[ 1 ] Via Images and words Towards an Architecture of Representation Raluca Cirstoc Dissertation 9144 words MA Architecture 2013 [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Contents List of illustrations 5 Title page 9 1. Introduction 11 2. Gallery 15 3. How it came into being? 33 4. Of images and words 39 5. Metaphors of space 47 6. A Shard of spectacle 55 6.1 Elements of semiology 59 6.2 Elements of display 67 7. Final notes on representation 77 Endnotes 83 Bibliography 87 [ 4 ] [ 5 ] List of Illustrations This text uses the following representation for the word ‘Shard‘. Figure 1. Renzo Piano, 2000. First original sketch of the Shard. [image online]. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2012/dec/30/shard-renzo-piano-inspiration. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 2. Renzo Piano, 2012. Sketch of the Shard. [image online]. Available at: http://www.dezeen.com/2012/05/18/interview-renzo- piano-on-the-shard/. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 3. AVR London commissioned by Sellar Property Group, 2009. Rendered image of the Shard. [image online]. Available at: http://www.dezeen.com/2009/08/25/the-shard-by-renzo-piano-building-workshop/. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 4. AVR London commissioned by Sellar Property Group, 2009. Rendered image of the Shard. [image online]. Available at: http://www.dezeen.com/2009/08/25/the-shard-by-renzo-piano-building-workshop/. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 5. AVR London commissioned by Sellar Property Group, 2009. Rendered image of the Shard. [image online]. Available at: http://www.dezeen.com/2009/08/25/the-shard-by-renzo-piano-building-workshop/. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 6. AVR London commissioned by Sellar Property Group, 2009. Rendered image of the Shard. [image online]. Available at: http://www.dezeen.com/2009/08/25/the-shard-by-renzo-piano-building-workshop/. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 7. AVR London commissioned by Sellar Property Group, 2009. Rendered image of the Shard. [image online]. Available at: http://www.dezeen.com/2009/08/25/the-shard-by-renzo-piano-building-workshop/. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 8. AVR London commissioned by Sellar Property Group, 2009. Rendered image of the Shard. [image online]. Available at: [ 6 ] http://www.dezeen.com/2009/08/25/the-shard-by-renzo-piano-building-workshop/. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 9. n.a., 2013. [image online]. Available at: http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Battle-lines-drawn-to-protect-views- of-old-London/28379. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 10. Jeremy Selwyn, 2012. [image online]. Available at: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/storey-by-storey--the-shards- progress-7844163.html?action=gallery&ino=17. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 11. Lewis Whyld/PA Wire, 2012. [image online]. Available at: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/storey-by-storey--the- shards-progress-7844163.html?action=gallery&ino=8. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 12. n.a., 2012. [image online]. Available at: http://www.architectural-review.com/buildings/skylines-opinions-on-renzo-pianos- shard-london/8633386.article. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 13. The View from the Shard, 2013. [image online]. Available at: http://www.theviewfromtheshard.com/#gallery. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 14. n.a., 2013. [image online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolreport/21284915. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 15. Raluca Cirstoc, 2013. [photograph]. Figure 16. Rob Telford, 2013 [image online]. Available at: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=407549&page=1264. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 17. OMA, 2012. Crazy Buildings. [image online]. Available at: http://www.architectural-review.com/the-big-rethink-transcend- and-include-the-past/8629373.article. [Accessed 13th Aug 2013] Figure 18. Greenpeace, 2013. Scaling the Shard. [image online]. Available at: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/greenpeace- women-scale-shard-in-arctic-oil-drilling-protest-8702293.html. [Accessed 03th Oct 2013] [ 7 ] Figure 19. Skyline Chess, 2013. [image online]. Available at: http://www.skyline-chess.com. [Accessed 03th Oct 2013] Figure 20. n.a., 2013. [image online]. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/9380342/ The-Shard-opens-with-laser-light-show.html. [Accessed 03th Oct 2013] Figure 21. n.a., 2013. [image online]. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/9380342/ The-Shard-opens-with-laser-light-show.html. [Accessed 03th Oct 2013] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] Via Images and Words Towards an Architecture of Representation “In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all life presents as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.” 