Robert Ivy, CEO of the American Institute of Architects, has just announced that the organization will begin placing 30-second ads on national cable networks and news channels. The ads will begin airing on February 8th and will feature their recent "Look Up" campaign.
The campaign is a 3 year plan to "share the value that architects bring to communities".
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^disagree, the media has a terrible relationship with architecture. Needs a complete overhaul. I'm not sure if there are even any real arch journalists. Just a bunch of PR people from firms sending renderings to arch newspaper (another PR firm, really).
By "media" I meant mass media. Not specific journalists. We're all PR people today. We "like" things, we click, we reblog, we share cool projects with coworkers.
It says that architects have become so concerned with how a building plays in the media, how it is perceived as a digitally-synthesized vignette, as sculpture to be viewed from a distance, in an image in a magazine, that they have elevated that concern in the hierarchy to the same level or above things like legibility and beauty. If you are at all curious why there is a rising wave of voices questioning the values of the profession at large, and the architectural avant-garde in particular, or why the AIA feels a need to spend millions to convince people that what we do has value to people, part of the answer can be found there.
I've talked a lot here recently about what I perceive as a pretty profound estrangement between the profession and the public. Many have disagreed with me, and that's fine, we are all entitled to opinions. But I do think that the recent bubbling up of discontent about the direction of the profession, in both architecture journals and the popular press is testimony that people are starting to question the values of the architectural avant-garde.
The answer to your second question is: of course, it is possible to have a building that is both legible and beautiful be convincingly portrayed digitally. But it is also true that convincing digital imagery is not a necessary or sufficient condition for true legibility or beauty as perceived by real people. If you start to value "that which looks enticing from a distance in a digital image" over "that which makes good cities, streets and buildings, and makes peoples lives better", then there is a big problem.
"I wholeheartedly advocate architects to embrace publicity as a new, additional ingredient that makes good architecture, the same as firmness, commodity, and delight make good architecture."
EKE Who's quote is that?
That's Quondam, as is fineprint.
architects have become so concerned with how a building plays in the media
Exactly. When the program is to attract attention - and to be clear this is often a requirement of the owners - something else is compromised to make that happen. Anyone who's actually designed and built a building knows that everything about it is a matter of compromise.
A better idea is to do great buildings - functional, efficient, sustainable, aesthetic, etc. and promote that. The problem of course is that the media is far more interested in the outrageous, the absurdly expensive, celebrity, etc. because controversy attracts viewers and sells advertising.
This propagates stupidity, damages the image of the profession and misleads students into universities that teach philosophy of style, leaving them ill-equipped to understand the actual nature of architecture let alone construction.
Merle Haggard ain't singing anymore, getting out my Kipnis for the ride home.........I think it has to do more with the media, or non practicing observers of Architecture, than the profession or the Professionals. Now I would agree Academia still tends more towards this media perception of Architecture since some of the theoretical meets the public exactly there - in the media. This probably has do with the fact that anywhere is everywhere now and everything happens all at once. The media changed architecture and therefore much of what architecture is now is made for the media......I think we are all slowly getting over this and realizing 'place' still matters and this fairly new all consuming 'media' can only change our lives so much.......
"You're setting that up as some sort of current professional practice, but it just isn't that way. Your argument, at least as it's presented here, is based on imaginary scenarios rather than what's actually going on."
Well, I don't think it's imaginary at all. I think that's exactly what is going on, at least amongst the international avant-garde, and their sycophants in education and the press.
Architects and websites....thinking early 2000's. Some ridiculously impossible sites to navigate and the embarrassing Richard Meier Geocity page......
Well, Quondam...no, that's not clear at all. What is clear is that you think I am wrong. I understand that. I'm really not interested in playing your "evidence" game. If you think everything is awesome, that's fine. We disagree.
Contemporary as always the AIA with cable network TV spots.
get Bjarke Ingles building with legos, say everything is awesome, and you have an ad campaign.
