Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 4 Number 1, April 2003

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The Symbolic Order of Architecture in the Information Age

 

By

  Greg Andonian

 

Abstract

The contemporary European culture embodied in continental architecture is a manifestation of change from the established foundations of modernity of the 20th century to the formative states of virtuality in the new millennium. The European identity, founded on Western principles of acquiring universal knowledge, evolved over centuries of uneasy encounters with its social, political and religious institutions.  Eventually, science and technology shaped the rational condition of present European mind. It overruled the divisive practices of political self- annihilation and embraced the idea of common sense and common culture. It aspired to unify the scientific and literary spheres of inquiry in order to establish a shared vision for the new European character.  Indeed, it instigated the grounding morality of  the European Economic Union and forced the world to a divide between nationalism of the Euro-domain and globalism of American pragmatism. The evolution of high-tech associated with high-think will undoubtedly lead to the high-temptation of establishing a new language of expression

pertaining to the symbolic order of architecture.

 

Keywords: Architecture; symbolic order; virtuality; new language; nationalism; globalism.

 

Introduction

The will to politics pertaining to European regional culture is yielding the power to control policies regarding the Global Village. This scenario is mitigated by disruptive high-tech and destructive economic practices on the world markets. The Grand Narrative of multinationals is creating grand demands for their symbolic visibility on the global landscape. The struggle for globalization of ideas -- to spread ethical behavior in knowledge dissemination and enact a code of conduct for global business practices -- is not necessarily seeking a consensus on a universally shared value system, but rather attempting to devalue the existing regional one. The common denominator of “novelty” advanced by global “visionaries” is manifestly insignificant and projections of change for the global betterment of human quality of life is factually irrelevant. Indeed, the proponents of globalisation transpire to creating lifelong dependency on products and services multinationals wish to provide and manage. If the Invisible Hand is still at work in building wealth for Western Europeans and North Americans, it is not overtly extending a helping hand to the world at large.

Preamble

The symbolic order of architecture in the European modernity of the 20th century was primarily predicated on the pursuit of purity of forms in an attempt to ensure functionality of spaces. It incorporated the use of reinforced concrete as the newly found building material for the reconstruction of the devastated cities of the European continent during World Wars I & II. Its spatial layout reflected the invention of new programs sensitive to the basic and social needs of inhabitants. Architecture of the era appropriated the cuboid and the grid as ordering devices and for the ease of building subdivision and orientation; it accentuated the idea of datum for referenciality. It searched for a balance on the overall building scale to harmonize its horizontal and vertical dimensions. It manifestly acted against styles and ornamentation. Economy of means, efficiency of technology and expediency of the situation assumed normative values which dictated the design solution. Through the exploration of novel ideas in design and the embodiment of programmatic narratives in spatial settings, modernity articulated a new identity of architecture in built form and urban layout and advanced a new presence on the city landscape. It enhanced a new character in dwelling and inspired a new spatial ownership in citizenship. Indeed, modernity had its multi-faceted agenda in rebuilding -- urgently – the European cities; it adopted goals to accommodate the homeless, manifested objectives to create the new family structure, purposely devised plans to integrate the larger whole for political aspirations, and pursued higher ideals in establishing societal values. It elevated the average citizen to be the primary focus for its design intentions. It had sovereignty and legitimacy to claim. It had a mandate for the new cultural, political and social functions to carry. Modernity had a shared vision for Europe to construct and a unifying identity to dwell in the symbolic order of architecture.

 

Hyper-Reality of Architecture

At the gates of the new millennium, architecture is challenged by the information technologies. The symbolic order of architecture in this new age is in the formative state of development. It is definitively in search of global identity, aspiring for regional independence and questing for local legitimacy. It is advancing “novel” yet “universal” principles of dwelling. It is attempting to construct new ideas in the immutable domain of the digital, in direct opposition to modernity. Presently digital architects are borrowing concepts from the art of film production. They are utilizing camera articulation crafts and light manipulation techniques in space design, aspiring to create a hyper-reality. They are attempting to achieve this by “accidentally” clashing objects, “aimlessly” collaging fragments, and “casually” montaging artifacts. Then, they are applying advanced texture mapping techniques to amorphous surfaces, intentionally collapsing multi-light sources and eventually rollaging spaces in virtuality. Hence the bits in the black box of the computer are becoming the knowledge base for the modeling of the virtual spaces and the pixels of the monitor screen are embodying the expressive pallets for this new hyper-reality architecture. At times, the new digital media evolves to become the only test ground for experimentation of new ideas; inherently, it becomes not only the concept site for scenario simulation, but also the end product itself. The digital environment, programmatically being loose and contextually floaty, provides the ultimate material flexibility and gravitational freedom for the unrestricted and untried manipulation of geometry and form. When color-texture and multi-lighting is added to the potential making of the built form, with translucency and transparency augmenting, the digital design in the virtual environment acquires the potential for re-inventing architecture from the pure experiential viewpoint. It certainly holds the capacity of promoting a new spatial layout that can embody the product of pure imagination.

