Building images

Building images

on the role of representation tools in architectural ideation.

written by Enzo Nercolini thesis advisor Maria Pilar Vettori Architettura Urbanistica Ingegneria delle Costruzioni Progettazione dell’Architettura (MIE) Exam session: 12 February 2018

Building images

on the role of representation tools in architectural ideation.

written by Enzo Nercolini thesis advisor Maria Pilar Vettori Architettura Urbanistica Ingegneria delle Costruzioni Progettazione dell’Architettura (MIE) Exam session: 12 February 2018

Abstract

Building images

on the role of representation tools in architectural ideation.

This paper explores the condition of representation methods inside the field of Architecture in regards to their philosophical and historical precondition. Focus is given to the role of technologies and techniques throughout the centuries, from Renaissance, to the inception of mass media in the late nineteenthcentury and the contemporary condition of digital technologies.

Three main paradigms of representation are outlined: the describing of reality through drawing, the capturing of reality through photography and the simulation of reality through digital tools. To illustrate these concepts, examples are drawn from Art and Architecture such as the artistic explorations of the French Beaux-Arts school, the use of photography by Modernism and the inception of digital visualisation by the end of the twentieth-century.

The second portion of the work focuses on the contemporary situation, exploring the limits of current technology in the simulation of virtual spaces, and the implications for a praxis immersed in an economy of images.

As a conclusion, the author posits the possibility for a

‘critical image-making’ stance that takes advantage of the technologies and modes of representation available while acknowledging their inherent limitations as fragmentary tools.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my thesis advisor, professor Maria Pilar Vettori, for the support that was given throughout the writing of this thesis.

Special recognition is due to Professor Rodrigo Almeida Bastos, who introduced me to the bibliographical sources that allowed my research to approach the subject in a historically critic way.

Thank you to the colleagues and friends that provided feedback in the many phases of this work.

Contents

i. Abstract ............................................................................................................... 3 ii. Acknowledgments .............................................................................................. 5 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 9

Scope of action ......................................................................................... 15

I need a good cover render ......................................................................... 17

2. Contemporary a priori on the meaning of representation ............................... 21 3. Describing reality: understanding the world through drawing ....................... 27 4. Capturing reality: photography and the architectural montage ...................... 38 5. Simulating reality: computational technologies and photorealism ................. 55 6. Coda: An economy of images

The rush for a final picture ........................................................................ 71

Explorations in animation and virtual reality ............................................. 76

Possible futures: the new city-making artefact ............................................ 79

Towards a ‘critical image-making’ .............................................................. 83

7. Bibliographical references ................................................................................ 87 8. Appendix .......................................................................................................... 89

Introduction “La vérité est image mais il n’y a pas d’image de la vérité.”

(Truth is image, but there is no image of truth) - Marie-José Mondzain Human fascination for understanding the world we inhabit has shaped philosophical and scientific thought throughout history. Theories have been crafted on the nature of light, on the divine rules that structure space, on the mechanisms that allow for human sight... All to better understand the nature of Being.

An ever-changing philosophical understanding of what it means to be and to know must be acknowledged. Truth was for many centuries considered to be a quality of the Sacred, of which only fractions were observable by human senses, according to the platonic notion of an ‘ideal’ world that rules over the world of human experience. The postulation and description of ‘natural’ rules, as opposed to sacred ones, would not begin to appear until the Renaissance where Mathematics and the Arts grew closer, nevertheless connected to a mythical interpretation of reality. An attempt to understand the world as it is perceived, although still largely related to God. By the nineteenth-century, scientific thought and Newton’s natural philosophy had successfully established the notion of objectivity: that a certain methodology, when applied to reality, will necessarily bring about its inherent truth if the process is effectively carried out. It is the inception of 11

a de-sanctified reality that isn’t mystically manifested to man, but is physically available to be discovered by him.

Space as we understand it today is the product of this epistemological shift: the acceptable bases of knowledge aren’t the same as they were in the Classical era nor two-hundred years ago. From Aristotelian cosmology to the scientific revolution of the eighteenth-century and the digital revolution we are now witnessing, we have always struggled to determine truth. But what truth is that if it is only determinable within a certain pre-understanding of the world? In the same way, can there truly be objective truth when the tools we use to measure it are subjected to our own perception of whatever it is they show?

Architecture has been defined by these changes throughout the centuries, shifting from an empirical activity closely related to the mythical art of building to an increasingly intellectualized and abstract profession of prediction. Prediction came first in the form of the triad plan-section-elevation, already present in the work of Vitruvius and Renaissance; then in the late eighteenth-century as the systematic translation of bi-dimensional drawings into linear perspective; moving to the military axonometric drawing that the Modern movement religiously defended. It is today commonplace in architecture that those are the key elements of a project, and that together they constitute a total idea; in reality it was only by the nineteenth-century that such an understanding of space and its forms of representation were institutionalised, notably through 12

the French Beaux-Arts and the Polytechnique. From these schools stems a range of famous explorations on the potential of using the well-established tools of representation in novel and more fluid ways, thus opening a path to what would eventually lead to De Stijl, Modernism and the myriad of styles of Postmodernism.

Concomitant with the rationalisation of architectural representation through the diffusion of descriptive geometry and standardised systems for drawing projects, a greater understanding of optics and the phenomenon of light began to affect not only the pictorial arts but architecture as well. Photography changed humankind’s relationship with the space that surrounds it, now available to be captured and reproduced at will. In effect, the new found possibility of capturing a picture of a building at any given place and having that same picture be displayed in any other part of the world was decisive to the constitution of the spectacles of the nineteenth-century like the World Fairs, which were consecrated by the monumentality of its ephemeral architecture, immortalised in photographs. From the legendary Crystal Palace of 1851’s Great Exhibition to the long-gone plaster palaces of 1893’s Columbian Exposition, the buildings designed for those events were never meant to last more than a few months. As icons, however, they served a purpose far greater than architecture: they broadcast nations’ achievements to visitors coming from all over the globe. As pictures, they became symbols of a golden epoque of industrialisation and globalizing economies.

With the advent of computational technologies a new 13

1 France’s on-going adoption of BIM as a requirement for any public operation to be carried out is already reshaping the construction market and pushing forward the role of the BIM manager.

2 But also as visual proof of its compliance to landscape and heritage normatives. In London’s boroughs for example, an ‘Visually Verified Montage’ is required when applying for an investment approval.

3 Smith, Kendra Schank, and Albert C. Smith. “Architect as Seducer” Building the Architect’s Character: Exploration in Traits. Routledge, 2018.

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paradigm was formed in the discipline: more than predicting, architecture is now expected to simulate reality. Digital simulations are today an undeniable part of the design process in architecture. Sun studies, parametric information on the cost and quality of materials, energy-efficiency models, fashionable renders… all these are not only welcomed at almost any design step - they’re becoming an actual requirement for approval and buildability.1 From all these types of simulation, photorealistic visualisation has had the most influence in and outside of architecture. Appealing to the eyes of anyone acquainted or not with designing, visualisation has ruled architectural production in the past decades, apparently de-intellectualizing the creative process and bringing it into the realm of mass culture but only insofar as it is itself also marketable.

Today, any practice looking to seize a contract to build the next great museum or a public library (but often even a small house) will be pushed to present images that attest for the project’s qualities and serve as a token for its upcoming success.2 Far away from the romantic idea of an intellectual figure spearheading progress as portrayed by Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, architects today are, most of all, multimedia seducers.3 In a worldwide cult(ure) of images, architecture has adapted to the new reality where a building’s looks is itself a commodity oftentimes much more valuable than the function it houses.

OMA’S CCTV tower in Beijing © Claire Rowland, 2009

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REN Building digital visualisation Š BIG

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Scope of action What first inspired the subject choice is a philosophical contradiction that has accompanied my architectural studies and professional experience: that the image of a work is as important, if not more, as the work itself.

A preliminary reading of postmodern critique such as Debord’s Society of the Spectacle in my first years of university in Brazil (where marxist critique is strong) pushed me to reflect on the nature of architectural work today which is, vulgarly put, all about renders.

As I decided on my subject and began to draft a structure of what it was I wanted to talk about, I realised that it would be impossible to speak of today’s architectural penchant for digital imagery without assessing the historical processes that came to determine architectural praxis. For that, an epistemological study of the modes of representation became necessary.

The history of representation, alongside its philosophical foundations and consequences, has been deeply studied by a great number of researchers, both in history and in contemporaneity. For this reason, I do not attempt to reinterpret or rewrite the series of events and ideas that have shaped representation and carried us into the scientific condition we are currently in.4 Instead, I use a certain chronological structure to point out three major paradigms in representation that have shaped art, science, philosophy and, as a consequence, architecture. These paradigms are related to the worldviews of certain time periods and to the development

4 This has been analysed with great detail in the book Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge by Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier, which I cite many times in this work.

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of technologies of representation. They compose the major part of my work.

After a more theoretical first part, my work turns to more pragmatic topics regarding representation in Architecture and its relationship with twenty-first century city-making and financial markets. Basing myself on cultural and economical arguments, I attempt to indicate some of the phenomena that shape architectural production today.

As an opening towards future research more than a conclusion, I question the contemporary assumption that the rule of digital imagery is a consequence of either a moral weakness of architects when it comes to resisting the seductiveness of media and computers, or of an indisputable scientific force that must be fully embraced. I defend the management of a ‘critical image-making’ procedure that is aware of the limitations of relying on a single structure of reference (namely the digital one) while acknowledging its usefulness and potentialities.

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‘I need a good cover render’ An opening opinion piece: How often, as students working tirelessly to deliver a project that is amazing, have we not caught ourselves wondering early on about what renders would be perfect to have on the final presentation board even before defining shapes and materials? How often, invested in submitting a conceptual proposal for a competition, isn’t it tempting to look into other’s work to better estimate what final result the jury might be expecting?

