who is architecture?

8/8/2019 Who is Architecture?

1/141


2/141

Who s Archtctr?


3/141

Who s Archtctr?

Convrsatons on th bordrs o bldng

Brendan McGetrick

/


4/141

Published by Timezone 8 & Domus China

Timezone 8 Limited15D Entertainment Building

30 Queens Road Central

Hong Kong

www.timezone8.com

[email protected]

Domus China

Suite 612, 94 Dongsi

Shitiao

Beijing 100007Peoples Republic of China

www.domuschina.com

Copyright Brendan McGetrick 2009, 2010

ISBN 978-988-18816-6-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any

means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information stor-

age or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

All images provided by and published with the permission of the interview subjects.

While every effort has been made to contact owners of copyright material produced in this book,

we have not always been successful. In the event of a copyright query, please contact the publisher.

Text designed and typeset in Minion & Myriad Pro by

Brendan McGetrick

Printed and bound in the Peoples Republic of China


5/141

To Liu Mi, my favorite architect


6/141

Mchal Rock

L Zhnggang

Rory McGowan

Barry Brgdoll

Haas & Hahn

Rnr d Graa

John Dkron & Marks Schndr

Jnnr Sglr

Mark Wgly

Tan Xaochn

1

19

29

43

57

71

85

95

111

123

ix

Contnts

Foreword

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10


7/141

ARCHiTeCTuRe s a collaboratv art. Th achvmnt o a bldng o vn small am-

bton rqrs th archtct to commt hmsl to an array o spcalstsngnrs, advlopr, a rndrng company, plmbrs, a photographr, tc.ach o whom s r-sponsbl or a vtal pc o hs vson. Long bor bldng bgns, sh mst dsgn aprodcton procss that ncorporats ths otsd ablts, that balancs ndvdal m-powrmnt and gnral ovrsght and allows or manngl ntracton btwn pros-sons that mght othrws nvr mt.

in 2009, th Chns dton o Domusmagazn nvtd m to partcpat n ts an-nal ntrvw srs. i was told that i cold ntrvw anyon id lk on a topc o mychoc, wth th rslts pblshd n ach ss as a rmovabl booklt. Th prvos s-rs had atrd svral o th most clbratd grs n contmporary archtctr, a

act that smd smltanosly ntmdatng and lbratng. Conrontd wth th nd tomantan th magazns hgh standards and acng an alrady dpltd pool o potntalsbjcts, i dcdd to look otsd, to th popl and prossons along archtctrs p-rphry. Rathr than ntrrogatng archtcts drctly, i spok to thos closst to thm, thcollaborators on whom thy dpnd to rnorc, ralz, and xpand thr das. evnt-ally th concpt o a slhott mrgd: by llng n th aras arond t n grat dtal, thsrs cold prodc an mag o archtctr n rl, a prosson dnd ntrly btwhat taks plac at ts otr dgs.

Ths book prsnts th rslts o that ort. each ntrvw rvals a drnt act ocollaboraton, whr archtcts hav ntrstd otsdrs to mak or brak thr dsgnsrom an ngnr nsrng strctral ntgrty and a graphc dsgnr provdng navga-tonal clarty, to a crator, dtor, or dgtal rndrr prsntng t to th pblc, an dca-tor placng t wthn thosands o yars o prvos orts, and a contractor dtrmnnghow bst to bld t. Togthr thy covr many o th archtcts gratst challngs andrval what s prhaps hs most ndr-apprcatd talnt, th ablty to achv cohrncyrom a mass o smngly rrconclabl drncs.

Who is architecture?s an ort to clbrat archtcts by gnorng thm. Most o thpopl ntrvwd hav no archtctral backgrond, and th w who ar trand havsoght altrnatvs to prossonal practc. Rathr than xtollng th archtcts powr

ntllctal, asthtc, organzatonal, tc.t xamns hr fxblty, hr nq abltyto ovrs and adjst, xtract val and orm connctons, to, as Mark Wgly xplanstoward th nd o th book, combn orms o knowldg that dont blong togthr.

unortnatly, thr ar many orms o knowldg that ar not covrd n ths bookbt ar vtal to achvng a ll sns o archtctral collaboraton. i hop that n th -tr ths srs wll b amndd and nrchd by rthr dscssons wth dvloprs, coststmators, modl makrs, plmbrs, govrnmnt ocals, tc. Stll, t s a plasr to prs-nt ths srs whol or th rst tm. Th slcton s ncomplt, bt th convrsatonsar thorogh and, togthr, thy provd a nw st o ntry ponts to a prosson that sndrstood by w bt acts all.

