Starchitects, Starchitecture, and the Symbolic Capital of World Cities

Author: Paul Knox
Year: 2016 (Journal of Architectural Education / article)
Source type: article
Raw file: raw/articles/knox-2016-starchitects-symbolic-capital.md

Summary

Knox analyzes "starchitects" and "starchitecture" as products of globalization and the political economy of globalizing cities. Drawing on Sklair's "transnational capitalist class," he shows how celebrity architects, branding, and the "critical infrastructure" of consumption transform architecture into a source of symbolic capital — used by world cities to compete for status through signature buildings and "designscapes" (Julier) and "hard-branding" (Evans), under a neoliberal, entrepreneurial urban governance. He traces the rise of the celebrity/hero architect and its extension into product design and mega-scale planning.

Key Claims

• Firm types and starchitecture: from Gutman, firms divide into "strong delivery," "strong-service," and "strong-idea" firms; a few "strong-idea" firms have senior partners whose celebrity makes them "starchitects." Starchitecture must be understood via globalization and the transnational capitalist class (Sklair) — politicians/bureaucrats and a consumer-oriented fraction operating in a "globalized consumption-, celebrity- and brand-oriented culture and a neoliberal political economy."
• Consumption, celebrity, and the aestheticization of everyday life: "romantic capitalism," the "dream economy," and the "experience economy" (Pine & Gilmore) make design/luxury central to enchantment; celebrity culture extends to starchitects (the Simpsons = Gehry's Disney Hall); architecture's "endorsement by association" (Pawley) and "luxo-minimalism" bind high architecture to high fashion (Koolhaas, Pawson for Armani, Prada). "The critical infrastructure" of consumption (Zukin) — lifestyle magazines, awards (Pritzker) — sustains the star system.
• Neoliberal urban governance and designscapes: entrepreneurial urbanism (Harvey) makes "rebuilding, repackaging and rebranding the urban landscape a common priority"; starchitecture becomes important "as cities compete for world-city status" through "the promotion of signature buildings and the affect of celebrity and spectacle." Julier's "designscapes"; Evans's "hard-branding" (iconic buildings + events).
• The Bilbao effect and the small pool: the Sydney Opera House and Bilbao (Gehry's Guggenheim) made the icon the model; "it seems as if there are just thirty architects in the world" (Sudjic) — the "names that come up again and again." World cities derive a "monopoly rent" from their "front regions" and "semiotic districts."
• Branding as self-production: starchitects "increasingly, are designing themselves" — Koolhaas as exemplar (AMO, Delirious New York, "Generica"/"Junkspace," the EU "Council of the Wise"). Brand extension into product lines (Graves for Target, Botta's pen). Critics: Koolhaas has "surfed (rather than challenged) contemporary economic and cultural trends."
• Mutual reinforcement: "Stardom and city branding become mutually self-reinforcing"; but Jencks warns of serial reproduction homogenizing cities. Starchitecture is "the most recent iteration of the 'edifice complex'."

Connections

Concepts: Star Architecture · Iconic Architecture · Consumerism · Spectacle · Neoliberal Metropolis
Authors: Paul Knox
Debates: Spectacle vs. Function
Related source notes: The Age of Spectacle (Dyckhoff) · The Iconic Building Is Here to Stay (Jencks)

Direct Quotes

"[S]tarchitects and their product – 'starchitecture' – must be understood in the context of contemporary processes of globalization and the political economy of globalizing cities."

"[T]he would-be iconic buildings of starchitects has become increasingly important as cities compete for world-city status through the promotion of signature buildings and the affect of celebrity and spectacle."

"[L]eading designers, increasingly, are designing themselves, creating distinctive identities that are amenable to corporate branding."

"The ability of an iconic building ... to put a city on the global map was demonstrated by Sydney Opera House."

Open Questions

• Does the "starchitect" economy add value primarily to cities (symbolic capital/world-city status) or to the class fraction that commissions it — and how does the privatization of that symbolic capital relate to the excluded publics Kaika describes?