The primacy of images in architecture dictates behaviour since school. Students receive a constant stream of visual information through lectures, discussions and media such as books and websites. This instigates them into finding their favourite buildings, their favourite style, their favourite architect, most of it based not on actual lived experience but by looking at pictures of architectural work. The desire to mimic the work that is observed can only be seen as a natural consequence (and a fruitful exercise that should be encouraged as part of the creative process). The issue lies not in inspiring oneself on what one deems “good architecture”, and it is not the aim of this piece to question what could constitute good architecture, but on which artefacts we base ourselves when drawing such a conclusion. Images cannot replace the body of lived experience yet they make up for most part of what students (and architects) choose as reference.

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Having experienced the teaching of architecture in three different schools in three different countries it became clear to me that no matter what reputation a school holds, no matter what cultural background it has, students everywhere seek to present (and represent) projects that look finished. It may seem redundant to say that; how could they not present something that looks like it could actually exist? This is an assumption that determines most of what is produced today in architecture, in and outside of schools. Designs have to appear magically done: scaffolding taken down, interiors furnished, landscaping finished and trees fully grown. Architecture is not only required to predict precise measures and volumes, but also to determine the future success of a project with all the economical and cultural implications. All that synthesised in one beautiful image.

One may argue that this is the role of visualisation: to sell an idea. Or that visualisations are about conveying mood for an architecture that would otherwise be lifeless, and that is indeed an extremely useful function they hold. There is, however, a certain degree of recklessness in ignoring the fact that the parameters that architects choose to represent their work (type of representation, style, accessory props) are related to architecture in more than an illustrative way. If we are to consider architecture in modern terms as the articulation of built solids and voids that interact and constitute the realm of human experience through time and space, then it is valid to say that everything in and around architecture is potentially a part of it, including the spectator. How we choose to represent 20

architectural space has everything to do with how we actually conceive architecture.

In a context of unlimited access to visual information and largely accessible technological resources, students are often expected and encouraged to show their projects by means of photorealistic renders that depict the building in its full glory, with birds flying and balloons floating above the figure’s heads. The importance of having a beautiful image at the end of the design process sometimes inverts the process itself, shifting the focus from architectural thinking to architectural depicting. Some university design courses, pushed by the fascination images inspire in both students and teachers, will concentrate most of their efforts in that part of the process and push other important features that compose the complete experience of designing to a secondary plane of discussion. Others will reject it completely, leaving students to experiment on their own with the power of rendering software with the technical knowledge they can find in online tutorials and sharing information amongst each other.

Whether schools embrace or deny visualisation as a tool, students will continue to explore it. It is one of today’s most sought-after skill when judging unbuilt work and when hiring for internships or entry-level jobs. Students know this by word-of-mouth, portfolio-sharing mediums such as issuu.com and Internet forums like archinect.com, where people share their experience working for big or small firms, and what these firms are looking for in the portfolios they receive.5 In their quest to secure a position as interns

5 The role of these platforms for sharing information and defining student’s praxis seems to go mostly unspoken of in the spheres of architecture teaching and didactics. There is widespread institutional criticism on the indiscriminate consumption of architectural references and the supposed bad influence it has on design and creativity, but very little has been said about how formal teaching can respond to that phenomenon.

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6 This argument can be confirmed if we look into the hiring terms and job offers of many companies, as well as feedback on personal experience.

in the offices they admire, students will adapt their production to meet expectations, which are, for the most part, expectations of rendering (and model-making) abilities.6 That is not meant to be read as criticism on architecture practices hiring people to execute this kind of work - it is only natural that professional practices adapt their structure and workforce to the cultural environment that places so much importance on presentations. In fact, the point is that visualisation has become an intrinsic part of the design process in professional life but it has so far been overlooked by many schools on the basis of it being para-architectural: something that serves architecture but is not a part of it.

Fear of having architecture succumb to the sensual power of images has done mostly harm for the discipline, making it a hostage of its own unwillingness to address the change that has already taken place in the practical field and continues to shape the profession.

Once absorbed into the pragmatic demands of tight schedules and client desires for sleek renders, there is little room left for architecture to question the reasons why we do “what we do the way we do it�. The nature of representation is seldom approached in bachelor courses and is definitely not something graduates are expected to develop in the work environment.

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Contemporary a priori on the meaning of representation “[A] thing imposes itself not as true for every intellect, but as real for every subject who is standing where I am.”

-Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception Can we humans determine an absolute truth for the world? Objectivism holds that behind every form of human perception lies something innately real, independent from our perception. If we are to think of architecture in such terms, can there be one discernible, absolute truth for a building? Are we able to disassemble any work of architecture into its components, analyse them and say that the totality has now been truly understood? How do you measure and qualify immaterial concepts that are inherent to Architecture such as the perception of proportion and space?

“Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so” said Galileo. Today the aphorism guides all spheres of human endeavours; our desire to understand and change the world around us has led us to develop mathematical models for every phenomenon we can observe. Existing in the world being perhaps the phenomenon behind all phenomena, it is only natural that the human mind would try to understand and represent it. Representing, however, implies selecting a certain perspective 7 of things and applying to it a specific structure of thought that is intellectualised given that it is already conscious interpretation. But reality is

7 It is crucial to note that the word ‘perspective’ here is not referring exclusively to visual perspective but to the sum of all bias that human perception carries with it.

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8 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, and James M. Edie. The Primacy of Perception: and Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics. Northwestern University Press, 2015. p. 16.

9 Here I assume Merleau-Ponty’s take on Berkeley that “if I attempt to imagine some place in the world which has never been seen, the very fact that I can imagine it makes me present at that place” (Merleau-Ponty. p. 16) to justify my argument being also applicable to the imagination of the architect.

not what we represent to ourselves, it is what we experience. An object perceived, as French phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty puts it, is not “an ideal unity in the possession of the intellect (...) it is rather a totality open to a horizon of an indefinite number of perspectival views which blend with one another according to a given style, which defines the object in question.”8 These ‘views’ being conditioned to the subject, it is possible for us to say that reality is the perceptual synthesis that takes place in our mind and becomes fact when we share it with others. Furthermore, it is not possible to decompose lived perception into its parts and expect it to be homologous to the whole.9 But when there’s the need, such as in Architecture, to turn an event that takes place in our minds into something analysable (and hence measurable, as Galileo expected) we must admit a degree of categorical abstraction if we are to develop an applicable theory.

Postulating an architectural theory that has as only proof the ‘truth’ in the mind of the architect is neither accurate nor productive for an activity defined by its complexity and by the amount of resources required for it to exist. Being a science that deals with the manipulation of the physical realm, it is of utter importance that the work to be carried out in loco be comparable to a theoretical basis that attests to its qualities and characteristics.

A project serves this purpose. It is the artefact with which thought is conveyed and compared, and it is not unrealistic to say that conveying architectural thought

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is the core of an architect’s work the historical separation between design and construction being a determining factor. Architects don’t make buildings, at least not anymore; they make images. To investigate the consequences of this affirmation is the general aim of this work, but to do so a few historical precisions are required so as to avoid falling into a categorical enunciation of technical tools ranging from old to new.

Eric Temple Bell, twentieth-century Scottish mathematician and writer, stated that “the map is not the thing mapped.” 10 The concept, a precursor to Situationist critique, was graphically approached by René Magritte in his famous painting The Treachery of Images (1928-29) where a convincing representation of a tobacco pipe has as subtitle the sentence ‘ceci n’est pas une pipe’ [this is not a pipe]. The painting is ironically today one of the many artworks that are reproduced mindlessly in all kinds of media and printed on t-shirts to be sold on touristy boulevards. But its original inception in the art world in the late 1920s, and the deep criticism it sought to spring on the relationship between us (the perceiver), things (the perceived) and their images (the represented).

10 Bell, Eric Temple. Numerology: the Magic of Numbers. United Book Guild, 1945.

René Magritte, The Treachery of Images. 1928-29.

Oil on canvas.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art 25

12 The ​​ idea of scale for example, something so inherent to architectural drawing today, hasn’t always been a part of architectural creation Simon Stevin’s The Art of Fortification (1594) shows examples of measuring units in different cities and according to different authors that question the very truth of the units and scales we so blindly rely on as a scientific society.

More important, perhaps, is the objectification of representation: to hold as truth something that is intrinsically subjective given it always requires the existence of an observer (or point-of-view). Take, for example, the geometric laws that describe three-dimensional space: a homogenous geometric space11 decomposable into infinitesimally small units of cubes structured around an origin point and three axis whose unit lines are parallel and never meet. This apparently obvious definition of space is a concept built on axioms such as Euclid’s fifth postulate on parallel lines. It is the basis of all geometry used in architecture, and yet it can’t be physically proven; it is an abstract model for describing phenomena under a limited set of rules. Replace Euclid’s fifth postulate with Lobachevsky’s and you get hyperbolic geometry, an important mathematical model on which modern physics rely heavily, such as Einstein’s relativity. These ‘discoveries’ that took place in the nineteenth-century and the early twentieth are responsible for the scientific revolution that brought researchers to question the validity of systems of representation that had defined man’s view of the world for millennia.12

13 “For Hegel, Weltanschauung [worldview] means the worldview of a certain nation, in a certain time: a shared view in which the poet participates.” McCarthy, Vincent A. The Phenomenology of Moods in Kierkegaard. Martinus Nijhoff, 1978. p. 136.

A positivist view of representation must be avoided.

Modern understanding of geometry is not more objective than the classical one, they are tools that help us see the world as we understand it. Our philosophical approach towards lived experience is not the same as it once was, nor is our worldview.13 However different may be our representation of ourselves in the world compared to past centuries, the tools we use to do so are still genealogically connected to core concepts such

11 The concept of an homogenous space is opposed to the idea of a center or limit to space (usually attributed to the presence of god).

