Publication: Arhitext Design Magazine, No.6.2005

[EN/ro]

visual identity and the ‘alchemy’ of the new technological era

by arch. ana-maria crisan

published: [arhitext design, surface/interface, no.6 (148), 2005]

Visual identity

During the last decade, the design congresses went deeper and deeper into the subject of image as part of the scientific conceptual process and its capacity to enhance a product. The lesser role of the boundaries and distances, owing to the technological progress had a huge impact on the built space. This process is real and is more consequential than in other spheres because space is perceived through limits and quantities. Recently visual identity of the architectural object has been translated through the interface between the latter and the passer-by and the value hiding behind the surfaces. Today’s metropolis is a world of contradictions, where coincidentia oppositorum is a fact, not a defect or accident. Most of the act of creation was replaced by imitation-mimesis-creative act, by doublets with no necessarily corresponding spaces, by fictitious dualities in substance, yet necessary in form. One currently speaks about an anesthetized architecture that ended by creating a world of codes proliferating vocabularies. In this context, architecture has become a conscious kaleidoscope, having the telescopic sense of sequential direction and a vast capacity to immortalize and reconfigure spaces by mirroring, reflection and doubling. In the technological era the act of mirroring, reflection, reproduction and visual copying becomes as real as the ‘spiritus loci’, which is represented, created and participates in city life.

Nowadays, the theme of the harmony among nature, people, and technology analyzes manners of symbiosis and identifies new social needs and symbols of life. Being consciously formed, visual identity cannot live beyond communication and thus it turns into a strategic resource. The transmutations and metamorphoses, organized at the ampler scale of the significant, reach the sphere of the palpable and have an effect on technologies as well. The conception processes of surfaces, materials, textures migrate from ideology to reality. How could we account for the contemporary interplay of analogous materials, which does not involve their quality but their visual brand?

The materials are dissimulated by texture and functionality and get to be used in odd associations in a variety of cases. It seems that even more than rationality itself, this phenomenon expresses the coherence of the producer’s image. What might seem a loss of visual identity becomes the mechanical, technological reproduction of symbolic analogies: for instance, the conversion of gas reservoirs in Vienna by Sir Norman Foster, Jean Nouvel’s Studio. Then we may speak about a current alchemy in the field of technology, considering its original meaning of apparent transmutation with no mystery surrounding it, implying gilding, varnishing or producing of seemingly noble alloys. Referring again to the idea of alchemy by treatment, and knowing how the natural materials are evaluated in cities – as noble materials, i mean – our conclusion would be that present technologies are theoretically at the ‘visual’ level or even more, that they modify the quality diagrams. The treatment with resins increases wood and polyester strengths. Once the wear level is surpassed and when the form demands it, wood is used instead of stone and fake concrete replaces the latter. One could argue that the identity of materials properties is lost from the point of view of technological features, such as: resistance to wear, limits of breaking, aging, behavior under extreme conditions, and especially regarding their usage diagram.

The conservation of ‘image’ is achieved from the point of view of visualization: color, texture, associations sometimes, yet more often it becomes the core element expressed in the design. This explains why wood, concrete – like apparent stone – are extensively used in cities as treated and exposed materials that would not resist under such circumstances. The use of water in the public spaces takes various forms, since the primeval material can  be associated with the most sensitive contact materials, such as wood. As to glass, that has gone beyond the mesmerizing forms and colors of Murano glass; nowadays the glass and water mirrors, the glass ceilings and floors are the elements of the current vocabulary  as shown in the skylight platform of the Usinor-Sacilor Conference Center, in Irsid, Paris, France, by architect Dominique Perrault. The grave materials have preserved their status, yet they are no longer treated in the traditional way. The appropriation of architecture, the particular forms of perception affect the surfaces the citizen usually confronts with. Interior architecture benefits from this extension of the visual capacities and can operate without burdensome concessions. In fact, the surfaces redefine their identity according to the materials employed. The contemporary constructions and conversions, which apparently do not play on this absurd concept, appeal artifice and finally succeed in attracting the citizens, as in the case of Bastilia Viaduct (suspended gardens, shops, Hector Malo Park, Schutzenberg Brasserie) by Jean Nouvel’s Studio. That global concept of resistance in the factor that sells associations by dissimulating yhe image. The combinations of wood and metal (advertisements of layered wood, parquets sustaining metal weights) that were an absurd image in the past now certify the quality itself. In this full-fledged enchantment process, architecture often sells the absurd. The mysteries of the fantastic world expressed through coincidentia oppositorum – the Disney World, for one – have come to encapsulate the capacity to persuade. It is so that lots of models, brands and logotypes are being produced reuniting the technological power of seduction and signification.