 

Principle Ideas

In the present playful transformations of concave shells and convex panels articulated by morphing and characterized with extreme fragmentation and fluidity, the digital architecture may indeed yield a higher degree of complexity. It may in itself be an interesting spatial scene, representing an architectural idea in creation. It does not, however, necessarily legitimize its undefined forms and layouts to become an architectural proposition, based on the assumption that futuristic events will be devoid of any requisite functionality. The challenge now for the digital architect is to claim an ability to decipher the digital idea, exercise a possibility thinking of conversion, and exert a necessary transposition in the gravitational and material realms of production. The new architecture in the information age is at a crossroads of flux and fiction. It seeks a new symbolic order for dwelling without appropriating the grid and the box. It aspires to adhere to a new story-line without explicitly narrating it. The evolving tectonics of its artifacts is experimentally manufactured and constructed. The spatial setting suspends the conventional norms of circulation, abandons the idea of referential datum and forfeits the notion of orientation. It purposely advances an imbalance of scale by appropriating diagonal dimensions in spatial setting. It is manifestly seeking a new formal language of communication identified by curved surfaces and articulating a novel style in expression by projected ornamentation. This setting is promoting interior delight full of color-textures, but devoid of any natural lighting. The new architecture attempts to undermine the solidity of structures by playing “gymnastics” with the gravitational forces. It juggles with floaty platforms and overarching ramps; it bends walls and clutters ceilings. It messes up with the architectural program denying any hierarchy of spatial relationships. The ordering and rhythmic changes of its curved vocabulary elements, however, are dynamic in their 3D transformations. Even though it may seem utterly confusing at times, it aspires to impress the visitor. Hence the issue of dwelling becomes very pressing since the art of the architecture is reduced to artifact making.  Indeed, just showcasing certain spatial elements to capture the attention of the viewing audience, albeit momentarily, is short-sighted. The new architecture has transiency in its structural setting, as opposed to permanency, and espouses redundancy of vocabulary jargon in lieu of sequential progression of an idea. Implicit in it is the development of gestural situations to create continuous excitement. Hence, it opposes the ritualized processions that highlight the celebrated spaces that in turn accentuate the climatic experiences. Constantly inducing stimulus for immediate visitor engagement and with anticipation of instantaneous responses may be entertaining and even gratifying for a while, but eventually will be exhausting. There are limits to tolerating hype in visual, auditory or haptic sensations. There is a fallacy of genuine material reality in the new architecture since the surfaces it manipulates are projectile; they are modeled on borrowed ideas from the plasma screen panel technology. In manufacturing artifacts in the information age, economy of means, efficiency of production and expediency of novelty necessarily dictate the design solutions. Hence, info-architects are in the confused realm of converting digitally generated spaces into manufacturing architecture. Attempts are made to analyze languages of form-free curved surfaces. To identify constituent curved vocabulary elements, specify their shape grammars, and comprehend composition rules to develop useful software architecture are difficult tasks in their own right. However, to translate morphed objects into constructible artifacts or components of buildings has proved to be much too complex for practical purposes. Many opted for an architectural design made out of digitally manipulated spatial relationships, rather than articulating physical forms. A few suggested that synchronous, dynamic, and prosthetic electronics must be incorporated into the domain of new architecture for digital interaction.

 