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as Vitruvian Ideae and Renaissance’s perspettiva artificialis, which participated in shaping the Renaissance mind itself. The following chapters shall focus on the foundations of architectural drawing and its development towards an objectifying tool of great descriptive capacity.

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The optical distortion of an object according to its position to the observer was a topic of great study. A notable example of empirical research on the effects of foreshortening is Mantegna’s The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, c. 1480. (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan)

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Describing reality: understanding the world through drawing The images that compose architectural work are by definition fragmentary. Plan, elevation, and section drawings hold bits of information that together are able to be translated into a complete project and help establish a system of information concerning programmatic, geometrical and aesthetic aspects of built form.

Vitruvius described them as being ichnographia (plan), orthographia (elevation) and sciographia (first understood as the description of shadows, then as section starting from the seventeenth century). In his famous Ten Books14, he stated that these three forms of representation are necessary to the formulation of a full mental image of a project in the architect’s mind. This is far from being comparable to descriptive geometry of the seventeenth-century, given that a relationship between these three forms of representation as being homologous sections of three-dimensional space was not yet fully understood.

14 Vitruve, et al. Vitruvius: Ten Books on Architecture.

Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Perspective drawing remained for a long time an intuitive tool that tried to approximate the optical effects of monocular vision, focusing mainly on the rules of foreshortening and having little connection to planimetric drawing. It had, nonetheless, the advantage of holding information on the general physiognomy (appearance) of the volumes that ultimately compose architecture.

Its capacity to represent a building in proportion inside the framed view of a horizon made it a compelling tool for understanding three-dimensionality.

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Daniele Barbaro, on his annotations on Vitruvius Pollio I dieci libri (Venice, 1567), seems to take for granted the relationship between planimetric forms of representation and that of perspettiva, which he considers to be necessary for the architect’s work. Barbaro, however, did not consider perspective drawing to be a possible generator of architectural ideas. To him, perspective was not related to the plan-section-elevation triad that constituted true architectural order (or disposizione). Perspettiva was also predominantly related to scenographia (scenography), a tool suited mainly for painters and set-designers.

15 Pérez-Gómez, Alberto and Louise Pelletier. Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge. MIT Press, 2000. p.33.

16 Pérez-Gómez & Pelletier. p. 33.

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From Early Renaissance, perspettiva artificialis progressively took a prominent role in painting, incorporating geometrical rules developed by artist-researchers such as Leon Battista Alberti, Piero della Francesca, Albrecht Dürer and Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, which as pointed out by Pérez-Gómez and Pelletier, were still largely connected to classic Aristotelian cosmology.15 In Vignola’s Due Regole della Prospettiva Pratica (1583) we witness the introduction of a second observer (or distance point) that sits on the horizon line, at a distance equal to that between the “eye” of the observer and the plane of the image. Its function being to aid in determining the depth of the objects perceived by the primary observer; the second perpendicular observer serving to describe foreshortening in a more precise way 16 . Despite treatises on geometry and perspective being fuelled by mathematical discourse, an actual science of describing space was not yet present in sixteenth-century thought - perspettiva was still largely disconnected from architectural work. Only with the work of Girard

Desargues (1591-1661), considered to be the founder of projective geometry, did perspective begin to shift its role of a “contemplative practice” to that of an “instrumental tool”. By the eighteenth-century perspective was clearly understood as being homologous to plan, section and elevation, as shown in the plates by Jacob Schübler in his Perspectiva Pes Picturae (17191720). Later, Newton’s naturalism, with its claim that Nature is ruled by ‘coherent laws revealed through observation’, qualified geometric perspective as a biased mediation between man and the world which had no use in explaining the laws that operate it.

Plate from Schübler’s Perspectiva Pes Picturae.

Taken from page 60 of PérezGómez & Pelletier Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge

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The creative potential that perspective drawing offered through the manipulation of its rules led some architect-artists to investigate a new form of drawing that broke away from the rigidity of one-point perspective which had characterized most previous works. In a time where a rationalised model of space, geometrically homogenous and infinite, was establishing itself as the ‘plane of work’ for modern science, Jean-Laurent Legeay (ca. 1710-ca. 1786) attempted to use the rules of perspective to escape the static character of descriptive geometry and achieve new poetic meaning, pioneering the use of geometric perspective for the creation of narrative pictorials in Architecture.

17 Legeay’s Fantaisies and Piranesi’s Carceri and Caprici suites share the same approach towards the representation of a multi-faceted reality in the form of an expanded linear perspective.

See: Piranesi, Giovanni Battista and John Wilton-Ely. Giovanni Battista Piranesi: the Complete Etchings.

Wofsy, 2002.

Legeay’s work, most notably his Fantaisies 17, shared the characteristic of containing, in a single frame, many different perspective systems that present ‘fragmentary worlds’ joined together in the composition. The effect on perception is immense, given that the eye of the beholder will pan across the artwork as the mind engages with each one of the fragments represented. Such a type of perspective drawing brings the beholder closer to our definition of reality, defined by Merleau-Ponty as the perceptual synthesis that occurs in the mind following the experiencing of a infinite suite of perspectival points. Legeay’s and his disciple’s of the French school thus point us towards a simulation of perceptual experience that remained nonetheless constricted to the technological limitations of paper and print.

In the nineteenth-century, concomitant with great advancements in the field of optics, the birth of

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photography and the implementation of a scientific method in institutions across Europe, geometrical perspective regained interest as a possible tool for achieving objective truth (faith in the objectiveness of science is perhaps the most defining characteristic of Modern times, and something we, as a global society, have carried to the present). The objectification of perspectival representation, influenced by the understanding of light and optics, allowed for a new cycle of rationalisation in architecture. As the tools for representing became increasingly mechanistic and reproducible, the creation of images for architecture became a systematic process that ‘leaves no place for the invisible’. Foreseeing the complete state of a building became not only desirable but necessary for a project to be regarded as finished. Jean-Laurent Legeay, who taught at the Beaux-Arts in the eighteenth-century, already defended that a project is not complete without a rendered perspective view of the whole building, ‘an atmospheric representation in which depth was conveyed through intensity of colour and sharpness of outline, not simply through geometry’.18

18 Pérez-Gómez & Pelletier. p.220.

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Jean-Laurent Legeay, Sheet from Collection de Divers Sujets de Vases, Tombeaux, Ruines et Fontaines. c. 1728.

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Jean-Laurent Legeay, view of the opera square with the opera and the Hedwigskirche, Berlin, 1748.

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Gian-Battista Piranesi, Plate from Le Carceri d’Invenzione, c. 1750. Warsaw University Library

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Gian-Battista Piranesi, View of the Remains of the Dining Room of Nero’s Golden House, commonly called the Temple of Peace, c. 1756-1778. Minneapolis Institute of Art.

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Étienne Louis Boullée, Vue intérieure de la nouvelle salle projetée pour l’agrandissement de la bibliothèque du Roi, 1785. Bibliothèque nationale de France

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Étienne Louis Boullée, Opéra au Carrousel, 1781. Bibliothèque nationale de France

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Capturing reality: photography and the architectural montage “(...) the image is itself a space carefully constructed by the architect.”

- Beatriz Colomina, Architecture as Mass Media Modern discoveries on the behaviour of light and the liberation of optics from any theological precondition had immense influence on representation. The knowledge of camera oscura, already present in past centuries had inspired theories about the existence of images independent of an observer and thus ‘objectively true’. The instrument had, however, remained mostly a tool for demonstration of the phenomenon of light.

Until humanity was able to capture reality through lenses and engrave it into surfaces, vision had to be understood in purely theoretical terms and transcribed mathematically onto paper through specialised and time-consuming work.

With the diffusion of portable and more reliable photographic mechanisms came a shift of paradigm. A truly disruptive technology, photography revolutionized our relationship with reality by democratising its reproduction and bridging the intellectual gap that separated artistic endeavours from spectators in previous forms of representation. Centuries of accumulated knowledge in the field of optics and physiology were ‘sealed’ inside cameras, and that knowledge was now available to be utilised in the form on an objective tool that required no prior knowledge on the nature of vision.

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Artists like Realist painter Gustave Courbet welcomed photography as a tool that could aid the artist in his quest for poetic meaning. His painting Les Baigneuses, exhibited in 1853, is believed to have been created with the aid of a photograph, thus allowing the artist to extend the duration of a precise moment so that he could reinterpret it. Realists criticised academic historicism led by the French Beaux-Arts and its doctrine of representing historic or mythic events in a romanticised, heroic fashion. This shift towards a form of art that not only looked real but was also believable in its honest representation of “everyday life” can be related to the loss of sacredness in the arts, a process influenced by the scientific discoveries in which photography played a great role.

Nicéphore Niépce, View from the Window at Le Gras, 1826-27.

Manually enhanced version.

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19 Charles Baudelaire, Curiosités esthétiques. Paris, 1868. Digital version: https://fr.wikisource.org/ wiki/Salon_de_1859

As the first forms of photography came about, particularly in France through the work of Nicéphore Niépce and Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, they spurred discussions on what the technology meant for the Arts.

French poet Charles Baudelaire heavily criticised the inception of the photography industry as being synonymous to the loss of divinity in French spirit, as indicated in his article for the Révue Française on the Salon of 185919:

20 Translation: ​​Jonathan Mayne, The Mirror of Art, Critical Studies, London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1955.

(…) The idolatrous mob demanded an ideal worthy of itself and appropriate to its nature – that is perfectly understood. (…) A vengeful God has given ear to the prayers of this multitude. Daguerre was his Messiah. And now the faithful says to himself: “Since photography gives us every guarantee of exactitude that we could desire (they really believe that, the mad fools!), then photography and Art are the same thing:’ (…)20

21 His views on the role of the artist to “act upon the public” reflect a lingering definition of art that is still elitist, despite Baudelaire’s strong desire to free himself from bourgeois values.