Logotype and ‘brand’ in architecture

The logotype has extended from the sphere of publicity to built spaces. In architecture we can refer to two ‘logotype’ stages, the first one being a simple association of sign, significance, maybe initial symbol (for instance, the wooden column), while the second is a layered ‘icon’, a true encyclopedic system. Several aspects of classicism, neo-classicism, renaissance or baroque have turned into real logotypes today. More often, we see them in social architecture that uses them as a sign showing its representation power and symbolic function within the metropolis. Here are several examples: the Opera of Lyon, Jean Nouvel’s Studio, the Reichstag, Berlin, Sir Norman Foster, etc. The strangest example that become logotypes are those appealing to universal models; for instance, the 2002 Exhibition, Sweden, in which Jean Nouvel’s Studio participated, the Glass Pyramid from the Louvre by I.M. Pei, etc. For instance, the image of bombed buildings of Sarajevo was rephrased. The damaged buildings display the interior layers and evoke both the tragedy of life and the reality of social conflicts. The political questions about reuse and conversion only prove the human fascination for an architecture that is perceived in its evolution, able to speak about its ‘sufferance’. An example of logotype would be on the one hand the posts – structural columns, reminding of the classical order and on the other hand, the posts suspended from the ceiling are illustrative for a reversed world, one devoid of stability and order. If the logotype is a brand in design, this is not true in architecture. Architecture’s ‘brand’ refers to psycho-social emotions filling the space, to the complexity of the significance system, to the direct effects of urban static/dynamic it generates. The ‘brand’ of a building is of cumulative sort, implying the architectural style and the architect’s signature. In a city, the ‘brand’ is the technology that makes the ensemble. Its semantic memory within a chaotic metropolis intoxicates architecture and its perception in layers: ‘Bucharest of blind walls’, for instance. At the visual level, one could sense the discrepancy between the remnant and the updated metropolis echoing the unfinished images. At this stage, the mnemonic technique represents a way to receive brands, the distorted, sequential ones that have frozen as layers in the city. The extension of the significant-esthetic expression of architecture over material processing technologies attacks the skin of the built space as well. Thus, the symbolic image coexists with the textured image of the background and the urban specificity. The urban image translates also the patches of material that inflict on our aesthetic sense’. The relationship between surface-interface came to be perceived as a defining state of architecture in the last decade. The above arguments on material alchemy bluntly rebut the idea of reducing architecture only to form. In the context of the new theories of the technological era, the visual identity of the architectural element indicates the social-cultural life, and the directions of the urban behavior.

translation from romanian: arhitext design

bibliography: eco, umberto, ‘limitele interpretarii’, ed. pontica 1996; leach, neil, ‘anestetica’, ed. paideia 1999 

[en/RO]

identitatea vizuala si ‘alchimia’ noii ere tehnologice

de arh. ana-maria crisan

publicat: [arhitext design, suprafata/interfata, nr.6 (148), 2005]

IDENTITATEA VIZUALA

In ultimul deceniu congresele de design, aprofundeaza din ce in ce mai mult implicarea imaginii in procesul conceptual stiintific, dar mai ales capacitatea de ‘valorificare’ a unui produs, datorita imaginii. Minimalizarea granitelor, si distantelor datorita avansului tehnologiei, a avut un impact major asupra spatiul construit. Procesul a devenit o realitate, mult mai pregnanta decat in alte sfere, tocmai datorita perceperii spatiului prin limite si cantitati. Identitatea vizuala a obiectului de arhitectura se traduce in ultimul timp prin interfata care se stabileste intre acesta si trecator, prin valoarea ascunsa in spatele supafetelor.