Nw York, Fbrary 2010

Forword


8/141

Michael Rock is a ounding partner

and creative director at 2x4 and Pro-

essor o Design at the Yale University

School o Art.


9/141

BRENDAN McGETRICK: Ever since I started working with architects, Ive beenascinated by the ways in which they collaborate with people outside o their pro-essionengineers, contractors, clients, etc. Each o these has a particular posi-tion in an architecture project and through collaboration reveals insights into thenature o an architects work. TheDomus interview series is planned with thatidea in mind; the hope is that by understanding more about the roles o peopleworking along its edges, we can better understand what architecture is.

It seems to me that as a graphic designer you play several roles: you createsignage and way-nding systems or buildings, but you also create publicationsabout architecture. To start, lets talk a little bit about those roles.

MICHAEL ROCK: I once gave a lecture titled In, On, Around and About,and this is kind o our relationship to architecture. We do work that happensinside architecture and is somehow applied to it and the landscape around it,but we also do work about it.

It was never an aspiration o ours to become sign designers, it was an ac-

cidental development o our practice. Whats interesting is that by working atan architectural scale as a graphic designer you operate at a completely di-erent scale than you do or the rest o graphic design work. Oten times thework is simply bigger or it incorporates materials in a dierent way, and thatworkwhich is integral to architecture because its murals or its wallpaperor its surace decorations or patterns or signs or way-ndingis all drivenpartially by the scale o the work that its related to.

But then theres also the work that is about somehow expressing the ideaso architecture or explaining how it works. In the beginning we did a lot othat, because the architects who we were working with didnt have a lot o

buildings; they were still competing or projects and so we did things likeboards or books or materials that tried to explain an architectural idea. Thenit went over into books and magazines, things that were about architecturesomehow, which still had to engage architectural ideas, but in a graphic way.

1. Michael Rock

The ollowing

discussion took

place at Rocks

apartment in New

York on

September 4,

2008

Rock, Michael.

In, On, Around,

and About. The

Cooper Union.

New York, 30

November 2006


10/141

2 Michael Rock, Graphic Designer

So hrs a spl bwn h work whch s archcural n scal and h work

whch s graphc n scal bu rlas o h archcur sl.

thas h wo major srans ha you mnon: broadcasng archcur

vrsus work whch augmns archcur somhow. i hnk w s hm bohas commnary or crqu n a cran way, bcaus i hnk ha h graphc

work n h buldngs s always somhow n dalogu wh h buldng sl.

thrs a conras or rcon bwn h hngs ha w do and h arch-

cur. in h mos basc sns, you hnk abou way-ndng: smply

annoas h buldng and lls you how o us lls you o go hr or go

hr, lls you hs ar h doors your supposd o usand so s rally

basc labllng. Bu n a mor complx way i hnk sars o rfc h dol-

ogy o h buldng and lls somhng abou h sory o h buldng andhow you should l abou .

i hnk has spcally ru whr h lmns nsd a buldng arlmns o paron and no o srucur. Your bascally dcorang hos

lmns o gv hm manng, sayng hs s an mporan wall or no an m-

poran wall. Your provdng vry basc uncons or dcorang h spac,

and n dong ha you nd o xplan h concp o h buldng. i lk o

hnk ha h work ha w do n rlaon o buldngs plays a complx and

ngral par n h sns ha w spak drcly o h usr o h buldng

abou h buldng. Way-ndng s always sn as somhng ha s drcly

rlad o h usr xprnc o h buldng, no o archcural hsory and

no o a horcal da bu o navgaon and o h way ha somon movsn h spac. Bu you jus xnd ha urhr ou, bcoms abou makng

a drc addrss o h usrs abou h buldng ha hyr usng.tha happns som ms mor han ohrs, and dpnds on h ar-

chc and h buldng, bu i hnk ha s h clash o wo dscplns

comng oghr ha i nd nrsng. i sll nd an nrsng ara o

work and hnk abou, and as chnology changs bcoms an ncrasngly

mporan on, bcaus now you hav dgal hngs, LeDs, and dynamc l-

mns ha ar projcd no sac lmns. incrasngly vry buldng n-

gags h graphc n mor and mor complx ways. i usd o b vry ypcal

ha h archc would nsh a buldng and hn h graphc dsgnr wouldcom n and dcd whr h sgns wn, bu i hnk ha s much mor lk-

ly now ha hr s an arly ngraon o h wo praccs and h graphc

and normaonal par s consdrd a componn o h archcural par.