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In the passage, Baudelaire clearly expresses his disdain for the belief that photography, being so efficient at representing reality, could supplant other forms of representation. He believed that photography should serve only where “absolute factual exactitude” was required lest it corrupts Art “thanks to the stupidity of the multitude”.21 Baudelaire’s critique was subversive to the cultural revolution that would consolidate itself in the following decades, culminating in the twentieth-century into consumerist society. In fact, despite his reactionary tone, Baudelaire’s speech can be interpreted as early criticism to the reckless consumption of imagery produced not through conscious interpretation but by mechanical means of achieving realism.

An interesting approach to photography can be seen in Le Corbusier’s work throughout his life. Famous for his drawings and paintings, he has often been seen as having a certain repulsion for photography. In his book Creation is a patient search22 (New York, 1960) Le Corbusier expresses radical thoughts on photography, notably that “the camera is a tool for idlers, who use a machine to do their seeing for them.” In reality however the architect-artist understood photography as a tool for drawing - a tool for re-interpretation and ultimately one for creation. A number of his drawings have been found to be drawn based on photographs that he had taken himself, received by post or even bought as postcards during his thoroughly documented travels.23 In them, a process of careful selection and edition takes place as he is “obliged to select, to reduce to a few lines the details of the image. The preformed images thus enters Le Corbusier’s creative process, but interpreted”, according to Beatriz Colomina.24 He would also become known to be a skilful manipulator of images with the publication of pictures of his projects where unwanted elements were removed from the photograph before being reproduced25, showing to what extent he gave precedence to pure architectural ideas over built reality if they were more fit for showcasing the qualities of his own work.

Accepted as an objective tool for measuring and documenting, it was not long until photography was incorporated as a tool of architectural creation. With photos, it was technically easier than ever to reinterpret the perspectival space captured by the eye with the aid of the camera and to modify, subtract and add meaning

22 Originally published in French as L’atelier de la recherche patiente (Paris: Vincent et Fréal, 1960)

23 His many wanderings were documented by him and his fellow travelers through photographs, writings and drawings. Various historiographic works compile the ‘products’ of such travels, for example: Giuliano Gresleri, Glauco, Le Corbusier, Viaggio in Oriente. Gli inediti di Charles-Edouard Jeanneret fotografo e scrittore. Venice: Marsilio Editore; Paris: Fondation Le Corbusier, 1984

24 Colomina, Beatriz. Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media.

MIT Press, 2001. p. 82-100.

25 As pointed out by Colomina, in his Œuvre Complète, Corbusier painted gray the columns of Villa Savoye that stood out as being different than the rest (possibly wet columns).

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to it. Architects began experimenting with photomontage by mixing photos of real life with those of models, or by placing models in a staged perspective so as to have it appear in context.

The possibility to capture an image of the existing world and reinvent it was notably experimented with

by Mies van der Rohe in his 1921 Friedrichstraße skyscraper competition entry, considered to be the first exemplary of the modern render. In it, the busy Berlin street is shown from the sidewalk at eye-level. In the picture we see Mies’ glass tower proposal, inserted in the cityscape with its powerful angles and homogenous, almost mineral aesthetics. A counter-view also shows the other side of the proposal from a similar point-of-view. The drawings were actually executed after the competition (which Mies didn’t win) for exhibition purposes and comparison between plans and elevations indicate that the shape he chose to show in perspective does not coincide with the orthographic drawings he had submitted. Even though Mies never received a formal education in architecture, his experience working as an apprentice for Peter Behrens and his later successful collaborations with other Modernist architects would indicate he had by all means a correct understanding of architectural conventions on representation, scale and perspective drawing. It was no mistake that the striking angles of the perspectives did not coincide with those represented elsewhere; he chose to accentuate the sharpness of the building’s corner for dramatic purposes.

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Render of the FriedrichstraĂ&#x;e skyscraper competition, c. 1921.

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26 Vidler et al. “Media as Modern Architecture”. Architecture between spectacle and use. New Haven : Sterling and Francine Clark art institute. 2008.

The point is not whether or not Mies van der Rohe did wrong to choose not to follow perspective rules.

What interests us in this discussion is why he voluntarily ‘bent’ reality in order to have a more appealing image. One possible reason is the fact that the image still feels like a photograph despite the clear insertion of the charcoal lines. In other words, the photographed elements of the photomontage are so connected to our understanding of “reality” that Mies’ distortions go unnoticed. We look at the image and our eyes tell us that it could be real, despite us knowing it isn’t.

In the same manner, Mies’ photograph of the 1922 Glass skyscraper model shows his design as if it were seen from a person’s point-of-view; more than a project, the image shows us a building that seems to be built. It was indeed Mies intention that the image would convey the idea of being a photograph when he chose a point-of-view close to that of a hypothetical passer-by, as well as with the inclusion of adjacent buildings and greenery that can be seen through the tower. The project was no more than research conducted by the architect, having never advanced to any phase beyond the conceptual. Yet, it helped establish Mies as a prominent figure of modern architecture through publications and exhibitions while he was still building villas reminiscent of historicism in Germany.

As pointed by Beatriz Colomina in her essay Media as Modern Architecture, Mies’ architectural practice and theory were largely incompatible at the time, and his efforts to produce theoretical works that could be perceived as real are perhaps a way to ‘convince himself [and others] that he could built it’.26

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The visual richness and fidelity that photomontage allowed architects to have in their representations is crucial to understand why photorealism developed in the twentieth-century to become the standard form of representation by the early 2000s. The use of photography in composition with perspectival drawing provided a number of ‘advantages’ compared to classic techniques of rendering (in the classic sense of the word), namely the capacity to realistically emulate the surroundings of a proposal in order to present an architecture that seems to exist. By enhancing the realism of the scene, hypothetical architecture gained rhetoric power. Persuading the client or the public that a building should be built becomes much easier when the project has a “photograph” of a future in which it already exists.

El Lissitzky, Wolkenbügel, 1924.

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27 Vidler et al.. p. 59

28 Notably, Mies’ Barcelona Pavilion which was dismantled in 1930 but existed as image for decades before being rebuilt in 1986.

29 Vidler et al. p. 67

A tightening bond between architecture and media, a relationship pointed out by Colomina as being that which most accurately distinguishes the Modern movement from those prior to it27, opened a new era for architecture. In the wake of the great events of the nineteenth-century - which owe their success mainly to their broadcasting - and the first steps towards a global mass-culture, architecture was incorporated in the realm of mass media mainly through photographs.

Photographs of drawings, photographs of models, and photographs of real buildings. Even today some of the most canonical images of Modern architecture are photographs of buildings that no longer exist or have been replaced with replicas.28 This condition did not affect the discipline only in the form of publications and exhibitions; it disrupted the creation process as well. With new forms of media having “transformed architecture into an image to be circulated around the world”29, it was imperative for architectural designs to yield impactant images. In opposition to previous architectural movements, which designed images as a composition of elements in the theatrical space of the city, the images of the Modern movement were designed for the photographic space of media.

As mentioned beforehand, Mies’ success can be linked to some degree to his ability to manipulate the images of his projects in new and compelling ways. That is not be taken as an undermining of the architect’s ethics and skills as a designer, but rather as an insightful understanding on the potential that these new forms

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of expression could bring to his architectural investigation. In fact, visual explorations such as the Friedrichstraße renders have spurred reactions in the field of architecture far greater than many Modernist projects that were actually built.

Manipulating and editing images became a common praxis for architects living in a world of pictures.30 Extensively reproduced and broadcast, these images went on to define the new canons of architecture throughout the twentieth-century. A cycle was established where architects were producing images that influenced other architects that produced their own images, and so on. The positive side of a globalised society was indeed the possibility for ideas to extrapolate national borders. Following a scientific approach, that would mean that more ideas would be tested in more places, thus leading us to an overall more successful practice.

In reality, the dissemination of architecture mainly through photography led to the consolidation of a new way of approaching the design process: with buildings receiving recognition through the scenes they generated, it became increasingly expected of architects to provide representations that could attest for a project’s capability to generate spectacular imagery.

30 Heidegger, Martin. “The Age of World Picture,” The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, translated by William Lovitt, New York; Harper and Row, 1977:115-54. Heidegger defines the age of world picture as “the world grasped as pictures”. According to him “the world becomes picture as soon as man makes his life as subject the primary center of reference.”. This reasoning can be applied to Modern spectacularization of life and architecture, a consequence of scientific objectification that turned space into object to be observed by man, the subject.

The rise of what is today seen as ‘spectacular architecture’ may in fact be linked to Modernism’s manifestation as a form of media. The visual propaganda that enveloped Modernist discourse on the subjects of living, building and city-planning is what allowed the movement to break away from the intellectual circles 49

and gain political force, which ultimately led to its adoption by those who actually decide what gets built: politicians and city-planners. To convince others that the Modern project was the ‘right’ project, architects had to provide convincing imagery to go with the usual technical data.

31 Another consequence of his visit would be the establishment of a professional relationship with Lúcio Costa who would eventually invite him to pitch in the proposal for the Ministry of Education’s building, Palácio Capanema, from which Corbusier would eventually be cast aside and later claim authorship after receiving pictures of the completed building and drawing over them with tracing paper. The act was criticised by Lúcio Costa in a letter to Le Corbusier.

(Letter from Lúcio Costa to Le Corbusier, 27/11/49, FLC, C1.18.76 a 78. Apud SANTOS, Cecília R. dos, et alt. Op. cit.)