1 The Shard [ 10 ] [ 11 ] 1. Introduction I find myself in a society that promotes the false more than the truth, that is led by images rather than concepts and that believes that the reality exhibited makes up for the truth. Debord (2009) argues in his book The Society of the Spectacle written in 1967 that our lives are driven every second by images that shape the spectacle we live in, spectacle that becomes a tool for exhibiting the false. What is left behind characterises a society of hyper reality, a world made to be imaginary. Being surrounded by symbols, by images created to have a meaning, I find myself overwhelmed by the spectacle-like aspect of humanity. I am unwillingly witnessing what Koolhaas proclaimed as ‘Junkspace’ in 2001. “A shortage of masters has not stopped a proliferation of masterpieces. ‘Masterpiece’ has become a definitive sanction, a semantic space that saves the object from criticism, leaves its qualities unproven, its performance untested, its motives unquestioned... Masterpiece is no longer an inexplicable fluke, a roll of the dice, but a consistent typology: its mission precarious, most of its exterior surfaces bent, huge percentages of its square footage dysfunctional, its centrifugal components barely held together by the pull of the atrium, dreading the imminent arrival of forensic accounting…” 2 Koolhaas is referring to this recent tendency of naming every new building an icon, a masterpiece, as if it is a pre-condition for social [ 12 ] structures, as if the naming leaves no questions to be asked or answered, as if the fashion of a superstructure directly relates to an act of greatness. Architecture seems to have degenerated into a game played by developers trying to get their project built through the use of semiotic fluxes and visually stunning images of what seems to be yet another iconic building. Hence, I ask myself: Has architecture shrunk from a spatial form to an image form? Or even to a semiotic form? Are we more inclined towards images rather than concepts? As Lefebvre points out “We build on the basis of paper and plans, we buy on the basis of images.” 3 Which are the main driving forces behind the image? How is the identity of a place affected? Is there a new identity created? What is being touched upon in order to attract favourable opinions around a certain project? In this dissertation I would like to explore how representation in terms of images and language embodies the idea of identity and of the spectacle, which is being driven by economical and political [ 13 ] forces. My ideas would probably be insufficiently pragmatic for architectural critics and insufficiently conceptual for philosophers but my hope is to speculate on how representation has become an extensively used tool in order to attract positive feedback regarding the built environment. I will be looking at the designed by Renzo Piano in the context presented above, as a phenomenon of architectural communication. The victorious that stands above London Bridge at its 310m, along the river Thames, ignited debate across the world. Being such a large construction, it was unavoidable for a high number of actors4 and issues not to come face to face right from the conception following through to completion. The reason for choosing this specific construction has its roots in the long lasting controversy on buildings that will change the London skyline. In this paper the will be explored through the prism of representation. This dissertation seeks to explore the role that representation plays in the built environment. Through a range of theories and by looking at the as a built precedent, I will examine the extent to which images and semiotics can mislead and influence by considering the importance of identity in a community and whether this current architectural discourse driven by political and economical factors has ceased to create a sense of place. [ 14 ] images imply coping reality, but here they are used as a defence mechanism, as a negation of reality, something that transcends social existence [ 15 ] 2. Gallery Elements of display “In a culture of the simulacrum, communicative practice is necessarily theatrical. Electronic media are instrumental in staging an exchange in which the currency of information makes understanding possible. [...] Imagology involves a second naivete in which the figural, which has too long been repressed by the conceptual, returns as the medium for understanding and communication. The return of figure disfigures the disfiguration of concepts by reinscribing the imago in the midst of the logos. A paradox of the imaginary register: the proliferation of images is iconoclastic. “5 [ 16 ] Figure 1. Renzo Piano apparently sketched the building on a napkin while in a restaurant in Berlin with property developer Irvine Sellar. Renzo Piano, 2000. [ 17 ] Figure 2. Drawing was done during an interview conducted on the 18th of May by Dezeen editor in chief Marcus Fairs. Renzo Piano, 2012 [ 18 ] Figure 3. Images commissioned by Sellar Property Group in order to promote the building. AVR Lodon, 2009. [ 19 ] Figure 4. Images commissioned by Sellar Property Group in order to promote the building. AVR Lodon, 2009.