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Talal bin Jahlan

CS Theories Cont Arch 1 Oct14, 2013

Figuration

Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing,

composition or abstraction and other aesthetics may serve to manifest the expressive

and conceptual intention of the practitioner. Also is a beautiful thing to express

natural, however in architecture it can exploit in order to acquire projects or can give

ideas a simplicity for the audience to understand an image for the project. Sometime

architectural drawings are hard to demonstrate in public, nevertheless the painting

could expose a secret behind the project and affect the audience judgment.

I can see that in the Hokusai Wave design by Alejandro Zaero-polo(Forign office

Architects). Alejandro won in the Yokohama competition project in February 1995.

Thanks to British painter Richard Sweeney. The story started in Yokohama City Hall.

During that day Alejandro felt the audience didn't get the message while he was

explaining his proposal. He proceeded to explain the circulation diagrams, the

geometric, transforming and the construction technologies that he involved in the

project, hoping that the audience would be aware about a principle thought from his

proposal. Suddenly his rescue came, which is Hokusai Wave, a drawing by local

painter that he had been toying with while he indulged in geometry manipulations

and construction hypotheses during the design phase of the competition

entry. Alejandro explained to the audience the image of Hokusai Wave was his

inspiration after that the proposal became clearly understood for the audience.

Iconography is a convenient tool to make the architecture concept obvious to the

public also connect the architecture with nature, so we can see that clearly in The

Beijing Stadium designed by Herzog and De Meuron refer to the image of a birds

nest. The solid material for stadium takes a new impression, it considers a bunch of

wood but in the reality is a bunch of steel and concrete, but the public knows the

inspiration of artificial birds nest as a way to describe the stadium.

Conversion thing to a perceptible value that what happen with iconography in

architecture. Usually, when start any design with manipulates a geometry and see the

unexpected shape come is going to be hard to define it in public without the process

design which lead to a final result even with the disciplinary for the geometry. For

instance, when see Zaha Hadid works and want to describe it to someone is hard to

tell what is looks like or don't know the start point she did to get a nice geometry.

However, with iconography a normal person will feel he has a nice information about

any design comes from any idea he realized which gives him a valuable information

will make it easier to describe it for anyone. For example, ING House in Amsterdam

of the Dutch architects Meyer & Van Schooten is not explicitly designed to be

iconographic in any sense. To the public however the building looks like a shoe, an

ice-skate. When ask people about that building next to the highway in Amsterdam,

they refer to it like an ice-skate.

Finally, iconography helps an architect to open the door for Imagination and gives

any building identity between the other building. Furthermore, it redefined the solid

material is used in the building as connection with natural life or gives more value

than a stone , a steel or concrete

. In the other hand, the iconography contributes a clarify figuration for people who

believe the architecture is hard to be understood.

The response form teacher: Hi Talal, I think your discussion of painting in relation to figuration relates to some of the issues raised in Gilles Deleuze's texts "Painting and Sensation," and "The Diagram" (in the readings for week 9). You should also definitely refer to the attached text by Charles Jencks as a primary source for how collage was defined in the context of Postmodern architecture. It would be useful to differentiate between collage as defined by Jencks and what you refer to as 'iconic'. You should identify specific techniques that are used in several projects in order to facilitate legibility. How does this contemporary form of architectural legibility differ from discussions of Postmodern iconicity and collage (Jencks)? It would be good to review all the readings in the Figuration topic in order to present your position in that context. It would also be useful to speculate on what aspects of our contemporary cultural moment have prompted this shift in forms of legibility in architecture. I look forward to seeing the essay develop. Best, Marcelyn