Copenhagen’s Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) recently designed an eye-catching building shaped like a Chinese character to coincide with Shanghai’s “Better City, Better Life” 2010 World Expo . The building takes its form from the Chinese character for person 人 (”ren”) and combines two buildings (one symbolic of mind and the other symbolic of body). Inhabitat
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the skyscraper derivative
aka
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Alas, the Chinese character phenomenon has a monument!
Should we all go brand ourselves with a "ren" tattoo? I just hope that 人 doesn't have an alternative meaning...
how do you spell kitsch?
oh so sustainable too. i love it i love it i am gonna make it mine. mind and body all the way. remember that.
i think the write up is even better with posted claps.
'We love the poetic inspiration that reflects both site and cultural sensitivity.'
all this poetry making me smoke hemp.goddammit. habit.
and the rendering people. is there a poem about them they seem to be popping up everywhere.
'give some rendering people and i'll give you a culturally sensetive building.'
It looks like a person doing a split...
And boy oh boy does it hurt!
http://www.hanzismatter.com/ is a riot. HA!
you guys are all haters..!!
Why is it that everyone commenting at inhabitat seems to love this stupid design and everyone here hates it?!?
Ridiculous. I fear for where architecture is headed.
Maybe they need to bring in the pet feng shui "expert" who worked on the LA Zoo and make sure that thing is oriented correctly.
Great link to the "bad tattoos" website, david yang!
i share your concerns lb. if we judge from the tone of many of the posts and most of the comments at inhabitat, 'architecture' is headed straight to superficial market-driven madness...
the animation of the building at the BIG website transforms the "ren" into a yin-yang... as it circles around, it becomes fire, earth, metal, water, and wood.
"by your powers combined, i am captain planet"
as if one bad metaphor wasn't enough.
also, i feel bad for the visitors coming to the hotel who apparently have to take 3 separate elevators to reach their room.
Imagine proposing this at university! You'd be torn to shreds.
Apparently in the real world you can propose any old obviously symbolic crap and some muppet will eat it up.
I'm gonna start rolling out a shopping mall shaped like a big dollar sign....extrude command, you are my friend....
Bjarke Ingels Group's website is big.dk...
Just thought I'd point that out.
The project is actually quite old: Ren, by Plot
How come a lot of Archinect-readers are really cynical about such architecture, while the broader public - that for instance visits Inhabitat - loves it?
I hear BIG is becoming a real big office. Maybe you guys want to apply for a job there! I hear they are hiring...
NO THANKS, BUT IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU'RE THE PERFECT MAN FOR THE JOB.
hand job??
sorry i meant big.dk hand job.
Michiel, it's not cynicism, it's educated critique that seems to echo in silence and therefore becomes cynicism.
In very broad (and perhaps overly harsh) terms, the "broader public" are idiots. That's why they like a simplistic gesture such as a word turned into a building. They also love this:
"It's a building that looks like a basket because it's the headquarters for a company that builds baskets! That's so clever!"
Maybe if they built giant slingshots on either side and inserted human-sized operable mouse-traps on the vertical - as a complement to the emental holes you understand - it would solve the problem of the elevator. The perfect tourist trap for extreme sports fans.
It might be time for Venturi & co to head east and document, er apologize for, oriental excess.
Just to weigh in from Inhabitat here – I’m not going to quibble with the fact that the design is an overly symbolic/representational one-liner (and apparently taken from an earlier design proposal for Sweden, which makes it that much more ridiculous), but I don't think that is what is the problem here. People seem to like it and respond to it positively because it's a simple, interesting form that communicates immediately without requiring loads of theorizing, deconstruction and analysis to appreciate.
While I see the problem in such a quick and superficial approach to design, I think its even more problematic to conclude that the general public is composed of "idiots" and that only the architectural community is smart or refined enough to see the flaws in such a proposal. That’s an extremely arrogant and elitist position - and its precisely this type of arrogant attitude that makes architecture so off-putting, inaccessible, misunderstood and unappreciated by the “general public” in this country. If the “general public” had a better understanding of architecture, we’d all have a lot more clients and wouldn’t constantly be hearing that oft-repeated statistic about how architects only design 5% (or whatever it is) of the buildings that go up in this country ever year.
And there are plenty of negative comments on the Inhabitat post as well. Our readers are not idiots - despite the assertion (at least most of them aren’t ;) I wish I had paid a bit more careful attention to this post before letting it go up – but obviously I was seduced by the renderings as well.
-Jill from Inhabitat
...they don't know it, but none the less they are doing it...
Jill, I admit my use of the word "idiots" was overly flippant and harsh without context. I meant it in the same way that I am happy to admit that when it comes to a deeper understanding of law or medicine, or even insurance, poetry, fire fighting, wine, emo, and retailing, I am an idiot. There are experts in all of these worlds. I'm not one, and it's embarassing when someone points out my ignorance but at least it's educational.
After 20 years in the field I can say with confidence that when it comes to a logical and considered critique of architecture: yes, in fact, I am smarter than 90% of the general public. I share your concerns with how little the general public seems to understand about architecture and how their response tends to be to accuse us of elitism. But rather than throw up my hands and start pushing pretty, simplistic gestures, I think it falls to me to try to teach people why I feel that way. In fact, I'm teaching an Architecture Appreciation course at the local art center this fall in an effort to teach the "general public" how to judge for themselves whether a design is successful or not. In a very small way I hope this raises the level of architectural consumption in the world or at least my neighborhood. I plan to show them Seattle Public Library, Zaha's CAC, etc. and maybe even this Ren project...
I'm not faulting Inhabitat for posting the proposal, that's what websites like it and this one are there for. I was just struck, when I first saw it, that almost every initial comment was expressing admiration for the building design, which surprised me because my immediate initial response was so negative. Later posters on Inhabitat also critiqued it, as you say. My saying the "general public" are idiots definitely definitely wasn't meant to imply that Inhabitat readers are idiots and Archinect readers are brilliant.
There are things to like about the building, certainly. It's graceful, the circles on the facade are whimsical and airy, and it doesn't look aggressively pointy like so many contemporary proposals do. It's pretty. The renderings are lovely. The video showing the purported relationships to earth, air, etc. are accessible. I can easily see why the "general public" would love it. I'd love to love it myself.
Update: 9/26/08, I've changed my mind about this building.
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