HOW TO SEE ARCHITECTURE

ON TEXTS THAT DEFINE & PHOTOS THAT DEMAND TO SEE AS

It is a subject that has been touched on previously, but needs to be highlighted again because the momentum of the approach appears unstoppable; it has become the norm that is apparently accepted without question: but there are matters that need to be considered and addressed.

In the publication of this ‘Hebridean’house - OUTER HEBRIDES MODULAR HOUSE BY KOTO DESIGN  https://www.designboom.com/architecture/koto-design-outer-hebrides-modular-house-scotland-01-12-2023/ - we are told what to see and how: this modular prefab house by koto design echoes the scottish landscape's natural rhythms . . . a sculptural, minimal house of which the majority of construction would take place in a factory in the Welsh countryside (far from the natural Hebridean rhythms). Interestingly it is noted: all images courtesy of Koto Design.* There is no attribution for authorship, so one might assume that most of the text came from Koto design too. It appears that the designer frames the images and the words to shape the thoughts and attitudes one is asked to assume when looking at the work. There is no doubt or any reservations about the work that IS what it says it is. What impact is this approach having on our critical understanding?

It is not a matter of an architect describing intentions or ambitions that are left for others to assess, analyse and critique. The text actually tells one that things are indeed so, absolute truths as it were, even though it might be ‘modestly and humbly’ ….. the Outer Hebrides modular house merges with its environment modestly and humbly. There is no suggestion that it might not be so successful or perhaps could have a jarring impact on place. Indeed, the modernity of the scheme offers that arrogance and aloofness inherent in the style notorious for its self-centredness and lack of contextual sensitivity: consider the 1960s. Both the exterior and the interiors offer something more suave, slick, and much less rugged and sparse than the Hebridean way of life one encounters: the two expressions and intentions, and their provenance, appear worlds apart, aliens, even if both can be appreciated for what they are separately.

Here, with this demanding approach to perception, one is reminded of the old Singer sewing machine instruction booklet that came with the very polite wish that respectfully hoped that the lady might enjoy using the machine and get pleasure from this. Now, it seems, using the strategy of the definitive architectural verbage and selective imagery, (see https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-architectural-image.html), the ‘new Singer’ approach might be that one is told that one will enjoy using this fabulous machine. #

There is something unusually dogmatic in this different strategy that grinds, that leaves one uneasy. There appears to be a false certainty here, a demand that seeks to impose rather than merely present the work as it actually is and leaving the viewer to seek an understanding from the experience of its integral wholeness or otherwise. The circumstance as the designer might see it or hope for, may not be so, but the situation is such that the reader can do little about it, being too remote from the source to offer useful feedback: hence pieces like this. We need to know what we are doing with such an apparently pretentious presentation strategy, and how we are fabricating directions that are really unnecessary; that look like the efforts of an uncertain mind wanting to ensure that the ideas hoped to be ingrained in the work are indeed those that everyone sees, whatever the outcome might be. There is something like a ‘force feeding’ here; perhaps it could be called the ‘foie de gras presentation’?

Architecture must be better than this if we are to attain a true and vital richness in our work. We have to stop pretending; stop protecting ourselves from criticism and other viewpoints: we need to listen and take heed; we need to demolish the protective wall around egos that are too easily bruised. The critical eye and mind needs to be exercised away from the guiding hand of the designer that can only be seen to want to bully; to force one to see wonder and magic when it might not be there. ‘Dare one say so?’ appears to be the latent challenge. It is this imposition that is the concern, because it buries self-criticism and private review by elevating ideas into the certain realms of grandeur and assumed genius, even if it is described as being modest and humble, a description that seems to further rub salt into the wounded critic’s perception with some rawness of a self-engrossed arrogance.

One is not saying that this is a poor project; it is the strategy for promotion that is the concern.

There is a determined certainty here; ‘it IS so’:

Central to the concept is how Koto house coexists in harmony with the natural elements inside and out.’

We are even told how this merging ‘dialogue’ is created with ‘striking forms’ in a ‘sympathetic composition’ that ‘reconnect the inhabitants to the natural rhythms of nature . . .’ (are there unnatural ones?):

CONNECTING TO THE ISLAND’S NATURAL RHYTHMS

The Outer Hebrides modular house merges with its environment modestly and humbly, revealing an individually crafted home with striking forms made from natural materials. ‘The idea has been to embrace the scenery and moving seascape,’ explains the studio. Illustrating that statement are roof pitches that collectively align with the fall of the land, creating a more sympathetic composition; large framed and dramatic windows, with integrated seats covered in textured linens, allowing for a continuous dialogue with the outdoors; cozy nooks create small serene sanctuaries, allowing for hibernation from the ever-shifting, wild weather. Together, these features reconnect inhabitants to the natural rhythms of nature and the passage of time in their daily lives.

Why not leave others to tell what is experienced rather than grab the preferred ideas and define the interpretation? It is like having your cake and eating it too: creating a project and defining the engagement with it both as ideas and images.

We need a far more open approach to architecture than this closed shop; this introvert indulgence. It is too easy to be deceived by one’s own hype. This narcissistic promotion needs to be modified before we are all left boasting about ourselves on little islands of blind hope, listening with a secret, self-assuring but false, untested private delight to our own words as we drool over the selective images.

#

c.f. 'your next favourite backpack' promo in https://nordace.com/ . . .

as if it might be so: it WILL be so!

19 JAN 2023

NOTE

THE PHOTOGRAPHS

* all images courtesy of Koto Design.

On the images: the impact of carefully selected framing has been noted before; see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-hawthorne-house-context-place-street.html  and

https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/10/taylor-square-warehouse-variations-in.html

Here we have yet another example of the clever camera's eye.

Of a total of 21 images, we have 3 nearly identical general overviews that merely vary the framing proportions of rock, sea, and sky; 10 piecemeal 'arty' interiors; and an astonishing 8 abstracts illustrating partial images of the house, tiny portions of it framed with sky, sea, and/or land. One wonders why, and how this collation helps the text, and vice versa. What do the other elevations look like? What is the place like to walk around and through? It is somewhat alarming to think that these images are supposed to tell us about the qualities of the house. They say more about the architect than anything else; an eye deliberately composing, seeking out fabricated attractions as meaning that is elusively obscure, perhaps chasing ideas that one just hopes will be revealed, embodied in an expressively impressive photograph if not the building itself.

We only fool ourselves and others with these basic tricks of technology.

Is the hope that the aesthetic possibilities of the photograph might exceed those of the building and supplement these, bathing whatever this experience might really be in a grander glory, as if the technical illusion might hold some revelatory substance in the forms, or in the more ephemeral and mysterious ‘architectural space’ that can accommodate such intangible unknowns more easily?