Annexure A :: A typical Specimen of Cover Page and Title Page (Title of Dissertation)
...BRANDING AND ARCHITECTURE..........
.......................................................................................
A DISSERTATION Submitted by (Name)...RACHANA KARI........... (Roll No)...20089936......
In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of
BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE under FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND PALNNING in
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING
ANNA UNIVERSITY CHENNAI 600 025 NOVEMBER 2012
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Annexure B : A typical Specimen of Declaration
DECLARATION I declare that this Dissertation titled “.................BRANDING AND ARCHITECTURE.......” is the result of my work and prepared by me under the guidance of Ms.........BINDHU RAVINDRAN............, Professor/ Associate Professor/Assistant Professor in Architecture and that work reported herein does not form part of any other dissertation of this or any other University. Due acknowledgement have been made wherever anything has been borrowed from other sources.
Date: 5.11.2012
Signature of the Candidate Name
RACHANA KARI
Roll Number
20089936
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BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE
Certified that this Dissertation forming part of Course work AD 903, Dissertation, IX semester , B.Arch, entitled “...................BRANDING AND ARCHITECTURE.......................� Submitted by Ms. .....RACHANA KARI ...... Roll No 20089936 to the Department of architecture, School of Architecture and Planning , Anna University, Chennai, 600 025 in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor Degree in Architecture is a bonafide record of work carried by him / her under my supervision. Certified further that to the best of my knowledge the work reported herein does not form part of any other dissertation.
Date:
5.11.2012
Signature of the Supervisor Name Designation
External Examiner 1 Date :
External Examiner 2 Date :
Professor and Head Department of Architecture Date :
Dean SAP Date:
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Abstract In the current boom we are experiencing, increasingly, the skylines and urban landscapes throughout have become “staged brandscapes” composed of towering symbols of corporate identity where everything seems to be arranged for a striking visual impact.architecture is now also being perceived as a commodity, as part of a lifestyle. in this world of ephemeral values driven by the paradigm of perception, branding has become a symbol associated with the information age.however,a brand goes far beyond the actual product, it is a symbol for a parcticular lifestyle, an attitude, an identity and essentially a symbol of context.it also delievers a sense of belonging. architecture has evolved from an emphasis on “what it has” and “what it does” (function + program) to “what you feel” and “who you are” (experience + identity) which means that the attention has shifted from the object to the objects effect on the subject. architects now aim building space that connect deeply with people, space that are memorable, evocative and poignant and beyond tangibles. Aim : study and analyse the trend, where architecture is linked to the creation of a distinct brand to enhance the perceived value of an urban district, a commercial development and in some cases entire cities. Objective: - what is a brand? - what does it mean to brand a space/ an experience? - how does one become emotionally attached to a space? - what is the aim of branding architecture? - how can one attempt to incorporate branding in the architectural process? - the broad division of branding in architecture - using architecture to enhance the experience of a brand - architecture itself as a brand - case studies - branding a space - branding a building - branding an urban district - branding a city Scope : - the study allows analysis of the present day phenomenon influencing design in large parts of the world. - it provides scope for understanding how a structure can be turned into an emotional experience and how one gets emotionally attached to a space. - the study would provide insights on the relation between identity, product and environment which can be incorporated in design.
Limitations : - the study would be limited to conceptual, functional and the cultural parameters of branding in buildings and not the financial parameters. 4
- the case studies will mostly be of buildings of commercial and mixed use typologies and limited residential projects. Methodology : - study and analysis of books on branding and architecture - identification of case studies that symbolizes brand and architecture at each stage of the study.analysis of each - inferences from the case studies and literature studies. - conclusion
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank my dissertation coordinator Prof. Suresh kuppusamy for his encouragement throughout the dissertation. I would sincerely like to thank my guide Bindhu Maam for her constant support and guidance. I would also like to thank my family and friends for their support.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS CONTENTS
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CHAPTER 1 WHAT IS A BRAND?
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WHY BRAND ARCHITECTURE? DIRECT AND INDIRECT BRANDING
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CHAPTER 2 – BRANDING ARCHITECTURE
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APPLE STORE
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MERCEDES BENZ MUSEUM
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JEWISH MUSEUM, BERLIN
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CHETTINAD HOUSE
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THEE COMMON THREAD – CONCLUSION
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CHAPTER 3 – BRANDING ARCHITECTS
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BIJOY JAIN
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HAFEEZ CONTRACTOR
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CHAPTER 4 – THE BILBAO EFFECT
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CHAPTER 5 – BRANDING CITIES
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CHAPTER 6 – CURITIBA
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CHAPTER 7 – NEW YORK
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CHAPTER 8 – THE COMMON THREAD – CONCLUSION
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CHAPTER 9 – THE LAST WORD BIBLIOGRAPHY
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BRANDING AND ARCHITECTURE 1
In the twenty-first century, we must learn to look at cities not as skylines but as brandscapes and at buildings not as objects but as experiences. we’re no longer consuming objects but sensations, even lifestyles. In the new environment of brandscapes, buildings are not about where we work and live but who we imagine ourselves to be. architecture can use the concepts and methods of branding--not as a quick-and-easy selling tool for architects but as a strategic tool for economic and cultural transformation. Branding in architecture means the expression of identity, whether of an enterprise or a city; New York, Bilbao, and Shanghai have used architecture to enhance their images, generate economic growth, and elevate their positions in the global village.. How can architects use branding as a means to differentiate places from the inside out--and not, as current development practices seem to dictate, from the outside in? When architecture brings together ecology, economics, and social well-being to help people and places regain self-sufficiency it can be a catalyst for cultural and economic transformation. economic value comes from emotional connection with a brand.’ WHAT IS A BRAND? Brand is a persons feeling about a product, service or company. It is a gut feeling. Each person has/creates his/her own version of it. It is defined by individuals. Brands are persuasive lifestyle packages, powerfully molding our ideas about what our identity should be. More often than not brands define the way we live, the experiences we choose, and whom we choose to associate with. Brand is an experience. A brand goes way beyond the actual entity, the brand becomes a symbol of a particular lifestyle, and attitude and identity. A brand is a symbol that conveys the aura of meaning. Brands no longer focus on products but on the act of building associations with particular lifestyles, contexts and consumers. Brands synthesize images, identities and lifestyles into coherent entities while simultaneously codifying cultural values. Brands can also ct as a catalyst to raise the value of a particular building or destination. WHY BRAND ARCHITECTURE? Architecture has evolved from an emphasis on “what it has” and “what it does "to “what you feel” which means that the attention is removed from the object to the effect the object has on the subject. The attention of architecture has shifted from a paradigm characterized by the relationship of form, function and program to a paradigm of experience and identification. It is evident that the branding and architecture have developed a symbolic relationship. There is also criticism of the way that major cities continue to fall for the modernist fallacy (as she sees it) of wooing star architects to provide them with ‘trophy buildings’. Although motivated by a desire to make cities that stand out in the global marketplace, such ‘Fosterisation’ produces an underlying sameness because there is no meaningful engagement of the customers (ie the users) of the places which result. However, branding can help create meaningful spaces that are meaningful and authentic experiences that are purely architectural. Architecture can act as a catalyst for new experiences.In this changing environment, architecture can play a significant pat in determining how people participate in the ongoing restructuring of economic and cultural practices and help build spaces that deeply connect with people – tangible and intangible 2
DIRECT BRANDING Direct branding is done as a reflection of an established brand. In this fom of branding architecture, thee qualities and the value of the brand is manifested as an experience in architecture. The brand is the experience and one get a full understanding of it by experiencing the space. This is a popular method used to create meaningful and exciting retail and commercial experiences. This method Is well manifested in the Prada epicenter designed by rem koolhaas, Nike towns, Disneyland, the BMW and the Porsche museums apart from others.
