software is a powerful method in creativity. Digital tool increases the register of an exploration of dimensional changes as well as perceptual and visual changes. It is the forming of ideas or concepts which is important in creativity, innovation and concept development. Designers nowadays explore ideas by using computer software which pushes their imagination limits beyond. A normal sketching skills is preferable for the intuitive design steps and it is claimed to be a limitation to develop into a various forms. The computer is designing in a way which is in theory predictable but in practice may be quite unexpected and thus apparently creative. With the advancement of the software, designers are so ‘excited’ to experiment the three dimensional form in the design process.

However, the purpose of producing a drawing has changed over time as it has the content of visualisation. The idea of visualization is the expression or representation of ideas that can bring something into consciousness. A drawing might be seen as an externalization of a concept idea. It has the potential to play a mediating role in the visualization of ideas and concepts in relation to exploring concepts. (Informa World) Visualisation in architecture is getting popular where in a competitive world as a design has to create a ‘wow’ effect to stand out among all. This is because verbal presentation is not strong enough for explanation if there is no supportive image as a picture can be more than a thousand words. The scenario is getting obvious especially in magazines, books, television programme, etc. We could see many of the ‘unbuilt’ masterworks of inspirational architecture for the Digital Age appear which in a way able to catch readers’ attention and discussion. Often when we look at one design, a design with good visual effect will be considered a good design. It has becoming a trend for us to choose what looks different as consumer behaviour is influenced by how they think, feel, reason, and select which looks the best.

The aim and objective in this dissertation writing is to examine how visual culture influences the next architecture world through designers, society and architecture approach. It is also to rise up the awareness of having this culture. Through this study, it will undertake 2 aspects of research which are the primary and secondary data resources. Primarily, the research would be done by collecting the information through survey to examine how society and designers react and behave in visual culture matter. Secondary sources would range from research from books, magazines and internet of ideologies on how architecture changes through the century base on visual culture.

“How powerful would visual culture influence the next architecture?”

- Edited from previous post 09/11/10 -