Today's interactive Technology can be used to find a critical way to represent architecture to a general audience.
I'm focusing on the platform of technology because the internet is becoming the primary source for a first impression. The website is a tool made for the express purpose of being accessible. How architecture is discussed by this media is fascinating and has a lot of potential. So I’ll start with how people currently use websites to discuss Architecture and we’ll see where that takes us.
“10 Eye-popping new buildings that you’ll see in 2014” by CNN Style. "The Inner Hole is Unique in Building Design" Has she never seen a courtyard? Also, Building Design? "The citadel... has decided to embrace water rather than fight it" Treating the water as a datum and floating the buildings on top doesn't seem like making a choice to do either.
So we're starting to get a story but we have these big claims that the reporter doesn't back up.
"Designed as a hybrid between a bustling open-air market and residential apartments..." This one starts off pretty well, "Part of the regeneration plan of the city center, which was badly damaged in World War II Bombing raids" but the rest of the description is about post-war Rotterdam.
CALL ME A SKEPTIC, BUT I DON'T THINK ANYONE WALKED AWAY FROM THIS ARTICLE WITH A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF ARCHITECTURE AND WHY THESE BUILDINGS LOOK THE WAY THEY DO.
So there are a few things happening here, CNN published this and it got a ton of traction, despite how much it lacks in content people are interested. Judging by this, the Journalist seems to have thought she did it justice and the 21 thousand people that shared it. For us this notion is silly-- how could years worth of work be condensed to a rendering and a few sentences. All of these are lacking a context, the notion of an expertise, and a reason. Unless the reporter was trying to say that MVRDV's Rotterdam Market hall looks like a bunker because of the tumultuous history of the site, I'd say that at the end of the day, what we're missing is the story.
Narratives are historically the most comprehensive way to explain something to a broad audience. look at Aesop's fables and Grimms' fairy tales; great at getting many ideas across.
A more recent equivalent of storytelling prowess has been exhibited in video games and graphic novels so I'll be referring to those to provide some insight on engaging contemporary culture specifically.
By allowing the audience to find something they can grasp onto and letting them relate early, they are able to empathize and understand different scenarios with more impact. Many of our design choices are justified through stories of precedents and speculations.
Whether the focus of our work is about sustainability or a mastery of detailing, every project reveals a narrative. The challenge of Architecture is relaying those stories symbolically. Alberto Perez Gomez pins down exactly why our field needs this. The execution and representation of a concept should both hold symbolic weight.
“For Architecture the difficulty of manifesting a symbolic order is necessarily double since it concerns both the project and its ‘Translation’— an unfolding that is seldom present in other arts.”