INDIRECT BRANDING This form of branding is more of a reflection of conscious experiences that one wants to create. They are more emotional and deal with a larger context. In this for the experience is amplified and branded to create the desired effect. Mostly employed in cultural buildings. It is well manifested in the Jewish museum in San Francisco and in the wok of various famous architects like le Corbusier and Louis Kahn.
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BRANDING ARCHITECTURE When a brand creates an experience, it speaks to people. But what is an experience? It's the sum of all the interactions a client has with your brand. It's what makes brand environments so critical to connecting with potential customers and creating preference. …and what could be better than architecture to achieve this? Architecture cuts through the noise, the email, the myriad of marketing messages and says: experience me! This is further explored in the following case studies. 4
APPLE STORE, NEW YORK Less is more
Living up to its “Think Different” motto, Apple unveiled Fifth Avenue’s sole subterranean flagship in 2006. At the plaza level, it’s a beautiful glass box. The walls are glass, the ceiling is glass, and holding it all up structural glass framing. The box serves as a completely-transparent beacon that suspends the Apple logo for all to see. To enter the store, you must go down a flight of glass stairs or a glass-enclosed elevator to a below-grade level where the actual products are located. The interior design is minimal. Nothing is to distract customers from the attention of the products on display. the building infers the qualities of the brand and the values of the company: We are technologically advanced and our products are exquisitely crafted in a minimal aesthetic so that nothing is superfluous. The apple stores have been responsible for turning the boring computer sales floor into a sleek playroom filled with gadgets. The work of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and his colleagues for Apple is sleek, transparent, inviting, technologically advanced and expensive. In many ways, the retail architecture is simply the largest box in which an Apple product is wrapped, and Steve Jobs was famously attentive to every detail in an Apple product’s presentation and customer experience. The concept of doing more with less has been the vision of architecture since earlier in the past century. The vision was to push the edge of technology at the same time make it comfortable for people, the idea of which is sometimes lost in modernism. It's an interesting challenge, how to marry the two. The apple stores are selling dreams not products.
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DESIGN PHILOSOPHY The apple store had to be a physical embodiment of the Apple brand and had to bring about an experience that was as big as the brand. Jobs thought of the stores not as retail spaces but as social spaces. Jobs believed it was more important for the stores to offer a unique and compelling experience, a store that would serve as a sort of clubhouse for Apple’s loyal followers. The design evolved from philosophies that apple stood for. Firstly, craft above all. The design requires an extreme level of detail. secondly empathy, a connection with the feelings of the customer. thirdly focus and eliminating all of the unimportant opportunities. The fourth pointer is to impute, that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys. Also important is friendliness and making high-tech devices appealing to everyone while finding simplicity.
DESIGN The entrance cube to Apple's underground store on Fifth Avenue represents probably the purest form of transparent architecture. First, the cube is empty, avoiding the challenge of transparency simply revealing the clutter within, as for example at Dominique Perrault's Hôtel Industriel in Paris. This emptiness is shared with I.M. Pei's Pyramid at the Louvre: both are grand entry canopies over a spiral staircase into a subterranean plaza. Yet the reality is that the Louvre pyramid is strongly visible in its courtyard, both because of its contrast with the surrounding buildings, and because of its black metal structural frame. The 32-foot cube at the Apple Store is made from structural glass, with no metal framing; and its rectilinear profile blends in with the General Motors skyscraper behind it. Taking the transparency theme further, the entrance in the front of the cube leads into to a structural glass spiral staircase, winding around a cylindrical glass elevator. Apple’s cube is a true highlight in terms of its glass technology and architecture. The titanium fittings that connect the panes to the continuous glass fins at the two vertical joints in each façade have been laminated into the panes for the first time and are therefore hardly visible. Likewise, the rigid self-supporting roof is also now made up of just three and no longer 36 individual elements. Inside the cube, the all-glass staircase from the original 2006 building has been retained. The self-supporting staircase in Apple’s 5th Avenue store had to comply with two special requirements: firstly, the structure is located in an earthquake zone and, secondly, there is a lift integrated into the well of the spiral staircase.
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RENOVATION And just like a re-branding strategy ,when the building technology got better, Apple “rebooted” the building. After only five years of existence, the box was entirely re-designed and re-built in 2011. The new cube consists of 15 seamless glass panels (the old design had 90), which span from floor to ceiling.. Most architecture doesn’t have the chance to be re-branded in such a dramatic way when the very nature of architecture has traditionally been permanency. Many would say that it’s irresponsible to spend $6.7 million on basically the same but this says a lot about the value Apple places on innovation in its products and reinforces the building as a branding tool.
