We've all seen them: photorealistic, high-gloss architectural renderings of new, flashy projects, and then—a few years later—the actual, built reality looks nothing like the too-good-to-be-true visualizations the public was sold on. Natural light, the lack of natural light, dust, humidity, material changes, shoddy construction, and (yikes!) human interaction can drastically widen the gap between the commission-winning, highly publicized, sometimes even iconic renderings and the real building we're left with for eternity.
The team at Mecanoo is all too aware of the phenomenon and has created the Pinterest board "Render vs Reality" where the Dutch firm proudly shows off an array of its completed projects from around the globe side-by-side with the architectural illustrations of these buildings, such as the National Kaohsiung Centre for the Arts, Library of Birmingham, Tilburg LocHal Library, and the brand new Shenzhen Longgang Cultural Centre.
↑ Interior Design of LocHal Library in Tilburg, Netherlands
↑ Eurojust in The Hague, Netherlands
↑ Hilton Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in Schiphol, Netherlands
↑ National Kaohsiung Centre for the Arts in Kaohsiung, Taiwan
↑ Library of Birmingham in Birmingham, UK
↑ Keukenhof in Lisse, Netherlands
↑ Longgang Cultural Centre in Shenzhen, China
Find many more of Mecanoo's "Render vs Reality" case studies here.
Know of any other great architectural examples where the realized building looked just like the rendering—or hopelessly not? Share in the comment section below.
3 Comments
[sorry, changed my mind, you can delete this]
that library table is awesome.
VIZfire just made a video similar to this!
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