11/141

3You make up your own story about it

You mentioned graphic design in a dialogue with architecture. Is that dialogue

the product of a real dialogue that takes place between a graphic designer and

architect where he or she explains the priorities and then you try to make them

more explicit?

i hnk happens n los o deren ways. Somemes s a real dalogue, andn he very early sages heres a dscusson around ceran overarchng dealso do wh he space, and hen ha plays ou n graphc deas. For example,n IIT, he buldng by OMA, here was an dea rom he compeon sageo havng hs portrait of Mies on he ace o buldng; he dea o havng

big portraits was here rom he very rs concep. they were glued ono hers model ha was made, and so here was already a hough abou how hebuldng would be graphc. i s a one-sory buldng so he walls don hold

up he celng, he columns hold up he celng, and he neror paronswere always jus a seres o fud orms ha demsed he rooms. they werealways hough abou as covered wh hngs o gve hem meanng or makehem deren. there was already a dalogue around ha deano necessar-ly wha he conen would be, bu ha here would be somehng hereromhe very earles pars o he desgn process.

there are oher mes where, as he desgn develops, here are cerancondons ha arse and mus be me somehow, bu can be me wh ar-checure or a varey o reasonsoen because s oo expensve. So hen

heyll say, We have hs bg blank wall. We should make somehng moreneresng wh hs. tha calls ou or an nervenon by he desgner. thas somehng ha s unoreseen n he desgn process, bu n he developmenprocess ceran hngs come up and you make decsons abou hem or hesake o he uny o he desgn.

Oher mes happens on he graphc desgners sde n a purely analy-cal way. You don really have ha much dalogue wh he desgners o hebuldng so you make up your own sory abou . is your own nerprea-on o he buldng o a ceran exen, and ha oen happens n buldngsha are que ar along and were brough no a suaon where we don

have a rappor wh he archec so we jus make up our own way o work-ng and houghs abou he buldngs. Somemes hey mach he archecureand somemes hey work agans , o a ceran exen. We dd an nerorsprojec recenly was or he New York Academy o Scencewhere we dd a

Further mentions

IIT: 38


12/141


whole series o wallpapers about our own thoughts about scientic inquiry. Itdidnt have anything to do with the physical architecture per se, it just becameanother element o the space.

Do you see your role as sometimes trying to supplement a building in order toprovide qualities that it lacks?

I dont think that its a matter o lack and I dont think its a matter o supple-ment, because one seems recuperativeas i its solving a problem that wasntsolved by the architectureand the other one seems like its secondary. Ithink in both cases its more complimentary than supplementary. Its anotherelementlike lighting or soundthats part o the architectural experience.I think that a lot o it has to do with completing the atmosphere o a space. I

you think o the Seagrams Building, the graphic element is extremely under-stated and its played out in simple ways, in terms o patterning or typography,but its somehow completely appropriate or that building. It gives a sense o50s modern business attire to the whole thing. You cant imagine it beingdone in a dierent way than in this almost transparent way. With CCTV or aproject like that, the spaces are so dramatic, so big, so architecturally complexthat the design program is actually incredibly neutral, because it doesnt needthat much. You just need some really basic way-nding. Sometimes you needthings o big scale to match the scale o the structural members, because they

are such a powerul element in the space, but its not a space thats calling outor a lot o additional material, because the physical orm o the building is soincredibly present all o the time.

I think each space has a logic to it and part o the design experience is un-derstanding the logic and somehow creating something that ts there. Thatdoesnt mean its something that is totally compliant in the space, becausesometimes it can t by being really annoying, but it needs to be complimen-tary to the whole experience. I part o architecture is creating these experi-ences, then the graphic and the visual is an incredibly important part o it.Oten times one o the rst things you see when you go into a space is the

graphic aspect o it.

The graphic acts almost as a buer.

Further mentions

CCTV: 6-7, 22-23,

29-36, 38, 133


13/141

5Completing the atmosphere o a space

Architectural language is something that you experience in an incrediblyvisceral way, but its not necessarily apparent to people right away what it istheyre seeing or experiencing. You might walk into a space thats very big, so

thats the rst experienceits big, its openbut the intricacies o the archi-tecture arent immediately apparent to most people. So oten the graphic is anentry to it, something they can understand on a more human scale.