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MERCEDES BENZ MUSEUM, STUTTGART Tradition + innovation
The building housing the Mercedes-Benz Museum is an exceptional piece of architecture, which reflects the ideals of originality that lie at the heart of the Mercedes-Benz brand, always striving to create completely new concepts for human mobility the nine-story Mercedes museum— designed by Ben van Berkel is composed of two spiraling ramps in the form of a double helix symbolizes the 'genetic makeup' of the brand. With clear spans of 100 feet that can display hightonnage trucks and cars, the wide ramps loop, incline, merge, and meld as interchangeable surfaces, so that floors become walls, and walls become ceilings. The design is based on the geometry of a clover, with the spaces connected between two helical ascending ramps, around a central atrium. According to the architect, “The Mercedes-Benz Museum sets up an interface for a series of radical spatial principles in order to create a completely new typology". And by this, he refers to how visitors experience the museum: They do not begin their visit to the exhibition at a conventional entrance at the base of the building. They are transported by lift to the top floor. Here they have the choice of two tours, during which they descend through the building. The paths of each tour meet on each floor, enabling visitors to switch between tours – the Collections tour and Legend tour – should they wish to do so. The Museum’s sophisticated geometry synthesizes structural and programmatic organizations resulting in a new landmark building celebrating a legendary car. The façade of the building and the internal conceptualization all signify movement and velocity, much like the Mercedes Benz. 8
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY Automotive history and the evolution of Mercedes Benz are almost synonymous. This museum is a monument to that history and tries to represent all that the automotive excellence Mercedes Benz has achieved in over a century of building vehicles. The architectural design of the Mercedes-Benz Museum embodies this inseparable link between tradition and innovation. The guiding principle was that a building is developed in much the same way as a car, in that the design process integrates many different skilled disciplines, merges technical and aesthetic requirements, strictly observes underlying framework conditions and implements innovative approaches. The design of the building with its double helix is inspired by a DNA spiral and, at the same time, is a metaphor for the "hereditary factor" and the original thinking of the Mercedes-Benz brand in continually developing new ideas for the mobility of people. The museum concept is also made-to-measure. The exhibition designer had to respond to three demands: 1) The exhibition had to include the brand’s contemporary history, 2) The exhibition had to deal with Mercedes’ motor sport history and 3) the exhibition had to tell the story of Mercedes’ rich tradition of commercial vehicles. HG Merz then developed an exhibition concept that consisted of a double but simultaneous history of – one the one hand – the brand’s Legends and – on the other hand – the brand’s Collection. The Legend’s route would consist of the brand’s most spectacular, most famous and most beautiful cars; in other words: Mercedes’ highlights. The Collection’s route on its turn would tell the tale of Mercedes’ cars in everyday life. With an impressive double helix UN Studio has accomplished an architectural tour de force, which allows for a museum route that tells a simultaneous but two-sided story. The architect paid attention to how, by moving through the chronologically ordered exhibition spaces from top to bottom, visitors follow the edge line of the building like a time machine. The line you follow becomes a wall then a ceiling and then a space, blurring the distinction between line, surface and volume.”
DESIGN A genuine and positive meeting between the potentially overwrought world of computeraided design and an older architecture that might, in fact, be described as jet-age baroque. What they have achieved is an architectural puzzle that feels coherent and assured. The design of the museum is spatially complex. It is based on the cloverleaf pattern. The structure consists of three overlapping circles forming a central triangular atrium. The trefoil/cloverleaf patter is not apparent when seen from inside the museum but the design, infrastructure, exhibition space and programmes are modeled around it. Winding up through a lofty central atrium to the dished concrete roof are two interlaced ramps that take their design cue from Crick and Watson's DNA spiral and serve as the main visitors' routes up, down, around and through the museum. Visitors are expected to begin their journey from the uppermost level, reached by capsule-like lifts with slits for windows, offering just tantalizing glimpses of the adventure that lies ahead. One of the ramps leads into day lit galleries where the vehicles are on show. Altogether there are 120 cars on display, representing the company's 120-year lineage, together with 40 vans, buses and lorries - not to mention engines, an aircraft, boats and railway vehicles 9
Most of these machines are themselves constructed on a heroic, even architectural scale. The other ramp descends through a sequence of theatrical galleries, some dark, others bright, telling the story of Mercedes-Benz. Visitors can switch from ramp to ramp, so that the history of the company can be illustrated by its products from any given time. From many vantage points along the ramps it is possible to see, and to cross-reference, other parts of the museum. Remarkably, though, you cannot lose your way inside: just go with the architectural flow, and its magic reels on by in a genuinely exciting and almost cinematic way.
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The interior of the museum is full of echoes of the geographical richness outside. Here is a generous, light-filled industrial palace formed from hard and soft materials, raw and polished concrete, straight lines and curves. It's all encased in a continuous band of glazing made up of 1,800 triangular windows spiraling up and around the building.
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JEWISH MUSEUM, BERLIN Between the lines
Jewish Museum captures the full spectrum of human emotions, embodying humanity's remarkable capacity for horrific cruelty and eternal hope. Few buildings have evoked the unspeakable with as much clarity. the long, five-story building twists and bends across its site in a gigantic zigzag, its somber facade cut by hundreds of asymmetrical slashes that serve as windows. The Jewish Museum Berlin, which opened to the public in 2001, exhibits the social, political and cultural history of the Jews in Germany from the 4th century to the present. The museum explicitly presents and integrates, for the first time in postwar Germany, the repercussions of the Holocaust. The new design, which was created a year before the Berlin Wall came down was based on the conception that formed the museum’s foundation: first, the impossibility of understanding the history of Berlin without understanding the enormous intellectual, economic and cultural contribution made by the Jewish citizens of Berlin, second, the necessity to integrate physically and spiritually the meaning of the Holocaust into the consciousness and memory of the city of Berlin. Third, that only through the acknowledgement and incorporation of this erasure and void of Jewish life in Berlin, can the history of Berlin and Europe have a human future. Libeskind says the cuts reflect the invisible lines that connect various cultural figures who lived and worked in the district. Other metaphors come to mind: The cuts, for instance, evoke painful scars the Holocaust has left on our collective memory. But one of the design's greatest strengths is its resistance to simplistic interpretations. If, at moments, the building evokes human suffering, at other times it is strikingly beautiful, its surface shimmering with the reflection of soft white clouds and rustling green leaves. 12
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY Daniel libeskind treats the museum as a machine for the productions of certain effects, orchestrating a theatrical experience and confronting truth; the greatest link between fiction and theatre. The origins of the museum lie in a peripatetic architectural experience, where memory was inscribed into the building, spatially locating knowledge in the architecture itself. Architecture therefore provided an aid for memory, which was experienced by a body on the move. The building itself acts as a storyteller. It presents architecture as a space within which we act and which acts upon us Libeskind’s primary goal was for the Museum to express the complex history of Jews in Berlin in architectural form, making that story relevant to the present. He chose to focus on the exile and execution of Berlin’s Jewry in the 1930s and 1940s. ‘Absence’ therefore became the central metaphor in the architecture, expressed through a series of voids around which the entire building is staged. What follows is a description of the journey within the built artifact that first served as a site for architectural tours alone. This is not the architecture of order or reason, but rather one that deliberately confounds, disorientates and threatens the mind and body of the viewer. It is laden with stories and meanings, some immediately apparent, some suggestive and some forever elusive ‘This building invites associations and a search for meaning’. The line played a significant role in both Libeskind’s projects. For the architect, lines were the conceptual, historical, geographical and graphical generators of his building. Libeskind has titled the Jewish Museum ‘Between the Lines’… ‘because it is a project about two lines of thinking and organization and about relationship. One is a straight line, but broken into many fragments; the other is a tortuous line but continuing indefinitely. The architecture of Libeskind’s Jewish Museum signifies the end of a constructed view of space; the end of a body’s particular position and relationship in space; the end of scenography. DESIGN
The existing building is tied to the extension underground, preserving the contradictory autonomy of both the old building and the new building on the surface, while binding the two together in the depth of time and space. The descent leads to three underground axial routes, each of which tells a different story. The first, and longest, traces a path leading to the Stair of Continuity, then up to and through the exhibition spaces of the museum, emphasizing the continuum of history. The second leads out of the building and into the Garden of Exile and Emigration, remembering those who were forced to leave Berlin. The third leads to a dead end the Holocaust Void.The Holocaust Void cuts through the zigzagging plan of the new building and creates a space that embodies absence. It is a straight line whose impenetrability becomes the central focus around which exhibitions are organized. In order to move from one side of the museum to the other, visitors must cross one of the 60 bridges that open onto this void. The harmony and clarity of the Baroque building (through which one enters) is shed by the visitor in the descent of a black slate staircase, which leads to an underground tunnel connecting the buildings. The deflected entry is a subtle psychological ploy; by temporarily drawing you away from the Jewish Museum and anchoring the entry in a building devoted to Berlin's history, it reminds you of the abandonment that made the Holocaust possible. It is as easy to ignore the truth here as it is to confront it. Simply turn left instead of right. From the bottom of the stair, you pass along a maze of intersecting, underground passageways. 13
A long narrow path, its concrete floor gently rising, leads to the Stair of Continuity and up to the main galleries. As if to suggest the randomness of our fate, other paths veer off this one-one leads to the Path of Exile, another to a room called the Holocaust Void. If there is a place in Berlin where the meaning of the Holocaust is clearly felt, it is in this room. Visitors quietly file into what is essentially a narrow concrete tower, and the sound of a heavy steel door clicks shut behind them. The room has a chilling feel; its massive walls make you aware of a sudden helplessness. Inevitably, the eye is slowly drawn up to a sliver of light at the top of the room, a tiny opening that also lets in the faraway sounds of the city. The image is inspired by a survivor's story of looking through the slats of a cattle car bound for the camps and seeing the white plume of a plane in the sky. "This white line kept me on Earth," she wrote. It is the thin line, in fact, that marks the tragic distance between one human being and the rest of humanity.
