Look at Me!

Author: Graham Morrison
Year: 2004 (The Guardian; from a speech to the Architects' Journal/Bovis Awards)
Source type: article (speech extract)
Raw file: raw/articles/morrison-2004-look-at-me.md

Summary

A critique of "celebrity architecture" and the fashion for applying "the iconic treatment to every conceivable building." Morrison distinguishes the true icon — "unmistakable, often provocative, [carrying] cultural signals far beyond its purpose" (Sydney Opera House, Pompidou) — from the many "ordinary buildings distorted into unnecessarily complicated shapes ... Their main purpose is to attract our attention." He denounces the "Costa del Icon" on the Thames, the "Bilbao effect" as an unproven "architectural one-liner," and calls for the quieter strength of ordinary streets to frame the exceptional.

Key Claims

• The icon vs. the one-liner: "The true architectural icon is a building that is unmistakable, often provocative, and carries cultural signals far beyond its purpose"; "they are both useful and memorable." But many new designs "are just ordinary buildings distorted into unnecessarily complicated shapes ... Their main purpose is to attract our attention" — an "architectural one-liner" that "once in the public realm would be difficult to change."
• Bilbao and celebrity architecture: "With Bilbao, 'celebrity architecture' came of age," "certain to be followed by a torrent of imitators"; "a new public appetite for bling-bling architecture." "As competition increases, each image has to be more extraordinary and shocking ... more iconic. This one-upmanship was, and is, a fatuous and self-indulgent game."
• The "Costa del Icon": down the Thames, "an array of second-rate structures, all shrilly demanding attention" with no relation to one another; "the impact of these celebrity misfits is diminished by their ubiquity. How many landmarks does one city need?"
• The Bilbao effect unproven: "there is little evidence to suggest that architecture in the form of a single gesture can really have such restorative powers"; "Without easyJet, it is far from certain that the small economic gains in Bilbao would be measurable at all."
• The icon needs the ordinary: "Too many iconic buildings and the fabric of the city is distorted, but too few and the city is dull. It is the quiet strength of ordinary streets and unexceptional buildings that allows the icon to be special." Simple questions before "visionary" designers: "What is the value of turning functional buildings into iconic ones?"
• True icons that get it right: Alsop's Goldsmiths, Rogers's Leadenhall (deferring to St Paul's), the London Eye, Herzog & de Meuron's Jerez — "visually impressive, workable and in keeping with their surroundings."

Connections

Concepts: Iconic Architecture · Star Architecture · Everyday Architecture
Authors: Graham Morrison
Debates: Spectacle vs. Function
Related source notes: The Iconic Building Is Here to Stay (Jencks) · The Bilbao Effect (Michael)

Direct Quotes

"The true architectural icon is a building that is unmistakable, often provocative, and carries cultural signals far beyond its purpose."

"[T]hese new designs ... are just ordinary buildings distorted into unnecessarily complicated shapes. Their main purpose is to attract our attention."

"[T]he impact of these celebrity misfits is diminished by their ubiquity. How many landmarks does one city need?"

"It is the quiet strength of ordinary streets and unexceptional buildings that allows the icon to be special."

Open Questions

• Does Morrison's call for "quiet ordinary streets" to frame the exception endorse a flat-ontological valuing of the everyday, or a conservative deference that the star-architecture economy ignores?