Do you have a particular building in mind?

I was thinking about Terminal Three o Beijing Airport. When you rst stepin, that space is pretty overwhelming. Its almost like you have to look at 180to comprehend the whole thing. Youre overwhelmed by this huge emptyspace and you dont necessarily understand how the curve o the ceiling works

or how the ceiling detail works or how all o those things add up to the overallexperience. Oten youre ocused on the simple, much more immediate expe-rience o, How do I nd the check-in counter? And in a way the graphic parthas to work against the overwhelmingly architectural space just to make youeel like you can navigate it or understand where you need to get to or how

you t into the whole thing, because your rst impression might be absolutebewilderment at the scale o it.

Right, because the concept o Terminal Three is to try to combine under one roo

so many o the elements that are spread across multiple terminals in the typicalairport. Thats really a challenge, o course, because people have to understandthe system so that they dont end up at the wrong end, which is almost a kilome-ter away.

In a way that airport doesnt use any o the typical architectural ideas o pro-gression to get you places, because you see the whole thing at once, and thatssuch an unusual experience. Youre kind o high when you enter, then it slopesdown away rom you, so its almost like liting the roo o a building andseeing it without all the room partitions. Thats a situation where the whole

way-nding program becomes absolutely essential to what your movementthrough that building will be, because the architecture doesnt necessarily lead

you through immediately.

Further mentions

Terminal Three:

6, 39


14/141


Another aspect o the way-nding in airports but more and more in other sorts obuildings as well, is the need or iconographic expressions that are independent olanguage. You almost need to a develop a visual Esperanto that can communicate

even to people who are nervous and rushed and guide them through the buildingin an ecient way.

I think that is almost a dierent discipline in itsel, because airports or subwaysystems have problems unto themselves that dont necessarily relate to an in-dividual building. In an individual building you usually go through a certainprogression o experiences that is pretty standard: you see the building, youwalk across something to get to it, you walk through the ront door, and thenthere are certain things ater that. In an airport, because there are so manyroutes that you could take and so many things that you have to do in a precise

order to get where you have to go, you really have tell people exactly: step oneis this, step two is this, step three is this... In Terminal Three its interesting,because you go through the big raming gates where you check-in, and theneverything keeps narrowing down until you get on that train. Its a series osteps and I think its even played out on the foor: go here, go here, go here...You dont really have any ree will in the system. You only have one way to gothrough it and you have to keep everyone going that way, whereas in otherplaces you might want to exaggerate the sense o ree will and not make themeel too controlled in what they do.

Airports are, by necessity I guess, authoritarian and design serves that.

I think were in a stage where you can control small experiences graphically,but on a bigger level, outside o a single building or airport or highway system,all hell breaks loose and you dont have much control over it. So you createthese little pockets o logic or pockets o unity and then those all t togetherin a completely illogical way.

The airport is the exact opposite o a city in a way. Your movement hasto be prescribed, the graphic has to be consistent, you have know how to get

rom one place to another. You can have the shopping street in the airport, butits always under signs that say Shopping Street and tell you when youre init or not in it. There cant be anything let to chance. Whereas with the CCTVheadquarters I think there are certain things that can be let to chance.


15/141

7Little pockets o logic

What exactly are you doing orCCTV?

Ostensibly were doing all o the graphic design or the site and inside the

building. How all the signs work, how the way-nding works, when thereselectronic things and when theres xed things... But it started o more basic:What do you call the dierent parts o the building? How is it labelled ornumbered? Its a dicult building because, or instance, do you consider ittwo buildings or one building when you label it? Is there a Tower One andTower Two? But what happens when they join together again? One o thetowers has a dierent number o foors between the base and when they jointogether again, so theres a certain point where you have to allow or somemissing foors on one so that you get to the same number o foors when it

joins the other one. There are a lot o basic logical problems to understand in

that building.That was exacerbated in part by certain decisions that were made on a

totally arbitrary level at the very beginning about how the sections would becalled in the architectural plans. All o the rooms were labelled a certain wayon every single plan, and when we got involved and started thinking aboutway-nding we ound a certain kind o illogic to that, because youd enter inSection E then go to Section C then A, because or another reason the roomswere labelled that way. So youre stuck with a somewhat illogical overarchingnaming process. Then rom that, you have to work out a new system so that