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CHETTINAD HOUSES Hybrid lifestyle
Traditionally a trading community, Chettiars were some of the wealthiest people in that area, and their mansions were a symbol of their prosperity; “Nattukottai Chettiar” itself translates literally as “traders with palatial houses in the countryside”. Harking back to the 1850s, these Chettiar mansions have many distinct features that speak volumes of the community’s lifestyle and values. The Chettiars of yore were a well-travelled lot, thanks to their involvement in the gem and salt trade. As a result, their mansions incorporated many of the design elements they saw during their times abroad. With the arrival of the British in India, too, new ideas of design were introduced. Therefore, it is not unusual in Chettiar houses to see Art Deco, Georgian and gothic architecture sitting side by side with traditional South Indian and Hindu elements, the interiors decorated with everything from Burmese teak and Italian marble to Belgian chandeliers and Victorian furniture. The Chettiars acquired most of their home-building material from abroad, while local craftsmen indigenously put it all together—time honored devout figures of Hindu gods and western artifacts—creating the distinctive style. Money was no object; only the best would do. Tiles were brought in from Spain and Japan in their millions, thousands of tonnes of teak arrived from Burma, and marble and extravagant crystal chandeliers came from Italy. Mirrors were imported from Belgium, the steel came from the UK, and the whole lot was combined with millions of handbaked roof tiles and paint made of hundreds of thousands of eggshells. 16
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
the palatial abodes built from these international ingredients weren’t one-offs. they showcased strong identity of the community. The mansions were direct reflections of the ways of the community, world wise but also rooted and strict. Chettinad houses are signs of successful joint families that existed in olden days. The zoning of the house shows a strict patriarchal community which is also reflected in the rigid geometry off thee buildings. DESIGN The hybrid Anglo-Indian political style reflected in colonial dress and title are also reflected in the magnificent vernacular architecture of Chettinad. This style is illustrated in the increasingly elaborate Nakarattar versions of the Anglo-Indian bungalow, aptly described as "country forts" (nattukottai ). the valavu are the central courtyard, surrounding corridor, and double rooms for pullis or conjugal families from which many Nakarattars derive the name for their joint families. A floor plan for a relatively simple Nakarattar house illustrates this feature along with an outside veranda for guests in the front of the house, a small courtyard in back for cooking, and a separate room for women "polluted" by various life-cycle crises. All Nakarattar houses share this division into a front "male" section, a central ceremonial section, and a rear "female" section. From the last quarter of the nineteenth century on, however, Nakarattars elaborated on this common theme, adding on extra rooms around the central core and incorporating a variety of colonial architectural motifs, ranging from Mughal-inspired towers to niches with sculptures of Queen Victoria. Such elaborations are depicted in the floor plan of a more elaborated Nakarattar house and in the following four photographs of Nakarattar houses.
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Plan of a simple chettinad house 1. Veranda.Central, Ceremonial Section of House,2. Hal vitu or vitu: first courtyard; literally, "hall house.3. Tontu: columns, 4. Melpati, tinnai: a raised platform on which people sit, usually under the veranda or on either side of the door of the house ,5. Valavu: aisle or corridor surrounding central courtyard; central section of house including central courtyard, aisle, and inner and outer rooms; entire house, 6. Ull arai: pulli's inner room for puja and storage of dowry items, 7. Veli arai: pulli's outer, "conjugal" room, 8. Kattu: second courtyard, women's courtyard; where grains are dried, foods are prepared, and water is stored, 9. Samayal arai: kitchen, 10. Kutchin: a small room for women during their menses and for girls during their coming-of-age ceremony, 11. Veranda, 12. Pin kattu: open garden space with or without well.
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Plan of an elaborate chettinad house 1. Munn arai: front room, 2. Murram: courtyard, 3. Talvaram: corridor. Central, Ceremonial Section of House, 4. Kalyana kottakai: marriage hall, 5. Patakasalai, tinnai: the "public" room in a house, 6. Bhojana salai: dining hall,7. Veliarai: outer room, 8. Ullarai: inner room, 9. Irantam maiya arai: second central hall, 10. Murram: courtyard, roofed or covered with grill work, 11. Murram: courtyard, roofed or covered with grill work, 12. Talvaram: corridor, 13. Kalanjiyam: store room, 14. Samaiyal arai: kitchen ("cooking room"),15. Pin kattu: backyard, 16. Keni: well.
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THE COMMON THREAD All the case studies seen earlier, have defining attributes that make each of these buildings living brands. They develop an architectural voice from the ‘inside – out’. These buildings are not perfected stylistic veneers and can afford to be inconsistent as long as they don’t abandon these attributes. They have an intrinsic value to the indigenous cultures of the specific place. This not only helps in reenergizing the brand on a consistent basis but also make truly authentic brand environments that connect commerce with culture and communities in more meaningful ways. When buildings project a three dimensional personality, their attributes are all we know that the brand resonates with authenticity. In this sense, the holistic choreography of a experience rests on the architecture, the program and human interaction. After all, if the architecture and the service are not perfectly tailored together, the aesthetic experience becomes irrelevant. HIGHER PHILOSOPHY The vision of architecture for the apple store was to push the edge of technology while keeping it extremely comfortable for people. While technological retail experiences can be daunting for most people, the aim for the apple store design was to be empathetic and supportive. The genius bar as a space is specially designed as a community space that reinvents the concept of customer services. The apple store also shows the brands commitment towards innovation. The remodeling of the store after a mere 6 year existence to accommodate the newer technology is a testimony to that. Mercedes Benz being the oldest car manufacturers in the world, the museum had to glorify this inseparable link between tradition and innovation. The museum embodies the century old automotive history of the brand and stand as a monument for their achievements. The Jewish Museum captures the full spectrum of human emotions, embodying humanity's remarkable capacity for horrific cruelty and eternal hope. Few buildings have evoked the unspeakable with as much clarity. The very opportunity to present the wrong done to the Jewish community is amplified in each of the spaces and instigates the same emotions that would have been experienced by the Jews in those times.