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We return to Corbusier to further analyse the consequences that this approach to representation brought to the discipline. His status of star in the architectural circles meant that he was often invited by patrons on the private and public sector to ‘pitch in’ on urban or architectural questions. In 1929, coming back from Buenos Aires he was invited to visit Brazil. Like in most of his wanderings in America, he was visiting clients and prospecting for new ones. He would also give lectures at the National School of the Beaux-Arts where he would first make contact with Lúcio Costa. One of the consequences of his visit is a ‘urban proposal’ for the city of Rio de Janeiro, then capital of Brazil.31 The work consists of some bird’s-eye view sketches of the city in which the architect proposes a gigantic, serpent-like structure crossing the city and joining the neighbourhoods divided by Rio’s mountains. Being at the same a housing and transportation infrastructure.

The most interesting image of the work is a photomontage depicting the gigantic structure stretching over many kilometres, as seen from an airplane.

The image is powerful and the structure actually seems

Le Corbusier, Proposal for Rio de Janeiro, c. 1929.

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to be photographed. Corbusier knew that such a proposal could only really have a spectacular impact on the viewer if seen from the amazing point-of-view of the airplane; from the eyes of a man, the shape of it would be impossible to grasp and it would most likely feel like a menacing machine as the backdrop of a Rio that was still mostly made of neo-colonial palaces and low-rise structures. As French aerial-photographer Nadar had stated decades earlier about the landscape as it is seen from a balloon:

32 Nadar, Quand j’étais photographe, Paris: Flammarion, 1900

“Everything appears to us with the exquisite impression of a marvellous, ravishing cleanliness! No squalor or blots on the landscape. There is nothing like distance to remove us from all ugliness.” 32 Still, with so much that is willingly left unsaid by how Corbusier chose to represent his work, this is seen as ‘Corbusier’s proposal for Rio’ and it is still presented as a canonical example of the architect’s breakthrough ideas on urbanism and a benchmark for Brazil’s Modern Urbanism era. In fact, that the project was never even considered to be a possible solution may be of little importance; its images have enough rhetorical power to sustain to this day the impression that it could have been.

33 Ackley, Brian. “Le Corbusier’s Algerian Fantasy: Blocking the Casbah”. Bidoun, http://bidoun.org/ articles/le-corbusier-s-algerian-fantasy . Accessed 14 December 2017.

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Desire for imageability would come to define most architectural endeavours of the twentieth-century both in theory and practice with the propagation of a new kind of monumentality in architecture. The term was first employed by Sigfried Giedion in ‘The Need for a New Monumentality’, where he criticised the eclectic trends of Architecture as being ‘pseudo-monumental’.

A similar disregard for context would be reproduced in Le Corbusier’s 1933 Plan Obus for the city of Algiers during French occupation of Algeria. It was a spontaneous proposal and was never realised. The harmony that seems to emanate from the gigantic structures that are seen from high above in the render conceal the rough edges and barriers that his design would have created on the street level of a city affected by segregation typical of the colonies.33

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34 Giedion, Sigfried. The Need for a New Monumentality in Zucker, Paul. New Architecture and City Planning: a Symposium. Philosophical Library, 1944.

35 Giedion. p. 553

To him, as well as to most advocates of Modernism, eclecticism and its penchant for heavy ornamentation was a sign of an architecture too crystallised in the romantic values of European Nation-states that no longer reflected the aspirations and needs of a ‘modern society’ of growing speed of production, rationalization and scientificity. Giedion defended that the new monuments should be freed from ancient structures of power and its representations (mainly visible through ornamentation), thus offering the possibility for a reified ‘social, ceremonial and community life’.34 Siegfried Giedion believed that “monumentality derives from the eternal need of the people to own symbols which reveal their inner life, their actions and their social conceptions”.35 A humanist approach to monumentality that has the individual at the centre of things, and not peering from the edges. His utopian call for a political revolution in monument-making, was nevertheless incompatible with Modernism’s aesthetical determinism. The buildings his colleagues at CIAM wished to built needn’t to necessarily reshape political space if aesthetic values of Modernism were met.

In the end the political rhetoric of early Modernism, present in written works such as Giedion’s and Corbusier’s, could not be reconciled with Modern aesthetic aspirations for mediatic icons. The introduction in America of the International Style through exhibitions and publications (especially through Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock in 1932) was a turning point for modern architecture, now constituted as style

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and showcased in photographs alongside other ‘objects of design’ to be sold to the middle-class, mainly through residential projects.36

36 Colomina, Beatriz. Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media.

The MIT Press, 2001. (p. 207)

Modernism’s need to validate itself by showcasing images of designs in order for them to achieve their goal as ‘building-images’ is at the origin of the most imageable symbol of modernity. The glass-and-steel skyscraper was replicated and reinterpreted a thousand times in the United States and Europe in the short span of a few decades, populating cities with clusters of monuments that served as symbols of power for companies, financial groups and government institutions.

These monuments served a double purpose of providing usable space in a reduced footprint of the growing metropolis while acting as repositories of institutional power and symbols of economical success.

Their monumentality is however limited to the images they can generate through photographs. It’s what Sarah Williams Goldhagen points out in the essay Monumentality in the Pictorial Still 37, by stating that the new monuments of the twentieth-century were primarily designed to be seen and photographed, and not lived. Thus differentiating Modern monumentality from past forms of monumentality which “relied on the phenomenological considerations of embodied experience that have typically gone into making Western monumental architecture”.38

37 Vidler, Anthony et al.

“Monumentality in the Pictorial Still”. Architecture between Spectacle and Use: Proceedings of the Clark Conference 2005. Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, 2008.

38 Ibid. p. 98-99

Modern architecture’s fixation with images may have a lot do with what is expected of the discipline today.

More than simple structures for working or living, 55

39 Foster, Hal. Design & Crime. Postmedia, 2002.

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buildings today must perform well on more than just the practical field; they must offer striking visual experiences, which in turn generates value and increases an investment’s revenue. This relationship between architectural form and value is at the origin of today’s market predilection for poignant buildings designed by famous architects. Built as icons, they emanate symbolic meaning on institutional, cultural or economical power. In a mediatic world, buildings, especially those belonging to public or private agencies, are designed to be looked at - from an airplane, at a website, on our phones. These images serve a purpose other than that of the actual function of the building - they serve as spectacle that is “an image accumulated to the point it becomes capital”. 39

Simulating reality: computational technologies and photorealism “When birds prey on painted grapes and try to devour them, when a painter himself reaches out to open a painted curtain or to shoo away a painted fly, that is the utmost one can expect of art.”

-Johann Heinrich Lambert, La perspective affranchie Photography spurred so much discussion at the time of its inception for, among other reasons, questioning the role of the artist’s interpretation in Art. The fact that the images generated by the photographic machine appeared ‘untouched’ by human interpretation granted it status of an objective tool of representation.

Seemingly nullifying the concept of authorship as the objective lens has no agency but simply ‘receives’ images and transfers them to film. In this sense, photographs were regarded as acheiropoieta: coming to existence without the presence or influence of the human hand, or the human eye in this case.40 Indeed, as science-historian Lorraine Daston argues, the scientific tendencies of late nineteenth-century pushed for the adoption of photographic tools as capable of yielding results free of human mediation. According to Daston, the morality of representation was as much a preoccupation as was its accuracy: scientists struggled to find an absolute form of representation that did not rely on human interpretation. 41

40 Latour, Bruno, and Peter Weibel. Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion, and Art . Center for Art and Media, 2002.

41 Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Galison. The Image of Objectivity: the Talismanic Image. University of California Press, 1992.

From the observation of microscopic particles to the discovery of celestial bodies, photography turned 57

events previously unobservable by the human eye visible and comparable to theoretical models. However, optical and photographic tools can only capture what is physically available and are limited by the power of the lens system and the sensitivity of the capturing medium (paper and light-sensitive crystals, or an electronic sensor). Representing unobservable or theoretical events remained limited to the capability of expressing a three-dimensional mental image onto the bi-dimensional surface of paper.

In a similar way, architectural explorations on the twentieth-century were visually limited to the techniques of perspective drawing and photomontage.

Yona Friedman, collage on a postcard visualizing a Spatial City over Paris, 1960, Paris. Collection of Centre Georges Pompidou

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Yona Friedman, Project for the extension of Beaubourg, c.1970.

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With the inception of computational technology in the first half of the twentieth-century, Science was presented with the unprecedented possibility to process information with speed and accuracy far beyond human capacity. Given their capability to execute complex calculations with infallible precision, computers allowed scientists to efficiently test out theories inside the artificial environment of the machine, such as the outcome of nuclear explosions, the behaviour of cell division and the testing of economical scenarios through, among others, a process called stochastic simulation. These mathematical models based on randomly changing variables differ from deterministic models (where no randomness is involved) and one need not be a mathematician to imagine the complexity of calculating randomness and the determining role of the first computers in developing this field of mathematics.

Besides increasing calculating power, the use of computational technologies for testing out simulations opened up another door for science: by applying the rules of Euclidean geometry and the principles of descriptive geometry, computers made the simulation and virtual representation of space possible. With the development of 3D-modelling software, computers were able not only to give numerical results but also graphic ones within the mathematical laws their system is built upon. This had a great impact on prototyping, which for a long time had required difficult and expensive physical models to be executed in order for the appropriate geometry of an element to be determined. Moreover, with the combination of geomet60

ric calculations and analytics, engineering tests could foresee force distribution and impact in an accurate virtual model that offered no risk or waste of material and were as vast as the parameters used to perform them. By offering fast and precise measurements of virtual objects, digital simulation naturally became the standard for industry and research, and architecture was one of the many fields to adopt it.

Frei Otto with a model at the IL, 1969. Courtesy of the Institut fßr Leichtbau Entwerfen und Konstruieren ILEK. Universität Stuttgart, Bildarchiv.

The use of topographic forms, commonly applied in architecture as tensoactive structures, was conditioned to the scaled testing of force distribution.

