Beatriz Ramo is teaching “Architecture and Market” at the Academie voor Architectuur en Stedenbow in Tilburg. The firsts edition of this course was dealing with the Iconic Building Phenomena. The results of the studio are collected in a book.
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ARCHITECTURE AND MARKET v.1.
Today in the Architecture and Urban Planning discipline, we see how a new phenomenon has emerged. Market powers shape, as never before, the cities and influences their identity. This has created a kind of architecture that is driven by commercial forces and desperation for uniqueness.
Throughout history, architecture grandeur addressed to many different forces: gods’ veneration, celebration of the Empire, religious worshiping, authoritarian representations…etc.
Nowadays, not just public institutions, but private clients are commissioning the buildings that create the image of the city (e.g. Allianz Arena stadium built by Herzog & de Meuron in Munich, the Swiss Re Tower by Norman Foster in London or all the recently opened Prada stores in New York, LA or Tokyo, by OMA and Herzog &de Meuron). Architecture addresses to media and to architects themselves.
Architecture has become a product of quick consumption. Architects’ names are brand for buildings as Prada or Tiffany's are for clothes or jewellery. We are reaching the point when the established brands are stating to interact: the established brands of products choose the established “brands” of architecture. E.g. OMA designs the image of Prada or Gehry the jewels for Tiffany's).
Since these days important information is publicised in newspapers, on television and in the internet, architecture has been freed from communicating, and it rather “represents”. Then it can assume whatever shape the architect sees fit: a wave, a flower, an eye…
In another hand, we see how some great projects never became buildings and how others – not so great - made it to the level of an Icon. Why?
Pages from the book: "Architecture & Market"
Students: Telma van Gestel, Jiri van Gijsel, Bart de Groof, Dennis van der Rijdt, Maikel Sterk, Gijs Verhagen, and Maarten van Vroonhoven.
more info: http://www.fontys-aas.nl
Content
The aim of the course is - from our position of architects and urban planners - to understand generally the forces that are shaping the architecture.
The necessity to understand the interesting reasons for this marriage to happen - Architecture and Market- has encourage in the recent years the flourishing, in our discipline, of think-tanks, research laboratories…etc that open the architects and planners another field to explore.
The architecture explosion of today cannot be solely understood from the architecture itself. Sociologist, economist, historians, and politics experts try to explain the phenomenon.
Task
Students must get familiar with the theme, as part of the up to date architecture “history”. They are going to create this chapter by researching into the theme.
Taking as an advantage the fact that there is very little published about the theme, we have the chance to add and start building something in the subject.
By debating, giving our point of views, adopting opposite positions.
Reading articles, interview aand books of the internationally known Mark Wigley, Dejan Sudjic, Beatriz Colomina, Charles Jencks, to name a few, will help us to deter understand the phenomena and have a starting point in the course (e.g. The Iconic building by Charles Jencks, The edifice complex by Dejan Sudjic can be the bibliography to studied)
With the book the iconic building
We will analyze the beginning and end of the latest movements and their reason to start and to extinguish.
We could look back and pointed the elements in which we can find our predecessors. we can study today the most representatives elements and create a catalogue-matrix, and judged if they have been a success or failure, and we can propose different directions when the phenomenon reaches the crisis.