The tour of the Mercedes Benz museum starts at this horse to remind people of the first mode of transport.
Billboard outside the apple store during renovation
The faces in the museum
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SOCIAL VALUE The apple store added value to the New York cityscape. The new plaza in front of the General Motors building on Fifth Avenue at 59th Street is a triumph of urban design. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, New York has a new public space that will prove to be a source of civic pride and aesthetic delight. The store was thought of not as retail spaces but as social spaces. The design of the chettinad houses bought about a new lifestyle that was a hybrid of the local and the global. The courtyard spaces were used for various celebratory events bringing a lot of families together. The thinnais were also spaces men where men interacted with others. The architectural structure of a typical Chettiar home is a study in how a human dwelling can be constructed in harmony with nature. It is one of the most climatically responsive structures. In the Jewish museum, the building itself manages to be figurative without being painfully literal, commemorative without being bombastic, and engaging without resorting to a clunky ‘interactivity’. The fact that it is the building that manages all of this is itself remarkable. The Jewish Museum will be found to manifest a primary characteristic of museums dealing with unsavory histories -- a complex and sophisticated overlap between the roles of museum, monument and memorial, and a meditation on the museum’s role in both embodying and containing memory. the Jewish Museum as a kind of constructed ruin, a monument which was always already 'ruined' by the events of history.
UNRAVELLING SPACES the Mercedes Benz museum’s narrative is subtly layered and offers a nice blend of traditional glamour heritage and a more down-to-earth social history approach, we can also observe an explicit message. Mercedes-Benz was the inventor of the modern car and the dreams and visions of the corporation’s founders are still vivid and recognizable in today’s cars: comfort, safety, speed, durability and social responsibility. The Museum experience begins with visitors traveling up through the atrium to the top floor from where they follow the two main paths that unfold chronologically as they descend through the building. The two main trajectories, one being the car and truck collection and the other consisting of historical displays called the Legend rooms, spiral downwards on the perimeter of the display platforms, intersecting with each other at several points allowing the visitor to change routes . This makes it a unique experience for the visitors. To enter the apple store, you must go down a flight of glass stairs or 21
a glass-enclosed elevator to a below-grade level where the actual products are located. It excites the customer and creates the sense of mystery. The entry transports one to a completely different technological world. The Jewish museum plays with notions of memory and scripted architecture. It allows for an internal sequential route for visitors, whilst disorientating them within the zigzag of its corridors and exhibition spaces. It is experienced as both a processional series of spaces and a curious labyrinth within which to make discoveries. The deflected entry is a subtle psychological ploy; by temporarily drawing you away from the Jewish Museum and anchoring the entry in a building devoted to Berlin's history, it reminds you of the abandonment that made the Holocaust possible. It is as easy to ignore the truth here as it is to confront it. Simply turn left instead of right. From the bottom of the stair, you pass along a maze of intersecting, underground passageways. A long narrow path, its concrete floor gently rising, leads to the Stair of Continuity and up to the main galleries. As if to suggest the randomness of our fate, other paths veer off this one--one leads to the Path of Exile, another to a room called the Holocaust Void. The chettinad house unfolds as a series of spaces which are also significant for its social value. The spaces unfold from being public to semi private to private in nature creating strong demarcation of spaces that can be used by the outsiders and the residents of the house and as well as for men and women.
FORM AND FACADE The simplicity in the form of the apple store instantly connected with the brand and the users. The innovative use of glass proved to be a very successful branding technique. The shell of the Mercedes Benz museum consists of materials which are also used in the automotive industry – aluminum and glass. The bright polished aluminum paneling has the appearance of intertwining bands, while the darker-looking window strips beckon mysteriously inside. This impression is reversed at night-time, the external shell blending into the darkness while an enigmatic light glows within. These façade treatments influence the lighting inside the building. The cuts in the façade of the Jewish museum evoke painful scars the Holocaust has left on our collective memory. But one of the design's greatest strengths is its resistance to simplistic 22
interpretations. This analogy to inscriptions on skin is reinforced by the cut and folded walls. The lighting slits created from the displaced topographical lines on the site, and folded up into the elevation, inscribe absence onto the surface of the building’s corpus. The more elaborate the front door of the chettinad house, the higher the status of the homeowner, therefore one often finds a highly decorated and intricately carved front doors. The thinnai, an open raised verandah next to the front door, is a ubiquitous part of the Chettiar mansion façade. This would be where family members casually entertained guests who didn’t have a reason to enter the house, and even where men folk would sleep on particularly warm nights. Here, the thinnai is adorned with antique Athangudi tiles, a traditional handmade tile of clay and river sand from Chettinad, which look remarkably similar to local Peranakan ones. This was to display their wealth and opulence.
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CRAFT The Apple Store feature a glass staircase, which for multi-level stores was originally intended to attract customers to visit the upper floors, and some even feature a glass bridge this extensive attention to detail led the first glass staircase to receive a design patent in 2002 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. while the staircase design itself received a design patent, and the complex glass and hardware system received a separate technical patent. These titanium hardware systems were crafted and perfected for the apple store, this technology which has been replicated in various apple stores across the globe. In the Mercedes Benz museum, to establish a strict distinction between horizontal and vertical surfaces, an element was designed - the so-called Twists. As the name suggests, building elements incorporating two twists - are the most spectacular innovation in the building. They emerge from the lift shafts as a vertical wall and then spiral upwards in a gentle sweep, supported by the next shaft. The chettinad houses are a real piece of workmanship with intricate designs that suppliment the simple geometry of the building. These elements were created out of different materials lending each a unique character.