Lumea metropolei prezente, este o lume a contradictiilor, in care coincidentia opositorum este o stare de fapt, si nu un defect, sau un accident. Actul de creatie a fost inlocuit in mare parte de un act de imitatie – mimesis – act creator de dublete, de spatii fara corespondent necesar, de dualitati deseori fictive ca substanta, dar necesare ca forma. Se vorbeste de o arhitectura anesteziata, care a sfarsit prin a crea o lume de coduri si vocabulare multiplicate, dedublate. Arhitectura a devenit un caleidoscop inzestrat cu constiinta, cu simtul telescopiei si al directionarii secventiale, cu o capacitate imensa de imortalizare si reconfigurare de spatii prin oglindire, reflexie si dedublare. Oglindirea, reprezentarea prin reflexie, reproducere, copiere vizuala, capata in era tehnologiei, realitatea unui ‘spiritus loci’ reprezentat, creat, participatoriu in viata urbana. Tema armoniei naturii, a oamenilor si a tehnologiei  analizeaza in prezent modurile in care acestea se pot afla in simbioza, aceasta  identificand noi nevoi si simboluri sociale ale vietii.

Identitatea vizuala, constient construita nu poate sa existe dincolo de comunicare, devenind astfel o resursa strategica. Transmutatiile si metamorfozele, atat de amplu organizate in planul semnificatului, ajung pana in sfera realizatului, palpabilului, si afecteaza insasi tehnologiile. Asistam la o migrare a proceselor de concepere a suprafetelor, materialelor, texturilor, din plan ideologic in cel real. Altfel, cum am putea sa justificam jocul contemporan al materialelor analoage nu atat prin calitati, cat prin amprenta vizuala? Materialele sunt disimulate prin textura, functionalitate, ajungand sa fie folosite in cele mai diverse cazuri, in asocieri stranii. Acest fenomen, poate mai mult decat logica ratiunii, exprima coerenta imaginii realizate de producator. Ceea ce la prima impresie poate parea pierderea identitatii vizuale, devine o reproducere mecanica, tehnologica a analogiilor simbolice. Putem vorbi de o alchimie contemporana in tehnologie, in sensul originar pe care l-a avut acest termen, la origini aceasta rezumandu-se la niste transmutari aparente si fara nimic misterios – aurire, lacuire, cel mult de producerea de aliaje care sa aiba aparenta celor doua metale nobile. Reluand ideea unei alchimii prin tratare, si stiind evaluarea urbana a materialelor naturale – ca fiind  materiale nobile – tragem concluzia ca tehnologiile actuale se situeaza in plan teoretic in acelasi stadiu de a opera ‘vizual’, poate chiar mai mult, modificand graficele de calitate.

Tratamentele cu rasini fac posibila cresterea rezistentei lemnului, sau a polistirenului cu mult peste limita lor. Odata depasite pragurile de uzura, cand forma cere, lemnul este folosit in locul pietrei (fapt voit), betonul aparent ia locul acesteia. S-ar putea spune ca identitatea proprietatilor materialelor se pierde mai ales din punct de vedere al comportarilor tehnice – rezistenta la uzura, limite de rupere, imbatranire, comportari in situatii limita, si mai ales sub forma comportarii pe tot graficul de utilizare. Conservarea ‘maginii’ se face din punct de vedere al vizualizarii – culoare, textura, uneori asocieri, dar devine de multe ori  tocmai prin acest fenomen elementul central al conceptului exprimat in design. Astfel se explica marea amploare in spatiul urban a folosirii lemnului, betonului – ca piatra aparenta – materiale tratate si expuse, de multe ori in conditii in care nu ar fi putut rezista. Folosirea apei, in spatiile publice imbraca cele mai variate forme, elementul primar putand fi asociat chiar celor mai sensibile materiale de contact – cum ar fi lemnul. Suprafetele confruntate cu gravitatea isi pastreaza stabilitatea dar nu mai putem vorbi de o abordare traditionala. Apropierea arhitecturii, particularizarea perceptiei, presupune deseori afectarea suprafetelor cu care cetateanul intra direct in contact. Arhitectura interioara profita la maxim de aceasta prelungire dincolo de limite a rezistentelor si proprietatilor vizuale, putand opera si avea finalitate fara a face concesii. Acel concept global de rezistenta este factorul care vinde asocieri disimuland imaginea. Asocierile de lemn cu metal, care conlucreaza, (reclame la lemn stratificat, parchete sustinand greutati metalice), care in trecut erau imaginea absurdului, de aceasta data sunt garantia calitatii. In procesul de seductie vinderea absurdului este un procedeu pe care arhitectura il foloseste din ce in ce mai des. Misterele lumii fantastice exprimate prin ‘coincidentia oppositorum‘ au devenit secvente care inmagazineaza, in prezent, intreaga putere de convingere. Astfel se nasc adevarate modele, marci, logotipuri, care reunesc puterea tehnologica a seductiei cu cea a semnificatiilor.