it makes sense again.Theres also drawing the maps o the site and guring out what happensoutside, in the kiosks and all that stu. How you get people to know where todrop people o... Then it works down to the really basic things like how do

you label the caes and what does it say outside the elevator to explain how toget to these dierent parts o the building. Theres a really complicated verti-cal movement pattern in that building too, because certain elevators go tocertain foors and not to others. Then it goes to the more environmental parto it: theres murals or some o the rooms, theres parts o the visitor loopexperience that are more inormational. Theres a lot o dierent things to do

in that building design-wise. And a lot o it is very dry. Its much more inter-esting to gure out how rooms are numbered, but like I said, in that buildingtheres so much going on conceptually and architecturally that it just needs tobe decoded mostlyto just get people simply rom place to place.

Further mentions

CCTV:4, 6, 22-23,

29-36, 38, 133

CCTV Elevator System

SINGLE DECK

DOUBLE DECK LOCAL

TRANSFERLOBBY

DOUBLE DECK EXPRESS


16/141


That idea o decoding a building is really interesting. I think thats an aspect othe relationship between architecture and graphic design that isnt well enoughunderstood. Something like designing wallpaper is very easy to understand. You

get a graphic designer to do that. But theres another, deeper level o involvementwhere you have to enorce what the buildings intentions are, even when theywerent clear rom the beginning o the design process.

I think its also part o the way that buildings are designed. Usually an archi-tect designs the outside o the buildingthe basic concept o it, how it works,how its structured in terms o providing enough space to t all the programneeds. Then another architect, oten unrelated to the rst one, comes in anddoes the interiors. Even i the same architect does the interiors, oten its adierent team o people, and its only at the end that you really start to think

about how people move through it or what they do when theyre there. Ivebeen in many dierent projects where theres no allowance or where you buya ticket or something like that wayinto the process. Its a museum and noones thought about where you wait in line to buy a ticket, because so mucheort has gone into the overall architectural expression and the language othe building. And thats not admonishing architecture, I think you just havedierent scales o problems that you have to deal with at dierent times. Butat some point you have to deal with these really basic issues like decoding thebuilding and how you use it.

And I suppose it makes sense that you would need an outside perspective or ad-dressing those issues, someone who can think more like a user.

Its interesting, because I nd it dicult to understand buildings even romtheir plans and sections. I really have to work at that notion, because you con-stantly have to be imagining spaces not as ormal volumes but as spaces that

you move through. For instance, OMAs Casa da Musica in Porto, until I wentto that building and went through it I never ully understood how it wouldwork or what the spaces would be like inside. That space is so complex and

your route through that building is so interesting, the way one space opensinto the next one is so interesting, but its a really dicult thing to imagine atthe level o drawings.

Further mentions

Casa da Musica: 37


17/141

9The sea o architectural publishing

Photos too generally.

Yeah, photos are such a low-level expression o architecture I think. The pic-

tures that you see o that space dont have any sense o the scale o it. Theresa really beautiul way that one space leads to the next in that building, but itsalmost impossible to explain through photographs.

Which goes back to the other side o your involvement with architecture.

Right, thats the side that I eel less accomplished in at the moment. Maybebecause I havent been designing so much print work recently, but maybealso because Ive ound that aspect so rustrating. It always comes down tothis set o similar devices that you have or telling stories, and ater a while it

becomes really tedious I think: you have a group o plans and sections thatare put together, then you have some photographs that were taken by a goodphotographer, then someone writes an essay about it... Those are the devicesthat you have to tell the story.

The issue oDomus dAutore that we did with OMA was an interestingattempt to at least catalogue the possible devices that you could use. It hadpeoples postings o images o themselves in the buildings and what peoplewere saying on blogs. It had how the television stations covered it and howthe newspapers covered it, and it attempted to make a list o all the dierent

types o architectural representations. But somehow they still always seemdecient. So this whole sea o architectural publishing I eel more and morealienated rom. There are more and more books, and nothing seems to get atit or penetrate it somehow. It seems like lm or something interactive mightbe a better way to do it. But you deal with it all the time, so you must strugglewith the same things.

Yes, also because a building is so complicated and there are so many things thatyou could try to express. I you say, OK, Im going to concentrate on the expe-riential aspect o this building, then there are things that you can doyou can

interview users, you can ask the maintenance man or a tour, you can ask anauthor to write a piece o ction that takes place in the building. But then theresdozens o other things that youre ignoring.