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BRANDING ARCHITECTS Architects are transforming themselves from individual luminaries to companies bent on extending brand recognition throughout the world. The question, of course, is how much value an architect actually adds to a project, and how architects became brands in the first place. What makes an architect into a brand? Part of the recognition of a brand depends on its "personality“. Sometimes style can be a trap. Some architects have design style that vary considerably from project to project producing a variety of work. This contradicts the traditional notion that the work of celebrated architects should be individual and identifiable. Most architectural careers are marked by a deliberate evolution. The drive to establish their own unique brands pushes young architects to distinguish themselves early. Moreover, public recognition of an architect's particular can hinder the natural artistic evolution of a designer's style. 25
BIJOY JAIN sanctuary his buildings express an underlying wish for peace. bijoy jains designs are sensitive and engaging with the surrounding sense of nature living in an urban environment. he pays attention to the anonymous proliferation of structures that the profession of architecture hasn’t paid attention to, the unplanned growth that lie outside our purview. He carefully chooses his projects to suit his ideologies and aspirations paying careful attention to every detail in every nook and cranny. The details permeate unconsciously, emerge in time and give them a sense of pride. Apart from architecture his commitment has been to be qualitative from his own standards. In his design, one can see the idea of freedom that is created internally and not as an external phenomena. He emphasis on the idea of no maintenance, using material that is impervious to nature – all worked towards creating secure spaces, creating predictability. Recurring elements distinguishes his work from others while providing continuity within his own projects. Rather than dismissing what has developed over several hundred years or discarding something because its new, he works with a combination of periods – a hybrid. traditional skills, local building techniques, materials, and an ingenuity arising from limited resources. The essence of his work lies in the relationship between land and architecture, it requires coming to terms with the presence of the environment through the succession of seasons. Inspired by real life conditions, he observes the complexity of relationships within each project without any assumption or prejudice. his attempt is to remain intuitive, and look for a space to initiate a dialogue. It is through this practice that the matter being observed naturally reveals itself. his endeavor is to show the genuine possibility in
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creating buildings that emerge through a process of collective dialog, a face-to-face sharing of knowledge through imagination, intimacy, and modesty. He believes in operating within a set of ethics which are critical with affinity to work that is been done and the participation. he displays a certain ease of means in constructability and materials, empathy to internal and external surrounding, empathy in the human condition in the endeavor of architecture. he does not believe in innovation for the sake of innovation, but innovation as a reaction to a particularly demanding situation.
We’ve lost dignity – given up that position of doing things with a certain discipline. Earlier things were created with a spirit – nothing to do with physicality – just the spirit with which they went about doing it – that’s probably why we are fascinated with the old, because of the intrinsic quality of what brought that about. If you encounter something today that was made with the same spirit, it is as modern or as old.
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HAFEEZ CONTRACTOR Builder’s starchitect
Hafeez Contractor is peculiarly a Bombay phenomenon. His architecture is an attempt to make the best of the cramping site and by-law conditions in Bombay .His architecture reflects the multitudes of preferences that the consumerist masses demand. He believes that the success of any idea rests on whether or not the consumers are fully satisfied with the product and if the product is not adaptable to the complex market environment, it is a complete failure. Also, he believes that modern day concerns are infinite and working within any one system is too limiting. Here, the architect is as the dictionary defines him: a person who designs buildings. This is not about form follows function, or less is more, or envisioning habitats. The factory’s patrons know the worth of a buck, and they do not care much for architecture as art. Critics have often condemned Hafeez’s practice as frivolous for being inconsistent in his style. The approach of the architect to the surface of the building is similar to that of advertisers and marketing strategists. The objective is not just a beautiful surface, but a surface made saleable in a beautiful manner. Thus, the surface of a typical building is packed with a jumble of various elements borrowed from the popular imagination, for their association with exclusivity and opulence thought they form no deeper connection with each other. The aspirational aspects of these images or elements (almost always of a Western pedigree) are startlingly similar to those in advertising campaigns for a consumer product. act of endless production has stripped him of most ideologies, bar one: the client’s happiness comes above all else and every client is of value. And clients like their costs minimized, and design amplified. With today’s
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emphasis on client experience, Hafeez’s approach seems sensible.Hiranandanis, whose township in Powai (a suburb of Mumbai) is critically despised for its design but admired for the sense of community. “The thought for that first building came from wanting to construct something cheaper, and also wanting to create an environment so that people felt at home. The insides suffered, but this did not affect demand for the apartments. Their purpose had been fulfilled; it didn’t matter how uncomfortable the interior was, as long as the building looked great from outside. This was anathema to other architects, who selected their projects with consideration and deliberated on every space.
If a man wants something, if he has something in mind, why do you want to give him something else and lump it? A lot of times, architects force their will and views on others. All that happens is you get unsatisfied customers.” Every client deserved to derive satisfaction. 30
Infosys Mysore displays different styles of architecture all in one campus 31
THE BILBAO EFFECT
Architecture as a catalyst for urban regeneration 32
GUGGENHIEM MUSEUM, BILBAO The catalyst
In the second half of the 20th century, Bilbao suffered from the effects of a declining steel and shipbuilding industry. A strategy was needed to transform the city into a centre for tourism and modern service industries. The Guggenheim Bilbao project has been deemed an urban renewal success story, helping to transform an insignificant dying port city into a major tourist attraction. Architecture since then has played an enormous role in the branding of cities – primarily with cultural institutions to elevate the image of a city in the global market. Frank o gerhys Guggenheim in Bilbao put a formerly economically depressed town in Spain on the map and turned it into a major tourist destination. Other cities soon followed suit and have in recent years successfully used architecture as part of a larger city branding strategy. If one counts the number of buildings that are currently under construction in the far east , the US and elsewhere, in the pursuit to construct new meaning structures and by redefining urban and regional identities one can notice how integral architecture is to city branding. When seen in the socio cultural context, architecture is no longer a part of projecting our environment , it has become the essence of it.
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While the enormous publicity generated by gehrys Guggenheim has persuasively countered bibaos image as a provincial port city, the most interesting aspect of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao is its achievement of new successful growth patterns. By successfully redefining the image of the city, the museum prompted a comprehensive urban renewal process – so much so that the transformation of Bilbao reads like a who of modern architecture. Downstream strands another cultural component of urban regeneration – the euskalduna jauregia Bilbao conference and music center, designed by Madrid architects Federico Soriano and Dolores Palacios. In addition the new cultural venues, new transportation projects were also conceived for strategic impact. British architect Norman Foster designed a metro system with futuristic semicircular, fan shaped entrances . Santiago calatrava, designed Bilbao's new airport as well as a delicate footbridge spanning the Nervion river which runs through the city. Cesar Pelli created a master plan for the development of the riverbank designed an iconic thirty five story office tower. Overall, the city s newfound success lies in a combination of innovative cultural and commercial programs, world class architecture, and thee regeneration of old neighborhoods. Finally the Bilbao effect could be described as a powerful amalgamation of three ingredients – an emblematic icon, a global trademark and a signature architect
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BRANDING CITIES A brand is something that brings out the identity of a particular place. How do you take the potential residing in a particular place or culture and how do you use architecture in conjunction with urban design to express the culture in a way that leads people to identify with it. it is absolutely necessary to nurture that sense of belonging. City branding refers to all the activities that are undergone with the purpose of turning a City from a location into a destination. The prism with which cites are defined and judged is more multi�faceted than ever. "Successful can turn a city into a place where people want to live, work and visit". It creates a single brand for the city and extends it to all its offerings and interactions. From a common mans point of view this creates a unique picture of the city at every level of interactions. 35
City branding is often confused with City marketing. The difference comes from the fact that marketing uses consumer wishes and needs as its guiding principle for the operations of an organization, whereas in the case of branding a chosen vision, mission and identity play that role. City branding refers to the application of branding techniques to geographical locations in the widest sense of the word. City branding creates a single brand for the city and extends it to all its offerings and interactions. From a customer point of view this creates a unique picture of the city at every level of interactions. This also helps in removing the need to present a case by case picture of the city for each of its offering to the customers. A city brand is its promise of value, a promise that needs to be kept. Good branding can assist in making cities desirable, just as bad branding can assist in making cities undesirable. Some examples of well branded cities are New York City, San Francisco and Paris. Its seen that the successful city brands marketed their history, quality of place, lifestyle, culture, diversity, and proactively formed cooperative partnerships between city municipalities and government in order to enhance their infrastructure. The strategic application of city branding is growing with nations, regions, cities, and institutions as they realize they compete with other places for people, resources, and business. The phenomenon of city branding, as an organic process of image communication without strategy, has been occurring throughout history. Examples of strategic place brands are diverse and include Amsterdam, Las Vegas, shanghai and Beijing. Examples of organic place brands are ancient and include Jerusalem, Paris, and New York.