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Architecture radically changed as the time-consuming activity of hand-drawing plans, elevations, sections, and details for architectural projects, something that had shaped practices, was gradually eliminated from the workflow with the introduction of Computer-Assisted Design software, or CAD. Efficiency went up with digital templates being infinitely reproducible and transformable, with work being no longer reliant on ink and paper and with the size of workspaces being substantially reduced. With the global connectivity brought by Internet and the weightlessness of digital data, a project and its drawings could now be developed remotely and sent over to an engineering firm and to the site with speed and reliability unfathomable to an architect working in the first half of the same century.

Taliesin West drawing room. Courtesy the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library) An architectural workplace today looks strikingly different from one in the first half of the twentieth-century.

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CAD software, by facilitating (or entirely removing) the generation of the ‘describing elements’ of a project from the hands of the architect, radically changed the discipline’s approach towards architectural ideation.

The triad plan-elevation-section, which had been consolidated during the nineteenth-century as the cornerstone of architectural work, was completely subverted with the introduction of the virtual model. The conception of architecture through the hand-drawing of bi-dimensional models that could be combined and transcribed into a mental image of the building was replaced by a multi-dimensional representation of the building from which an infinite number of elaborations can be ‘extracted’.42 The minimised importance of scale in digital modelling, a consequence of the possibility for unrestrained panning and zooming (rendering drawings practically scale-less), further differentiated digital forms of designing from those that had shaped Architecture: no longer constrained to the space of paper and freed from drawing standard elements by hand, architects were pushed to look at their designs from a ‘liberated’ procedural point-of-view.

42 Schillaci, Fabio, et al. Architectural Renderings Construction and Design Manual ; DOM Publ., 2013. p. 25

Computational technologies not only made faster the usual processes that compose an architectural project, it actually made possible the proposal of architectural feats unrealisable without the aid of computers. The artistic explorations of the second half of the twentieth-century such as Deconstructivism relied heavily on the use of computer-assisted design to determine the actual shape of geometrically complex architectural gestures and details, making possible the application of organic forms and improbable angles in construc63

43 Non-uniform rational basis spline: a mathematically ideal model for describing complex curves and surfaces.

44 Etymological meaning extracted from: Dizionario Etimologico Online. Francesco Bonomi. 2008. http:// www.etimo.it/?term=computare. Accessed on 29 January 2018.

tion. By the late 1990s, exhaustive use of computer tools such as NURBS43 and parametric geometries had already become a style per se; the use of the term ‘digital architecture’ no longer indicated general architectural work executed with the aid of computers but most particularly architectural work that could not have been thought, let alone executed, without the aid of software. An architecture unrealisable solely by human hands implies the presence of an external hand at work. Computers (from latin computāre: to calculate together)44 are thus awarded the ambiguous status of being ‘objective’ tools of representation and at the same time ‘co-authors’, as designers become more and more reliant on computers and algorithms to generate forms. In the same way, avant-gardes of the late twentieth-century which had been invested in political and technological rhetoric and a moralist quest for semiotics in architecture, were superseded by formalist movements that adopted the digital language of CAD to defend their architecture as pure, abstract thought expressed through mathematically complex geometries.

In fact, with the inception of CAD/CAM, architecture began to stray away from the dogmas of Modernism, namely standardisation and reproducibility of architectural elements: with the descriptive power of software and the automatisation power of digital machinery, the designing and fabrication of custom-made pieces was no longer limited to the standards that Industry offered. Indeed, as architecture historian Mario Carpo states in The Digital Turn in Architecture, “digital technologies mass-produce variations and customise non-standards; they are anti-industrial (...)

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and perhaps anti-modern in general as well.�45 The implementation of parametric geometry in the design of architectural skins was practically impossible to be carried out a few decades ago. Today it is already observed as one of the greatest clichÊs of architecture in the digital era

45 Carpo, Mario. The Digital Turn in Architecture: 19922012. Wiley, 2013.

Nordpark Railway Station in Innsbruck, Austria. Photograph by Werner Huthmacher

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Skin description of the Musée des Confluences. © Coop-himmelb(l)au.

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With the introduction of a virtual model constantly available to vision and modifiable at will, an epistemological change took place in the discipline; a three-dimensional model conditioned to precise mathematical laws and determinable from an infinite number of points-of-view meant that architecture could now be grasped by the observation of a completely available ‘reality’ that presented the many ‘truths’ of a project as the architect manipulates it. Besides disrupting the lengthy activity of hand drawing and offering new possibilities to formal and technological exploration, digital models introduced an unparalleled creative tool for designers: the possibility of making visible to the eye the volumes and spaces of architectural ideas formerly available only through the meticulous transcribing of orthographic drawings into linear perspective. The limitations of hand-drawing and physical media were replaced by the constantly changing pixels of the computer screen, which seamlessly join any number of perspectival points and present the object in a sequence of frames similar to motion pictures. The compelling power of motion and time in the constitution of a synesthetic experience, paramount to the success of Cinema as both art and mass media, is a crucial element to the diffusion of digital models in the architectural field. The temporality of vision, something Legeay and Piranesi tried so masterfully to create in the static space of paper could now be achieved in real-time with the panning and zooming of a virtual camera. A fixed rendered perspective of a building as the epitome of architectural thought, which Legeay argued for in the Beaux-Arts, became simply one of the many means through which architecture is thought, and not only 67

presented. Planimetric triad and linear perspective, which presented space emancipated from time, gave place to an experience of designing while continuously performing an architectural passeggiata through the infinitely available stream of perspectival frames.

46 Antoine Picon points out in his essay Smart Cities that the etymology of cybernetic comes from the Greek kubernets, which means ‘steerman’. Cyberspace is thus the space controlled (guided) by man. Picon, Antoine. Smart Cities. Thories Et Critique D’un idéal Auto-réalisateur.

B2 Editions, 2013.

47 Pérez-Gómez & Pelletier. p. 380.

The simulation of a three-dimensional space in which the architect has total control over the object and their position simulates our perception of time and space and gives us the impression of reality. In this cyberspace46 perception is given through an eye (or camera) that is navigated in the coordinates xyz and what is shown through that eye is structured around the ‘pyramid of vision’ definitions of early geometric treaties. In the objectified world of cyberspace, space is predetermined by euclidean law that suggest a space independent of an observer (thus objectively true). The vision of the camera, which is determined by geometrical laws and the boundaries of a frame, remains intrinsically mechanistic and rigid. On the subject of the fragmentary nature of representation when it comes to digital media, Pérez-Gómez and Pelletier point out that “cyberspace is the space in a computer screen; thus regardless of how sophisticated the workstation may be, questions of perception are usually reduced to vision (or primarily to vision), and the origin of meaning in human experience is not questioned. It is usually assumed to be a purely intellectual process, which it is not.”47 The introduction of a virtual reality in which three-dimensional space is available to be manipulated and viewed from every possible point-of-view is concom-

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itant with a shift in architectural thinking inspired greatly by the digital culture that was being shaped by cybernetics. Architectural praxis was breaking away from the classical concepts of composition and types and investing itself with concepts such as complexity, dynamicity of systems and fluidity, all borrowed from other fields of knowledge.48 According to Antoine Picon, through the work of Gilles Deleuze in Le Pli 49 movement is reassessed in a qualitative manner as opposed to the strictly quantitative spatial displacement of Cartesian thought. Flows, force fields, polarities... These are all terms that imply a virtual notion of movement and that start to be employed in architectural creation in the work of postmodern architects.

50 A diagrammatic approach to architecture based on complexity and propelled by the computer’s graphic power did not however break away from traditional forms of representation. Planimetric drawing, linear perspective and axonometric view still compose all architectural work and impose on it the limitations of Euclidean geometry. Although aspiring to an expanded field of knowledge and action in architecture, the rigid mathematical base of the computer is “inherently unable to combine different structures of reference”.

51 However expanded architectural ideation may have been with the introduction of 3D-modelling in virtual space, its creative potential is still limited to the collage of traditional representation methods.

48 Picon, Antoine. Culture numérique Et Architecture: Une Introduction. Birkhäuser, 2010. p. 80.

49 Deleuze, Gilles. Le Pli: Leibniz Et Le Baroque. Minuit, 1988.

50 Greg Lynn’s interpretation of Deleuze’s work was highly influential amongst high-profile architects in the 90s. Lynn, Greg. Folding in Architecture. Acad. Ed., 1993.

51 Pérez-Gómez & Pelletier. p. 378

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Function/flow diagram for Bocconi Campus proposal Š OMA Unifying order and program give place to complexity, force fields and potential flows as architectural leitmotiv in postmodern architecture.

Architectural form, according to Greg Lynn, may be distilled from an assembly of sequences.

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The architectural simulations that computer applications yield are oftentimes assumed as objective methods of foreseeing architectural experience and ultimately its quality. The development of photo-rendering software, pushed mainly by the cinema industry, played a huge part in validating computer-generated design as a tool for architectural evaluation. Photo-rendering software, which relies on the simulation of light as it meets virtual objects, make the photorealistic representation of architecture an automated process that gives the possibility of observing the appearance of volumes and spaces from any number of perspectival points. In this sense, renderings are excellent tools for understanding the potential for architecture to generate ‘sceneries’.

They do not, however, account for the ‘body of experience’ that ultimately constitutes human knowledge.