^ Wow, snappy schoolyard comeback.
Quondam, I certainly didn't miss your argumentative bullshit. Did you get a reprieve or does management not know that you're back?
I don't understand why EKE can't provide any examples.
The world is filled with monstrous buildings that people hate, that probably looked oh-so-spiffy and progressive in the 3DStudio images, with the shiny, happy people photoshopped in. This is obvious. If I were to post half a dozen, as you have demanded I do, you would find all sorts of reasons to discount my citing them, and then we'd go back and forth for another few days about it. It's pointless, and a waste of time.
Here's three, off the top of my head.
http://www.newser.com/story/200617/eu-parliaments-buildings-so-confusing-they-make-people-cry.html
http://nypost.com/2015/02/02/fulton-st-folly-mta-wasted-1-4-billion/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2409710/Walkie-Talkie-building-melting-bicycles-Light-reflected-construction-City-skyscraper-scorches-seat.html
Or Cooper Union's $300 million endowment-busting building. Now they have to charge tuition.
You can't argue with stupid.
I've got an example.
Aesop, the apothecary company, hires architecture firms to design unique retail spaces around the world. Each store is well-photographed and publicized in architecture and interior publication, mostly online. The well-designed spaces help to get the attention of people with discerning taste - people who might enjoy Aesop products.
Getting pretty desperate there Quondam. Maybe you should turn me in for being an industrial designer, artist, author and satirist, as clearly stated on my site.
fineprint of fantasies ... new package for the same old shit. <yawn>
"None of what you've presented is proof that advocating publicity while designing architecture is going to automatically result in something architecturally bad."
I don't know what you are talking about. I never said that. My first sentence in this thread was one that said that an architect must learn to be good at publicity if they want to prosper. Did you miss that? I also said that it's bizarre to suggest that publicity should be elevated to an architectural virtue, equal to Firmitas, Commoditas, et Venustas.
I think that the current rock-star avant-garde often "sells the sizzle" through flashy computer images of buildings that often actually end up as inhumane, brutal and toxic. I gave you three examples.
How is "sizzle" apart from "delight"?
I just realized that the AIA has a CEO. That explains everything, they want to be Nabisco.
If we reject digital imagery and the ways that they inform real life architecture, how do we accept the degrees of artificiality and seductive fantasy that are inherent in every architectural drawing and architectural model throughout history?
Is this yet again about nostalgia? Is this just about a generation of architects with older sensibilities and outdated skill sets who are not yet comfortable with digital design tools and media?
"Is this yet again about nostalgia? Is this just about a generation of architects with older sensibilities and outdated skill sets who are not yet comfortable with digital design tools and media?"
You've got to be kidding if you think good architecture has something to do with being current with the latest digital design tools and the media. Not saying they're irrelevant, especially to a salesman like Bjarke, but good architecture it don't make.
"How is "sizzle" apart from "delight"?"
Sizzle fizzles out in a much shorter time span.
Speaking of everything being awesome, did you notice in the beginning of the Lego movie that when they are tearing down everything that's "weird" it's all higgly piggly Victorian human scaled buildings and what they are replacing it with is corporate modernist uniformity? Our culture speaks even when no one's listening...whatever dude, let me show you my new upgraded rendering program!
Is this yet again about nostalgia? Is this just about a generation of architects with older sensibilities and outdated skill sets who are not yet comfortable with digital design tools and media?
^ Spoken by one who has no apparent sensibilites or visible skill set. Lets us know when you actually acquire some, say after 20 years or so of experience.
To Davvid point any of you ever heard of Gensler? http://www.gensler.com/expertise/brand-design or say Avroko http://www.avroko.com/about/the-company/
This week's podcast, is, well, certainly going to set the world on fire. Perhaps there should be a competition, using Vine, to create an ad campaign.
I am not sure this is a good idea. What other discipline does this?
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