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A GREAT CITY STARTS WITH ONE QUESTION
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CURITIBA
ecological capital of brazil Few cities have cracked the code on successful green branding. Curitiba has achieved icon status as a center for green innovation. The biggest city expansion occurred after the 1950s, with an innovative urban planning that changed the population size from some hundreds of thousands to more than a million people. Nowadays Curitiba economy is based on industry and services, being the 4th biggest economy in Brazil. The economy growth occurred in parallel to a substantial inward flow of Brazilians from other cities of the country. During this expansion the emphasis was on strict controls on urban sprawl, a reduction of traffic in the downtown area, preservation of Curitiba's Historic Sector, and a convenient and affordable public transit system. The vision of the mayor, Jaime Lerner was to make a livable city; over time that segued smoothly into an ecological city. Parks initially intended as recreational areas would also absorb floodwaters and extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The city has also paid careful attention to preserving and caring for its green areas, boasting 51.5 square metres (554 sq ft) of green space per inhabitant. Today, Curitiba is considered one of the best examples of urban planning worldwide. In June 1996, the chairman of the Habitat II summit of mayors and urban planners in Istanbul praised Curitiba as "the most innovative city in the country."Curitiba was recently recommended by UNESCO as a model for the reconstruction of the cities of Afghanistan. Environmentalism is the heart of Curitiba’s self-identity, and the municipal government is always devising new schemes that showcase the brand. The rest of the world has caught on, if not yet caught up. Ecological awareness is architecturally trendy.
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BUS RAPID TRANSIT Curitiba's public transportation consists entirely of buses, as it opened the world's first bus rapid transit (BRT) system in 1974.The popularity of Curitiba's BRT has effected a modal shift from automobile travel to bus travel. Based on 1991 traveler survey results, it was estimated that the introduction of the BRT had caused a reduction of about 27 million auto trips per year, saving about 27 million liters of fuel annually. In particular, 28 percent of BRT riders previously traveled by car. Compared to eight other Brazilian cities of its size, Curitiba uses about 30 percent less fuel per capita, resulting in one of the lowest rates of ambient air pollution in the country. Today about 1,100 buses make 12,500 trips every day, serving more than 1.3 million passengers, 50 times the number from 20 years ago. Eighty percent of travelers use the express or direct bus services. Best of all, Curitibanos spend only about 10 percent of their income on travel, much below the national average. Curitiba integrated transportation with land use planning, calling for a cultural, social, and economic transformation of the city. It limited central area growth, while encouraging commercial growth along the transport arteries radiating out from the city center. The city center was partly closed to vehicular traffic, and pedestrian streets were created. Linear development along the arteries reduced the traditional importance of the downtown area as the primary focus of day-to-day transport activity, thereby minimizing congestion and the typical morning and afternoon flows of traffic. Instead, rush hour in Curitiba has heavy commuter movements in both directions along the public transportation arteries. Every year, tourism grows in Curitiba. To attend this demand, the Linha Turismo ("Tourism Line") started in 1994. Its a special city tour that visits the principal tourist attractions in Curitiba, featuring comfortable green busses with big windows and a shape similar to that of streetcars.
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LIGHTHOUSES OF KNOWLEDGE These Lighthouses are free educational centers which include libraries, Internet access, and other cultural resources. Job training, social welfare and educational programs are coordinated, and often supply labor to improve the city's amenities or services, as well as education and income. GARBAGE THAT’S NOT GARBAGE Under this program, 70% of the city's trash is recycled by its residents. Once a week, a truck collects paper, cardboard, metal, plastic and glass that has been sorted in the city's homes. The city's paper recycling alone saves the equivalent of 1,200 trees a day. As well as the environmental benefits, money raised from selling materials goes into social programs, and the city employs the homeless and recovering alcoholics in its garbage separation plant URBAN PARKS The city has also paid careful attention to preserving and caring for its green areas, boasting 51.5 square meters (554 sq ft) of green space per inhabitant
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ATTRACTIONS -Wire Opera House It is one of the emblematic symbols of Curitiba, with tubular structure and transparent ceiling, of great beauty. it caters for all types of shows, between lakes, typical vegetation and cascades, on a unique landscape. was referred to as “urban acupuncture” -Botanical gardens Curitiba's trademark, created to resemble French gardens, rolls out its flower carpet to the visitors right at the entrance. The greenhouse, with a metallic structure, has botanic species that are national symbols, and also a water fountain. - Oscar Niemeyer Museum built to honor its famous architect who completed this project at 95 years of age. It is also known as Museu do Olho or Museum of the Eye, due to the design of the building. it represents a cultural institution of international significance
UN CONVENTION ON BIO DIVERSITY On 20–31 March 2006 an important world gathering of the United Nations on biodiversity took place in Pinhais (a city near Curitiba), addressing items of the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity adopted by 188 countries.