Despite their graphic realism, digital models remain an objectified representation of reality that only appears to present us the true ‘essence of things’. The phenomenological critique of Merleau-Ponty is once again accurate in questioning such a notion: “The idea of going straight to the essence of things is an inconsistent idea if one thinks about it. What is given is a route, an experience which gradually clarifies itself, which gradually rectifies itself and proceeds by dialogue with itself and with others.”52

52 Merleau-Ponty, p. 21.

The things we perceive have a direct influence on us, inspiring reactions that shape our perception. It is the case of works of art, that spur in us a certain spatial response such as searching for an ideal position from which the optimum amount of detail and generality 71

53 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, and Claude Lefort. Le Visible Et L’invisible: Suivi De Notes De Travail. Gallimard, 1964.

is made available. It is easy to visualise that in architecture, as the buildings we visit prompt us to take particular stances and positions when used. There’s an interaction which is done by, but certainly not limited to, vision and motion taking place between animated subject and inanimate object at all times, and that interaction is crucial in determining the perceived quality of spaces. Far from the predetermined homogeneous space on the computer screen, this interaction takes place through what Merleau-Ponty calls the ‘flesh of the world’ [chair du monde], the space of interaction between the body and the perceived and of which the body is a part of.53 We ask ourselves again: can the true essence of architecture be represented in any way? If this paper has been successful in suggesting architectural objectivity to be derived from the sensuous experience that we are subjected to as part of a world which affects and is affected by us, then the affirmation that an image of a building is intrinsically fragmentary has hopefully been made sustainable.

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Coda: an economy of images The rush for a final picture The increasing demand for digital visualisations in architecture has, as stated before, been defining architectural production in the past few decades, with projects relying more than ever on the hyperreal representation of its features to convey design intentions and expectations. The use of computer simulations as a rhetorical tool for scientificity, although present in more abstract diagrammatic forms of representation, is also pronounced in the creation of scenographic renderings, perspectival scenes extracted from a virtual model to which is applied a series of surface treatments to simulate the interaction of materials with light rays. In the creation of a render, all presumed objectivity is put aside as the camera is fixed at a specific point, given a certain lens angle and directed towards the point that best conveys the desired impression of the project. Yet the suspension of disbelief is kept even when the most improbable scenes are achieved through 3D-modelling, leading designers and clients to believe in what is presented as if it were innately true just by virtue of coming from a computer. In fact, architecture has witnessed in the past years an increased emphasis in the comparing of a building’s virtual representation to its built version, taking the digital as reference to measure the achieved quality of the physical object.

The sentence ‘it looks nothing like the render’ is often heard when a realised architectural work is being judged. It is not surprising, given the status that ren73

Le Nuage digital visualisation Š Philippe Starck

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Le nuage photography © journaldudesign A critical example of loss of control and disappointment over a finished architectural work is French designer Philippe Starck’s The Cloud. An image depicting a proposal apparently inspired by Stephen Perrella’s hypersurface hides the infeasibility of the blob-like glass facade.

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54 Much like Piranesi and Legeay’s work.

55 J.D. Schlegel. Architekturvisualisierung, master thesis at University of Applied Sciences Augsburg.

Supervised by Prof. Dr. Ing. Bauer, M., Behnisch S. unpublished. 2009.

56 J.D. Schlegel. “Great Weather and Pretty People”.

Rendering. Edited by Kyle May. CLOG, 2013. p.56.

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ders hold in the decision-making process. Often, that comparison springs from the decisions of the architectural team, which in an effort to win a bid or convince the client on a delicate choice, conceives dramatic imagery to illustrate the idea. But in a render, architecture is but one of the many components, and as it appears it is oftentimes not the centre of attention.

‘Atmospheric’ renders that depict architecture from a romanticist point-of-view are characterised by an overflow of information that serves the purpose of adding realism by offering a plural reading of the scene composed of several smaller scenes.54 A study conducted in the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences55 tracked the eye-movements of both architects and lay-people as they observed photorealistic and non-photorealistic architectural images in different contexts: stand-alone images or in panels as in a presentation. It showed that for both groups, the more abstract (less photorealistic) the image, the more the eyes were focused on the field of interest (the architecture). For lay-people, the focus of attention was majorly focused on the accessory parts (people, vegetation, weather) independently of the type of representation. Architects tended to focus more on the architecture but were also paying a good amount of attention on the props. This shows that the discipline’s fixation with digital images may be distracting both designers and clients from the main topic: architecture.56

Š MIR for Kengo Kuma Associates.

Montage by the author.

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Explorations in animation and virtual reality Three main branches of digital simulation have caught the attention of architects in recent years. One of them is the animation of the elements of virtual models, a technique taken from cinema and video-games, to create a ‘living universe’ that is witnessed by the observer through video. Another is VR simulation, a more technically complex video animation that eliminates the need of a picture frame by allowing the free panning of the camera, which is guided by sensors on a screen-helmet. A third one, although still largely unavailable is Augmented Reality (AR), whose potential for architecture we are still to uncover.

57 Such a scientific discourse does not account however for the intrinsic subjectivity of a system whose animations are determined by algorithms designed and picked by the human hand.

Video animations acquired an important role in architecture as the software used originally in the cinema industry became increasingly efficient and the machines needed to run them more affordable. With video, Greg Lynn’s cybernetic theories of an architecture animated by ‘emergence’ and ‘vitality’, could be expressed in a graphic way that accounted for motion and temporality.57 However realistic in their use of photorealism and sound simulation, animations are still limited to the visual perception of a screen and fall in the same category of reductionism of perspectival representation we have analysed before.

Advancements in technologies such as VR have spurred enthusiastic claims that it will define the future of architecture as architects and clients are able to immerse themselves in a parallel reality. In it, human interaction is simulated on the visual and auditory levels,

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with head movements and a certain level of mobility allowing the subject to ‘visit’ the space as opposed to peering through a ‘window’. Artistic endeavours have further pushed the boundaries of VR by inserting the headset within a room equipped with sensors, speakers and atmospheric simulators. The goal being to provide a full range of sensorial stimuli to ‘trick’ the brain into believing it is somewhere else, which is otherwise hard to achieve if one relies solely on vision. Recently, Alejandro Iñárritu, the Hollywood director famous for films such as Birdman and The Revenant, partnered up with Legendary Entertainment and Fondazione Prada to propose a 7-minute experience of crossing the Mexico-US border while literally stepping on sand, feeling the wind and the swooshing of a helicopter as you are discovered by a US patrol. Guided by two ‘hosts’ who keep you from reaching the walls by gently pushing you back by a backpack you are asked to wear, you can freely roam a space of about 40 square-meters.58

58 It received overall positive review for its technical prowess and political critique, awarding Iñárritu a ‘Special Achievement Award’ from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The experiment is very provocative for the architectural field, serving as pioneer to a ‘total immersion of the senses’ in a digital environment. But its use in Architecture as a creative and descriptive tool is limited to the technicalities of the technology: creating such an experience requires an enormous amount of work-hours and relies on the availability of an intricate multimedia system and a somewhat large space for the experience to feel seamless. The energy that would have to be put on the creation of such an experience would definitely condition architectural work as decisions would have to be made and fixated for the ‘cinematic experience’ to be rendered, thus hindering architectural explora79

tion in profit of a fixed experience. Besides, the current impossibility of providing more meaningful haptic responses to the environment limits suspension of disbelief. Given the limiting technical requirements for VR to become an immersive experience, it is hard to imagine its use in the process of architectural ideation.

So far, its major application has been the niche presentation of 360Âş spin-arounds of interior spaces.

Š Fondazione Prada The ultimate goal of technology applications in architecture seems to be to provide the full spectrum of sensorial inputs within the virtual environment of simulations.

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Possible futures: the new city-making artefact In a cultural environment that relies heavily on the fabrication and marketing of images as signifiers of real experiences, the architectural project is always at risk of becoming hostage to its own image, thus conditioning its development to the capability of reproducing the impression of a pre-approved rendered scene.

Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie (construction: 2007-2017) in Hamburg is such a case where the symbol of something has as much value (or more) as the thing itself. The building has quite an interesting story from proposal to opening: introduced as concept in 2003 by HdM and backed by architect-developer Alexander Gérard, it was met with great enthusiasm by the public and its construction was taken upon by the municipality. Originally estimated at 77 million euros59, the final cost was 789 million Euros after a few recalculations over the years.60 Even so, halting the project was never a possibility, not even after it extrapolated the budget by 10 times. The city had advertised the building for so long now as the new face of Hamburg, it had become part of it’s image despite it not even existing yet. More than costly, stopping or changing the project would be admitting defeat and the risk of dealing with that was far greater than the cost of finishing the building.

Much like Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House, the Elbphilharmonie was not only designed to be used. It was designed to be seen.61 Seen as distant monument, yes, but also and perhaps mostly through media as

59 There is disagreement over the original price tag, with some stating that the original budget was around 186 million euros by 2005, 2 years before construction began. Maak, Niklas (2015-02-14). “Der grosse Eisberg über der Stadt”.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. http://www.faz. net/aktuell/feuilleton/millionengrab-elbphilharmonie-der-grosse-eisberg-ueber-der-stadt-13427408. html Accessed January 8th, 2018.

60 Wainwright, Oliver. “‘We thought it was going to destroy us’ Herzog and De Meuron’s Hamburg miracle.” The Guardian. https:// www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2016/nov/04/ hamburg-elbphilhamonieherzog-de-meuron-a-cathedral-for-our-time . Accessed January 3rd, 2018.

61 Smith, Terry. “Spectacle Architecture Before and After the Aftermath” in Vidler, Anthony. Architecture between Spectacle and Use: Proceedings of the Clark Conference 2005. Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, 2008.

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62 Gómez, M.V. Reflective images: urban regeneration in Glasgow and Bilbao. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

1998. p. 113.

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icons that attract visitors and potential investors. In both projects, the building in question was intended to serve as the city’s greeting card and as a landmark for urban renewal. For Hamburg, the HdM-designed complex was an opportunity for new investments to spur around an area still defined by portuary activities and overall low occupation rates across the Elbe river. It is an urban phenomenon similar to the ‘Guggenheim effect’ that took place in Bilbao in the 90s and early 2000s: a former industrial zone defined by urban blight a general lack of ‘character’ is subjected to one very punctual intervention where a highly stylistic public equipment comes to change the area’s image and bring about a new breath of investment.

