Architectural Branding

Architectural Branding Star architects add value to a THE NAMES OF architects such as Richard Meier, Robert A. M. Stern, high-end residential property, Daniel Libeskind, and Jean Nouvel have been prominently featured in advertise- don’t they? ments for high-end residential properties. Harnessing architectural design in the service of commercial real estate is not new, of course. In the 19th century, a firm such as McKim, Mead & White, best known for its mansions, private clubs, and public libraries, frequently designed prestigious commercial buildings, especially banks. More recently, in the 1970s and 1980s, developers, led by Gerald Hines and George Klein, commissioned A-list architects such as Philip WITOLD RYBCZYNSKI Johnson, I. M. Pei, and Kevin Roche to 94 ZELL/LURIE REAL ESTATE CENTER build office towers. These class-A build- Zurich hotel, an Amsterdam office buildings derived their prestige in great meas- ing, and mixed-use developments in ure from their design quality. The differ- Sydney, Australia, and St. Petersburg, ence today is that employing a famous Russia. In addition, Foster & Partners architect is not only about adding design was recently hired to design one of the value; it is also about adding cachet, since office towers at the World Trade Center individual architects have achieved a site. Part of the recognition of a brand much greater measure of celebrity than in depends on what people who study such the past. In some cases, their names are so things call its “personality.” London- well-known to the public that they have based Foster & Partners has become an achieved the status of brands. The ques- international architectural brand with a tions are: How did branding come to definite personality: Innovative Technical architecture in the first place, and how Solutions to Complex Problems. much value does a big-name architect Foster and Partner’s chief rival is the actually add to a real estate project? Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), based in Genoa and Paris. Piano came to the fore when (with PERSONALITY Richard Rogers) he won the competition to build the Pompidou Center in Paris. What makes an architect into a brand? Since then Piano has established an The British architect Norman Foster international practice that, like Foster & built a number of technically sophisticat- Partners, specializes in large, complex ed buildings in Britain in the 1970s and projects such as Kansai, the new Osaka 1980s, including a head office and a airport. RPBW also designs cultural proj- plant for IBM and a distribution center ects (currently museums in Boston, New for Renault. His first design that attract- York, Chicago, and Atlanta) as well as ed worldwide attention was a striking commercial buildings, including a headquarters for the Hongkong and mixed-use development in Berlin, the Shanghai Bank, an early example of the New York Times office tower in so-called Hi-Tech architectural style. Manhattan, a mixed-use tower in This was followed by airports, university London, and residential and office com- buildings, telecommunications towers, plexes in Lisbon and Sydney (Figure 2). conference centers, and office buildings The Piano brand, which conveys a sense (Figure 1). The Foster website currently of bespoke elegance, is something like lists commercial projects that include a Stylish Solutions to Any Problem. REVIEW 95 Figure 1: Hearst Building, New York City, Figure 2: Aurora Place, Sydney, Australia, Foster & Partners, architects. Renzo Piano Building Workshop, architects. Piano’s one-time partner, Richard Rogers, who at an early age had a brief Rogers, has also emerged as an interna- partnership with Foster, is the most flam- tional force. The Richard Rogers boyant designer of the trio, as the irre- Partnership (RRP), which is based in pressible Lloyd’s Building in London London but also has offices in Tokyo, demonstrates (Figure 3). Barcelona, and Madrid, has built airport Although the work of Foster, Piano, terminals in London and Madrid, office and Rogers is grounded in highly sophisti- towers in London, as well as the cated, technologically based building con- Millennium Dome. RRP is also active in struction, these architects do not have a the United States, where it is renovating house style. Instead, their designs are a and expanding the Jacob K. Javits function of programmatic requirements. Convention Center in Manhattan and This goes against the conventional idea building commercial projects in New York that the work of a celebrated architect and Washington, D.C., and an office must have an identifiable, or so-called sig- tower at the World Trade Center site. Lord nature, style. But style can be a trap, as 96 ZELL/LURIE REAL ESTATE CENTER Figure 3: Lloyd’s Building, London, that sometimes appears to overwhelm the Richard Rogers Partnership, architects. problem at hand. When I mentioned to a friend that Graves had recently built a building in Philadelphia, she said, “I didn’t know that it was a real Graves—I thought it was a knock-off.” CELEBRITY A recognizable brand depends on more than