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NEW YORK
America's True Melting Pot With a skyline that’s recognizable worldwide and more than 8.3 million people from all corners of the globe who call it home, New York City is a one-of-a-kind destination. Each of the five boroughs has its own distinctive flavor, while individual neighborhoods, streets and even single blocks maintain identities all their own. The culture of New York City is reflected by the city's size and variety. Times Square, iconified as "The Crossroads of the World", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway theater district, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections ,and a major center of the world's entertainment industry .The city hosts many world renowned bridges, skyscrapers, and parks. New York City's financial district, anchored by Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, functions as the financial capital of the world and is home to the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by total market capitalization of its listed companies. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. Manhattan‘s Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive rapid transit systems in the world. Numerous colleges and universities are located in New York, including Columbia University and New York University
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ATTRACTIONS The roots of New York bring back the earliest economic factors and trade issues. The “pull” of New York was originally centered around economic interests, but evolved to include a litany of attractions. These include -Central Park - The Empire State Building - Greenwich Village - the MET - The Museum of Modern Art, SoHo - The Statue of Liberty -Times Square -The United Nations Building - The New York Public Library - The Guggenheim - The World Trade Center - Tribeca The brand equity New York possesses is not only history, but it makes history every day it comes alive again. These attractions are magnets not only to the residents, but tourists who provide 35 million visitors annually for New York.1 Eventually, New York itself outgrew its natural shoreline and to this day continues to wrestle with two conflicting visions, a monumental city built on a grand design, and a commercial Mecca built spontaneously by capitalism and democracy. New York City has been described as the cultural capital of the world. Numerous major American cultural movements began in the city, such as the Harlem Renaissance, which established the African-American literary canon in the United States. The city was a center of jazz in the 1940s, abstract expressionism in the 1950s and the birthplace of hip hop in the 1970s. The city's punk and hardcore scenes were influential in the 1970s and 1980s, and the city has long had a flourishing scene for Jewish American literature.
“Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather.”—Tom Wolfe 43
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NICKNAME
Why is New York called the Big Apple? Morning Telegraph reporter, John J. FitzGerald, first made common use of the term during the 1920’s in reference to the city’s racetracks. He apparently first heard it used by African American stable hands in New Empire State Building in 1921. The term was popularized among African American jazz musicians in the 1930’s, who regarded New York, and particularly Harlem, as the capital city of jazz. Its modern use derives largely from a publicity campaign developed in 1971 by the New York Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. Since this time, New York has always been referred to as “The Big Apple”. THE PEOPLE The force behind every city is its people, and nowhere is this more prevalent than in New York. If the branding of any city is to be successful, it needs the support of residents, community leaders and state and city government to engage people in debate and motivate them to contribute time and money. New York has always had good success with its people giving back to the city, and in light of the September 11th setback, this has been even more prevalent. In a city with a reputation for toughness and egos, the brand of New York is something that all New Yorkers can agree on. Each resident is a walking, talking advertisement for a city brand. New York’s enjoys the advantage of loyal residents that consistently help to reinforce its positive brand image.
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THE SKYLINE Probably nothing tells the story of a city as vividly as its skyline. Seen over the course of the decades, it is often more the absences or the gaps that tell of significant and often traumatic events than new and daring constructions that seem to fight for viewers’ attention. The building form most closely associated with New York City is the skyscraper, which has controversially shifted many commercial and residential districts from low-rise to high-rise. Surrounded mostly by water, the city has amassed one of the largest and most varied collection of skyscrapers in the world. New York has architecturally significant buildings in a wide range of styles spanning distinct historical and cultural periods
BRANDING EFFORTS In 1970, the State of New York decided to promote tourism to help offset a recession, and asked the Ad Agency Wells, Rich and Greene, and graphic artist Milton Glaser to develop a campaign, and the “I Love NY” slogan was created along with the campaign which is still one of the most recognized and successful campaigns in the history of great emotional branding. I LOVE NEW YORK is the official State of New York slogan, and is still used to promote New York today. The innovative pop-style icon became a major success and has continued to be sold for years. In the popular mind (though this was not the original intention) the logo has become closely associated with New York City, and the placement of the logo on plain white T-shirts readily sold in the city has widely circulated the appearance of the image, making it a commonly recognized symbol
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THE 9/11 IMPACT The famous hustle and bustle that New York was world renowned for was cut short on this day. Although severely shaken, the city and its people were quick to regain composure and normality, rebuilding the business district and the city’s confidence in record time. The tragic events of that day showed all of us a side of New York that we did not think existed before. Rebuilding the sense of community in New York was key during that tumultuous time, and vital in showing the rest of the world that New York had survived. The image became especially prominent following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the city, which created a sense of unity among the populace.
Tribute in Light; designed by a number of artists in memoriam to the victims of September 11th. This was lit for only 32 days in September of 2003 47
THE COMMON THREAD - Purpose and potential creates value for a city, region or country by aligning the messages that the place already sends out, in accordance with a powerful and distinctive strategic vision; by unlocking the talent of the people who live there and stimulating investment to reinforce and fulfill this vision; and by creating new, powerful and cost-effective ways to give the place a more effective and memorable voice and enhance its international reputation. - Truth Places often suffer from an image which is out of date, unfair, unbalanced, or clichĂŠridden. It is one of the tasks of place branding to ensure that the true, full, contemporary picture is communicated in a focused and effective way; never to compromise the truth or glamorize it irresponsibly. - Aspirations and betterment The city brand needs to present a credible, compelling and sustainable vision for its future, firmly in the context of our shared future. This will support the overall aim of a real increase in the economic, political, cultural, and social well being of the people who live in the city, whilst contributing in a more than token way to the well being of other people in other cities. - Inclusiveness and common good city branding can and should be used for achieving societal, political and economic objectives. Inevitably, a workable strategy will favor certain groups or individuals over others, and this creates an inalienable responsibility to ensure that they are supported in other ways. Creativity and innovation city branding should find, release, and help direct the talents and skills of the population, and promote the creative use of these in order to achieve innovation in education, business, government, environment and the arts. Furthermore, only creativity of the highest order can ‘square the circle’ of translating the complexity of a place into purposeful, distinctive and effective brand strategy - Complexity and simplicity The reality of cities is intricate and often contradictory, yet the essence of effective branding is simplicity and directness. It is one of the harder tasks of city branding to do justice to the richness and diversity of places and their peoples, yet to communicate this to the world in ways which are simple, truthful, motivating, appealing and memorable. - Connectivity city branding connects people and institutions at home and abroad. The clear and shared sense of purpose which good brand strategy engenders can help unite government, the private sector and non-governmental organizations; it stimulates involvement and participation among the population; externally, it helps build strong and positive links to other places and other people. -Things take time city branding is a long-term endeavour. It need not and should not cost more than any place can comfortably afford, but is neither a quick fix nor a short-term campaign. Devising an appropriate place brand strategy and implementing it thoroughly takes time and effort, wisdom and patience; if properly done, the long-term advantages, both tangible and intangible, will outweigh the costs by far. City branding has become an integral part of urban development. Places are complex entities made up of numerous characteristics : environment, urban design, history, culture, politics, etc. A city should be a synthesis of these components into an organized, unified image that signals content and differentiability. A city brand creates a narrative about a locality in order to make it recognizable to outsiders and to develop a sense of community. 48
THE LAST WORD Brands synthesize images, identities and lifestyles into coherent entities while simultaneously codifying cultural values. Brands can also ct as a catalyst to raise the value of a particular building or destination. Building designed with these tools of branding form a well etched experience for the viewers. The purpose of architecture is to create experiences and branding is one way of creating aspirational yet authentic spaces providing a catalyst for meaningful experiences. 49