According to M.V. Gómez “changing the city’s image is seen as critical to encourage the shift of the economic base of the city, with the promotion of economic and urban growth being the ultimate aim of the different initiatives”.62 The Elbphilharmonie serves just the right purpose of providing the HafenCity urban-renewal project the landmark it deserves. Impossible to miss to anyone arriving or leaving the city via ferry, the mixed-use, 125.512m2 gross floor-area investment serves the purpose of providing the city with a symbol of its economic and urban grandeur.

Digital visualisation of the Hamburg Elbphilarmonie Š Herzog & de Meuron

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Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie before construction © John Seb Barber 2006

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Towards a ‘critical image-making’ “Representing means choosing.”

-Fabrizio Avella, Drawing between history and digital innovation More than providing answers as to what could be a ‘better’ form of representing architecture, it has been the goal of this work to call into question the objectivity with which representation methods are approached in the architectural field. By linking what has been presented as the three main paradigms of representation to their historical origins and socio-philosophical dynamics that shaped them, the inherent subjectivity of any tool of representation has been made evident.

With architectural education being usually structured around a ‘problem-solving’ dynamic where theory acts as the means that ultimately lead to the enhancing of the design activity (the end), students are pushed from the very first semesters to provide answers to problems that range from the usual domestic ‘lack of space’ to the catastrophic migrant population condition of war-ridden countries.63 At an early point, students become used to presenting solutions to complex problematics in a reductionist graphic way, and most often following the aesthetic principles they were taught or the style of a certain architect they appreciate. Exploded axonometric drawings, perspective sections, rendered perspectives… all these are highly aestheticised forms of representation that are almost as easily achievable as a simple floor plan when work is carried out in 3D-modelling software. This ease of immediacy

63 The academic fetishism for providing formalistic answers to highly complex problems that far exceed architecture’s reach is worthy of a study of its own.

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64 Schillaci, Fabio, et al.

“Drawing between history and digital innovation“. Architectural Renderings Construction and Design Manual. DOM Publ., 2013.

‘has generated a digital split from the building of the model and its representation’64 as very little thought is put as to what it means to choose this or that form of representation, and what information is being filtered in the process.

The object of our critique should not however be considered to be the tool but rather the uncritical acceptance of its structures. Computers have brought great advancements to architecture, making possible the conceiving and representation of new and more complex structures, besides automatising many processes and allowing the architect to shift their attention from time-consuming mechanical activities to the more ‘creative’ parts of making architecture.

KADK’s Dermoid research on the field of ‘digital formations’ © KADK The creative potential of algorithmic architecture has been the focus of many graduate study programs in the past years. The image above is taken from https://kadk.dk/en/case/dermoid (accessed 4/02/2018) and is used to advertise their research.

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This new-found creative energy in architecture has mostly focused on the research of digital architecture and the representation of digital models. If once the bulk of a project’s work was on the drawing of plans, elevations and sections, today it consists of image-making through the use of 3D-modelling and rendering.

In fact, not many academic or professional works today will receive praise if they don’t come with rendered visualisations.

As practices adapt to the demand for visualisations in every step of a project, many architecture graduates may find themselves no longer executing CAD drawings in their first jobs, but rendering countless images in a day.65 A good percentage of architects may actually choose to devote their careers to architectural visualisation as the job offer increases and the importance visualisation in the creative process is emphasised inside and outside firms.

In this context, a critical stance towards the production of images in architecture is paramount if Architecture is to keep pace with a rapidly changing market which consumes buildings first as images, following the mechanisms of Spectacle. It is not a question of ‘to make or not to make’ visualisations (as that would mean only self-imposed ostracism), but rather how to make them so that they do not impose a fixed image on the ideation process.

65 While working as an intern at OMA in 2017, I found myself in a work dynamic that consisted almost entirely of trying possible solutions through renderings, with plans and sections functioning merely as blueprints for the 3D-model, which in turn didn’t need to precisely follow drawings, either. This experience pushed me into researching the contemporary condition of practicing architecture, which is somewhat backed by the survey presented in the appendix.

As appointed experts, architects must always evaluate their own production and the meaning behind the images they build in order to sustain an ethical praxis that 87

does not betray itself the moment the virtual becomes built. On the other end, schools must provide the tools for such a critical approach. This does not mean an education must comprise the teaching of every known tool of representation, as that would not inspire new thinking but only the reproduction of already known systems of thought. Rather, by inspiring epistemological questions on the nature of representation, schools can provide students with the tools necessary for them to critically position themselves in the age of digital.

By removing representation from a philosophical and historical vacuum, architecture can incorporate digital visualisations as a crucial design tool through the application of a ‘critical image-making’ strategy.

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Bibliographical References Baudelaire, Charles. Curiosités esthétiques. Paris, 1868.

Colomina, Beatriz. Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media. MIT Press, 2001.

Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Galison. The Image of Objectivity: the Talismanic Image. University of California Press, 1992.

Deleuze, Gilles. Le Pli: Leibniz Et Le Baroque. Minuit, 1988.

Foster, Hal. Design & Crime. Postmedia, 2002.

Giedion, S. The Need for a New Monumentality ..1944.

Giuliano Gresleri, Glauco. Le Corbusier, Viaggio in Oriente. Gli inediti di Charles-Edouard Jeanneret fotografo e scrittore. Venice: Marsilio Editore; Paris: Fondation Le Corbusier, 1984.

Heidegger, Martin. “The Age of World Picture,” The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, translated by William Lovitt, New York; Harper and Row, 1977.

Latour, Bruno, and Peter Weibel. Iconoclash. MIT Press, 2002.

Lynn, Greg. Folding in Architecture. Acad. Ed., 1993.

McCarthy, Vincent A. The Phenomenology of Moods in Kierkegaard. Martinus Nijhoff, 1978.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, and Claude Lefort. Le Visible Et L’invisible: Suivi De Notes De Travail. Gallimard, 1964.

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Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, and James M. Edie. The Primacy of Perception: and Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics.

Northwestern University Press, 2015.

Nadar, Quand j’étais photographe, Paris: Flammarion, 1900 Picon, Antoine. Culture numérique Et Architecture: Une Introduction. Birkhäuser, 2010.

Picon, Antoine. Smart Cities. Thories Et Critique D’un idéal Auto-réalisateur. B2 Editions, 2013.

John Wilton-Ely. Giovanni Battista Piranesi: the Complete Etchings. Wofsy, 2002.

Pérez-Gómez, Alberto, and Louise Pelletier. Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge. The MIT Press, 2000.

Schillaci, Fabio, et al. Architectural Renderings Construction and Design Manual. DOM Publ.. 2013.

Schübler Johann Jakob, et al. Perspectiva Pes Picturae.

Weigel, 1749.

Smith, Kendra Schank, and Albert C. Smith. Building the Architect’s Character: Exploration in Traits. Routledge, 2018.

Vidler, Anthony. Architecture between Spectacle and Use: Proceedings of the Clark Conference 2005. Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, 2008.

Vitruve, et al. Vitruvius: Ten Books on Architecture.

Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Zucker, Paul. New Architecture and City Planning: a Symposium. Philosophical Library, 1944.

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Appendix: ‘Professional experience in architecture’ survey Given that one of the very first parts of this work, “I need a good cover render”, is a piece that resembles more an editorial than a research one and that the opinions there expressed come with no accompanying data to back them, it felt somewhat important to compare that first ‘raw’ piece of writing to a more ‘scientific’ database. To broadcast a survey with a few questions that could indicate a general trend became a necessity.

The survey consists of eight questions that help verify if the subject is a part of the analysed range (student or newly graduates working or with past work experience) and better understand what are the skill expectations of both workers and employers in comparison to an academic offer. By analysing data from a sufficient number of students coming from different schools in different countries, the survey seeks to delineate a possible pattern that is not contained inside the structures of one particular education system or socio-economical context.

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Professional experience in Architecture

How many internships have you performed in your field of study? For how long?

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What were the main skills employers expected you to have?

Did you have to learn skills you had not been introduced to in school?

quite a lot

absolutely

some

one or two

not really

Which ones?

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Do you believe it is the school’s responsibility to teach you all the skills required by professional life?

moderaletly

mostly yes absolutely

not so much

not at all

List of answers:

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Politecnico di Milano

18

Leibniz University of Hanover

15

University of Stuttgart

1

BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg

1

ISCTE Lisboa

1

ETSAM/UPM Madrid

3

TU Munich

1

Estonian Academy of Arts

23

ENSA Paris-Belleville

19

ENSA Nantes

1

Northumbria University

1

Brazil (UFSC, USP, UFC, and others)

39

Australia

1

Total

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The results, however limited due to a small amount of answers, indicate that a certain gap is present between educational and professional life when it comes to the teaching of the skills most required by employers.

To understand whether expectations towards architectural learning are of the vocational order or of the knowledge-based critical thought, the last question asks students whether or not they believe it is the school’s responsibility to teach them all the skills required by professional life. The answers are diverse and the generally concentrate on ‘moderately’ and ‘Mostly yes’ (each at 26% of answers). However, if we look at the two ends of the spectrum there is great disparity with 21% of answers stating ‘Absolutely’, whereas only 7% answer ‘not at all’. This alone wouldn’t mean that Universities are ignoring a demand for a certain education as it could simply indicate belief on the role of University education despite personal experience.

But when asked if they had to learn new skills in their work environment 60% of students answered ‘Quite a lot’ or ‘Absolutely’. It is thus fair to say that a good percentage of students are not receiving the education they expected to have to be able to perform vis-à-vis the demands of professional life.

If we take the results about what skills are requested by employers and what skills are learned in internships, we see that, respectively, 77% and 70% of those are computer-related. This indicates that the schools comprised in this survey are, for the most part, not meeting market expectations when it comes to the teaching of digital skills, which may or may not determine the 95

success of their alumni. If we look again at the answers about student’s opinion on the role of schools in the teaching of skills, we may also infer that their expectations are oftentimes also not met.

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