If form follows flow, and flow is fun, and fun is the function of the architecture of the information age, then communication through a process is meant to become the new architecture. Digital communication indeed could articulate emotions; it could induce fearsome fun, suspend disbelief, and compartmentalize exposures. To enhance the stage set for this, it presumes a parametric software design within the built form constructs and systems functionality to conduct communication with the digital community within and without. Parameters of fluidity, hybridization, complexity, and morphogenesis are used as the metaphors for the new digital architecture. The contemporary global practice of information architecture indeed is producing many “blobs” and “blahs” in the inescapable realm of universal homogeneity. Even though “novel” ideas which it attempts to globally propagate failed to promote any new distinctive and appreciative identity of architecture in its immediate setting, in its spatial dwelling, however, it promises to advance a distinct individual experience for digital dwellers. Hence digital lifestyles, global economies and their distributed means of production – mitigated by information networking and management -- are changing the ideas, concepts and concerns inherent to architecture. They raise issues of content, container and context beyond the limits of the city, region or country. They articulate new character in dwellings and inspire new global ownership. Indeed, information age architecture is driven by information control and knowledge acquisition, advanced by high-tech utilization and high-think verification, and eventually guided by high-temptation in investments expecting high returns. Hence, info-rchitecture is a commodified product geared towards “selling” the idea whether entertainment, sports, or celebration of sorts -- all based on global communication. Its agenda seems to be short-sighted, goals are temporary, objectives are immediate, purpose is making profit and meaning is the pursuit of advantage over competitors. It has no sovereignty and legitimacy to claim. It has no mandated cultural, political and social function to carry. From agility to adaptation, versatility to immediacy, and immersiveness to interactivity – all refer to its digitization and virtuality.  Indeed in this scenario of information age, the destiny of international symbols and the fate of national signs dwindle. The mogenization of design with new virtual artifacts and the adaptive harmonization of existing buildings with digitech in networking create a tension between universalism and localism. Upgrades in globalization of architecture as digital image-making in essence and catching-up mondialization of regional built-forms as articulation of hi-tech in new designs -- all attempt to cancel out each other. Current intents to mixing the new romanticism of communications technologies with the traditional regional built-form constructs are advancing a new expression of architecture of odd belongingness: from nowhereness to anywhereness. Hence, metaphors of virtuality are in flux, defying physicality of the building’s spatial setting. They advance the new language of new architecture. Virtuality challenges traditional life and enforces digital livability. It defines the human condition in contemporary architecture. It transforms the modernist architecture from symbolic order for dwelling into symbol ordering for manipulation.

Concluding Remarks

Designing new artifacts and spaces for virtual and real environments in composite settings will eventually mandate the establishment of new cultural landmarks and require the promotion of meaningful, albeit novel, rituals for communities to dwell in the information age. This will be the new task of the new reality pursuing digital architects at the threshold of this new millennium. The architecture of this era will not only be incorporating hi-tech hardware and software in built-form, but embody in design overlapping cultural identities. It will invite to deal with conflicting values in shared rituals in and around the artifacts and challenge to define the place for a variety of contemporary lifestyles.

The European culture and architecture in the digitally changing world will be a test-case scenario to observe in the duel realms of nationalism and globalisation. If the Euro- domain architecture could respond to the multitude of cultural identities within and nurture diverse expressions without, it could serve as a model for regional diversity for countries that aspire to appropriate high-tech in built-form and for inhabitation. The philosophical discourses initiated by the Archigram Group in the United Kingdom in the late 1960’s had had all the inherit ideas pertaining to the Virtual Reality architecture, advancing concepts of mobility, portability and expandability in design and dwelling. Since 1999, in France, the Archilab’s radical experiments in global architecture hold the promise of incorporating the info-tech into the construction of the new architecture.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center in New York there remains the animated, cinematic and dynamic virtual image of the twin towers imprinted on the TV monitors, creating a non-erasable presence in the collective memory of the world. This episode, however, may have instigated a much more enduring impact on human psychology – building architecture of global insecurity. The metaphor of the prison may revisit us as the most “secure” narrative for humanity to dwell on. As designers and builders of new architecture, we may be condemned feeling ourselves as prisoners of our own consciousness mitigated by high-tech integration. The hype of virtual dreaming and reality imagining will dissipate into yet another shallow promise of technology liberating mankind. If architectural knowledge induces fear and virtual technologies propagate insecurity, then in retrospect, glorifying ignorance on both fronts may be bliss for humanity.

References

De Rosnay, Joel. 2000. The Symbiotic Man. McGraw-Hill.

Kelly, Kevin. 1999. New Rules for the New Economy: Ten Radical Strategies for a Connected World. New York, Penguin.

Koolhaas, Rem. 1995. “Generic City” in Rem Koolhaas, S,M,L,XL.Rotterdam/New York.

McLuhan, Eric and Frank Singrone. 1995. Essential McLuhan. Anansi.

Mitchell, William J. 1995. City of Bits. The MIT Press.

Migayrou, Frederic and Marie-Ange Brayer. 2001. ArchiLab: Radical Experiments in Global Architecture. Thames & Hudson.

Negroponte, Nocholas. 1995.  Being Digital. Alfred A. Knopf.