Starchitects — What’s the deal with them?
More than 4,600 years ago, the tomb of Pharaoh Djoser stood tall at 204 feet, the largest building of its time. Imhotep, who introduced the use of stone columns, designed and engineered the 6-stepped pyramid. This ingenuity in engineering design has continued to be used in all structures of the modern day — cement columns. The Egyptians deitized Imhotep and he would have been labeled as a starchitect by the likes of Comcast, CBS and Viacom of its days.
‘You are not going to call me a fucking ‘starchitect’? I hate that.’ — Frank Gehry objected during a Financial Times interview back in November 2013.
Starchitect is used by the media to label the latest superstar architects who completed ‘wow architecture’. This article will attempt to provide a brief account into the modern conception of starchitects.
The Rise of Avant-garde
The French are often stereotyped as proud and arrogant, but none is more proud to proclaim himself as the ‘proudest and most arrogant man in France’. It was his persistence and impregnable self-confidence that introduce realism to the French and English in the 1950s. Gustave Courbet is the first major figure in the avant-garde movement. Gustave, a politically active individual, was attempting to depict the reality of social and political issues while opposing idealism.
We artists will serve you as an avant-garde, the power of the arts is most immediate: when we want to spread new ideas we inscribe them on marble or canvas. What a magnificent destiny for the arts is that of exercising a positive power over society, a true priestly function and of marching in the van [i.e. vanguard] of all the intellectual faculties! — Henri de Saint-Simon wrote in 1825.
The avant-garde movement has shifted the art world from realism to impressionism to post-impressionism to cubism to surrealism to pop art to post-modernism and currently neo-futurism.
It is obvious that the architecture industry is often influenced by the art world. It has since the 1900s, moved almost in parallel from modernist to brutalism in the 1950s to structural expressionism in the 1970s and the current neo-futurism.
Architecture, as with art, has become a medium for individuals to express their ideas about the world we live in. This results in the emergence of architectures that are meant to captivate attention, and even more so in the contemporary fact of the intense competition for the attention.
The Bilbao Effect
As you exit Rambuteau metro station onto the intersection of Rue Beaubourg and Rue Rambuteau, you see a Subway on your right. You turn your focus to what’s ahead of you. A complex of green, white and blue tubes greet you.
The museum you are about to enter was regarded as the most illustrious example of the structural expressionism movement. It was architected by Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano and Gianfranco Franchini, three individuals who are all relatively unknown until the completion of the Pompidou Centre in 1977. Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano later went on to win the Pritzker Prize.
‘In the world we live in, 98 percent of the buildings built are pure shit. There’s no sense of design, or respect for humanity or for anything. Once in a while, however, a group of people do something special. Very few, but for God’s sake, just leave us alone. We are dedicated to our work . . . I work with clients who respect the art of architecture. Therefore, please don’t ask questions as stupid as that one.’
The above response was provided, after the middle finger of the world’s most famous architect was extended to a journalist questioning his buildings to be flashy symbols rather than functional structures.
Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum is just one of the many architectures that have transformed the former industrial areas of Bilbao into a public museum for many prolific designers and architects: Arata Isozaki, Cesar Pelli, Jeff Koons, Norman Foster, Phillippe Starck, Santiago Calatrava, and the recently deceased Zaha Hadid.
Buildings of the likes of Pompidou Centre and Guggenheim Museum have drove torrents of tourists annually to the cities of its assembly. ‘The Bilbao effect’ has been termed to describe the urban design model, where cities hire expensive architects to design ‘wow architecture’. Cities around the world without cultural history will need cultural gentrification, while cities with rich culture will constantly need to renew itself.
This have drove the architecture world into a frenzy competition for fame and stardom. Angel Borrego Cubero, a Spanish architect, produced a documentary following the ugly and heated rivalry of five starchitects competing to design a new museum in Andorra (a nation so small that most people has never heard of). The trailer of just 3 mins and 12 seconds demonstrates the awful embarrassment the starchitects induced on themselves.
Media Play
On March 13, 2016, as loyal viewers of the 60 Minutes program get baffled when they hear words like ‘courtscraper’, ‘hyperbolic paraboloid’, and ‘megalomaniacal’, they wonder how is a Danish’s English better than them. Bjarke Ingels, at an age of 41, is labelled by the CBS TV segment as a young starchitect.
It is only fair to question the role that the media have played in the creation of starchitects. At times, the media will celebrate them as a starchitect and there are also times where the media choose to perpetuate a negative image. It is all a matter of what would feed the audience’s hedonistic nature.
Architects are human too, with their biases, egos and emotions. The media taking the advantage of these flaws, are reducing an architect’s work to a tabloid. The audience will not change, but the media has to change its ways in telling a great story.
Ongoing Debates
There many issues and debates surrounding this concept of a ‘starchitect’ that are still open, other than the ones mentioned above.
The exclusivity of it as a male dominant elite group, hence raising the issue of feminism and equality of genders. The debate of global architects versus localtecture, whether structures are reflecting the communities of its neighborhood.
The question of whether architecture has to always be a bold and grand gesture, intended to raise the status of an architect to the global arena, allowing him/her to charge a higher fee.
What are the thinking processes behind these celebrated individuals?
What are their true views and intentions, other than the ones as portrayed by the media?
What might life be like after the signature-style, icon-obsessed, and arguably male-dominated age of the ‘starchitect’? — Royal Academy of Arts
The Post-starchitecture World
The involvement of realizing a building requires the collaboration of many individuals, parties of different disciplines. Will there be a change in the way we celebrate the completion of an ingenious building?
The media should be telling stories that will inspire future architects to desire to create structures that are of value to society, its culture, and environment; not individuals who desire to be rich and famous.
Will the ‘starchitect’ term soon phase out? Should architecture be a reflection of the values of the current society? Or can it act as an agency of individualistic expression?
How should we then reinvent a flawed system? By simply commenting and criticizing will not move the needle. It would need resourceful individuals and organisations who are bold enough to rethink the systems that are currently in place, and then take practical yet compelling steps toward a potential paradigm shift. (We will deliberate further on this in other future articles.)
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