LOGOTIP SI ‘MARCA’ IN ARHITECTURA

Logotipul din sfera publicitatii s-a extins si asupra spatiilor construite. De aceasta data in arhitectura putem vorbi de doua stadii ‘logotip‘, in care primul este o asociere simpla de semn, semnificatie, poate simbol originar (ex: coloana de lemn), respectiv al doilea este o enciclopedie sistem de tipul ‘icon‘ in straturi. Aspecte ale clasicului, neo-clasicului, renasterii, sau barocului, au devenit in contemporan adevarate logotipuri. Cel mai des le intalnim in arhitectura cu functii sociale, care le foloseste ca semnal si isi precizeaza astfel puterea de reprezentare, prezentare, si functia simbolica in cadrul metropolei – spre exemplu Opera din Lyon, Atelier Jean Nouvel, cladirea Reichstag, Berlin, Sir Norman Foster. Exemplele cele mai stranii devin logotipuri, care ne trimite la modelele universale – exemplu Expozitia 2002 – Suedia, participare Atelier Jean Nouvel; Piramida de sticla de la Luvru, I.M. Pei,etc. De exemplu, imaginea cladirilor afectate de bombardamente de la Sarajevo, a fost insusita si reformulata. Cladirile mutilate ofera spectacolul straturilor interioare, evoca tragismul vietii, si in acelasi timp realitatea prezenta a conflictelor sociale. Intrebarile politice despre reutilizare, si reconversie in cazul acesta, nu dovedesc decat fascinatia umana pentru o arhitectura perceputa evolutiv, care de la prima impresie e capabila sa-si dezvaluie viata traita, ‘suferita’. O exemplificare de logotip simplu ar fi cazul stalpilor: pe de o parte, stalpi – coloane structurale, evocand ordinea clasica – si pe de alta, cei suspendati de tavan – ilustrand tragicul unei lumi fara stabilitate si ordine, a unei lumi inversate.

Logotipul devine marca in design, dar in arhitectura marca nu exista propriu-zis. ‘Marca’ arhitecturii se refera in contemporan la emotia psiho-sociala cu care spatiul este incarcat, la complexitatea sistemului de semnificatii, la efectele directe de dinamica/statica urbana pe care le declanseaza. ‘Marca’ unei constructii  este cumulat stil arhitectural si signiatura arhitectului conceptor. ‘Marca’ in urban este chiar tehnologia care realizeaza ansamblul. Memoria semantica a marcii intr-o metropola haotica declanseaza intoxicarea arhitecturii, perceptia ei desfigurata, in straturi – ‘Bucurestiul calcanelor’. Apar discrepante la acest nivel vizual intre metropola remanenta si cea reactualizata, creandu-se un ecou al imaginilor nedefinitivate. Mnemotehnica, este in acest stadiu o receptare a marcilor, respectiv a marcilor denaturate, secventiale, ramase ca straturi inghetate in ansamblul orasului. Extinderea expresivitatii estetic-semnificanta a arhitecturii asupra tehnologiilor de prelucrare a materialelor ataca inclusiv coaja construitului. Imaginea simbolica, coexista astfel cu imaginea texturata a fondului si cu profilul determinat urban. Printre semnificatiile care traduc urbanul, se traduc si peticele materialelor in stari imperfecte care ataca ‘simtul estetic’. Relatia suprafata – interfata, a ajuns sa fie perceputa ca o stare definitorie a arhitecturii ultimulului deceniu. Argumentele de mai sus, de tipul alchimiei materialelor, infirma ideea reducerii arhitecturii doar la forma. In contextul noilor teorii ale erei tehnologice, identitatea vizuala a elementului de arhitectura este un indice al vietii socio-culturale, al directiilor pe care le imbraca comportamentul urban.