merely name recognition. The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas has tried to trans- form his personal celebrity into an international brand, which he calls the Office of Richard Meier, with his persistent white Metropolitan Architecture, or OMA. walls and expanses of glass, found at the OMA, with offices in Rotterdam, Beijing, Getty Center. Although this large complex and New York, has produced a variety of of buildings is exquisitely built, it has not work, from a big-box convention center in captured the public’s attention in the man- Cordoba to a crystalline library in Seattle ner of other recent art museums, such as and an unusual skyscraper in Beijing. A the Bilbao Guggenheim or the Tate large, mixed-use complex in Louisville, Modern in London. Kentucky, will include a hotel, offices, res- Although architects in the past success- idences, and an art museum. Like Foster, fully used the same historical style (Gothic, Piano, and Rogers, OMA has avoided Romanesque, or Classical) for many differ- architectural style as a branding tool, ent commissions, it is risky to apply a per- although its designs are distinctly fashion- sonal style to a variety of buildings such as able, in an edgy sort of way. The buildings court houses, campus buildings, museums, are frequently not conventionally attrac- hotels, office blocks, and condominiums. tive, and they often challenge established The danger is that the buildings become taste. But OMA also demonstrates the per- stylistic parodies. Michael Graves, for ils of turning avant-garde architecture, example, is an architect with a distinctive usually associated with individual design- style—simplified, almost cartoonish, ers, into an international brand. Recently Classical forms and warm Tuscan colors— the entire New York City office broke REVIEW 97 away from the OMA organization and set tural, quirky buildings that don’t look like up on its own, as if Diet Coke had split off buildings (and, incidentally, are difficult from Coca Cola. and expensive to build). It will be a chal- Another firm that is making the tran- lenge to successfully adapt Gehry’s sition from an avant-garde, boutique prac- approach to a large commercial develop- tice to an international brand is Basel- ment, such as the ones that he is planning based Herzog & de Meuron, founded by for Brooklyn (Figure 5) and downtown Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. Los Angeles. They began as self-styled artists, and It is not difficult to explain why archi- seemed ill-suited to become an interna- tects are attracted to branding. Like tional branded practice. But after a suc- lawyers, doctors, and accountants, archi- cessful series of art museums, including tects are essentially professional workers the celebrated Tate Modern in London who are paid highly, by the hour. Although and the recent de Young Museum in San they create organizations that are able to Francisco, they expanded into distinctly produce many projects at once (most of non-cultural buildings: a soccer stadium the firms being discussed here have in Munich, the Olympic stadium in between one hundred and two hundred Beijing (Figure 4), and a luxury condo- employees), when all is said and done, they minium building in New York. Like are only as solvent as their next commis- Foster and Piano, Herzog & de Meuron sion. How can architects who have devel- have avoided a signature style. Their oped widely recognizable brands capitalize designs are less technological than Foster, on that recognition? Put another way, can RPBW, or RRP, but considerably more architects follow in the footsteps of other fashionable, which may be why they were creative individuals, such as celebrity commissioned to do a series of buildings chefs? Where once a successful cook could for Prada. rise no higher than owning his own restau- Frank Gehry has perhaps the strongest rant, starting in the 1990s, a modern architectural franchise in the world today. celebrity chef with a recognized brand, Although he has built a number of small such as Wolfgang Puck, Mario Batali, or commercial projects in Prague, Berlin, and Emeril Lagasse, could become a wealthy Boston, he is chiefly known for his cultur- entrepreneur, writing cookbooks, endors- al monuments, notably the Guggenheim ing culinary products, hosting television Museum in Bilbao and the Disney programs, opening restaurants in different Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The Gehry cities, and franchising his name to a brand is unmistakable: whimsical, sculp- national chain. 98 ZELL/LURIE REAL ESTATE CENTER Figure 4: Olympic stadium, Beijing, Herzog & de Meuron, architects. Figure 5: Atlantic Yards, Brooklyn, Frank VALUE Gehry & Partners, architects. Architectural branding has proved benefi- cial to cultural institutions. This is not simply the so-called Bilbao Effect, the ability of unusual architecture to attract visitors (cultural tourists) from great dis- tances; having a recognized architectural brand helps raise public interest in a project at its inception.

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