AMO/Rem

Koolhaas. Post-

Occupancy.

Domus dAutore

June 2006


18/141


I eel really rustrated about how to move it beyond that. Im doing a bookwith an architect right now, a totally classical book. Its a series o 22 essays thathe wrote and some pictures o the buildings that he talks about. Im working

with a very typical architectural publisher and they really wanted somethingdierent. But basically every idea that we brought to them that would havebeen dierent, they said, Oh, but you cant do that though, because booksthat size dont sell... And so we did all these covers and they were nally like,What we were thinking was maybe like an architectural detail on the cover...And I just said, Well, basically now youve worked this book back to being81 x 11, it has this kind o typography, it now has an architectural detailon the cover, so it looks exactly like every other book youve ever published.It just seems like all o the interest to do something dierent hits a dead endevery time. For that book, we wanted to make it much more like a novel; i its

all writing why not really publish it like a novel and make it look like that? Buto course there was no capacity to think about it that way.

Rem [Koolhaas] is one o the only people who experiments with publi-cations in a way which is as radical as the way that OMA experiments witharchitecture. Whether you liked it or not, I think Contentwas a really inter-esting experiment to try to get at his practice in a totally dierent way. AndobviouslyS,M,L,XLwas a way and the issue o Domus dAutore was a way.Each one attempts to crack through somehow or at least throw in some newways o rendering the projects. I think that hes come the closest o anybody to

making a series o publications which refect on architectural ideas in graphicways: the actual graphic orm o the thing itsel and the way that the writingis assembled and the way that the publication is thought o is equivalent tothe buildings in a way.

Rem is someone who puts a lot o thought into the problem o representing archi-tecture, because he suers rom the act the architecture articulates itsel so poorlyto the outside world.

Yesterday I went to this conerence at a university or a little while. I have to

say it was so bad. The presentations were so completely impenetrable, mostlyincomprehensible really. I had no idea what these people were saying. In thiscase it was a conerence o architects, but the language was so internal.

OMA, Rem Kool-

haas, and Bruce

Mau. S,M,L,XL. New

York: MonticelliPress, 1995.

Further mentions

Rem Koolhaas: 13,

79, 87, 100-101,

103-104, 112

S,M,L,XL: 103-104,

106, 112

Koolhaas, Rem and

Brendan McGetrick.,

ed. Content. Kln :

Taschen, 2004.


19/141

11All o the interest to do something dierent hits a dead end

I know just what you mean. These academic discussions really are impenetrableand, worse, they drain your enthusiasm or architecture and architects. But whatis interesting is that, having doneContent and even with MAD Dinner, a book

I edited last year, its become clear to me that i you dont submit to that inter-nal discussion and you try to do something dierent, you are almost sure to bedismissed by many architects and critics. I it doesnt look serious and it doesntlook like something they identiy with, they immediately assume its rivolous.I think that is a major obstacle to the sorts o experiments you mentioned: thebelie that architecture needs to be very serious makes it so much more dicult toexperiment and, once you have experimented, to nd an audience that is willingto make the leap o aith and try to appreciate it.

I think its a combination. In some ways, there is an ineriority complex where

architecture needs to be philosophical to somehow counteract the physicalityo it. It needs to be proved that its philosophical or it comes out o deep ideas.But in doing that it completely alienates all o the people who could actuallyunderstand some o what is going on, and that was part o the problem o thisconerence. One o the questions at the end was so completely over the top.Literally it was, Im really concerned about the post-colonial idea o concreteand its hegemonic position in relation to local stone... And I eel like Im aairly well-read, intelligent person and I just had absolutely no idea. I justthought, How would I ever answer that question i someone asked it to me?

I generally support theory and the idea o criticism being an importantpart o architecture, but somehow it gets to the point where theres no entrypoint to it. Thats why I thought that Contentwas such a daring book, becauseit didnt eel labored in its attempt to prove something. It put a lot o thingsout there in a lot o ways that could be interesting. But what do you eel is thereaction to Content?

Well, Ive heard some airly intense reactions on both the positive and negativeside. On the negative, it seems that the cover alone turned o a huge part o the

potential audience. People didnt bother to read it or even open it once they saw

the crudeness and graphic aggression o the cover. But actually in China Ive metquite a ew people who really love it, and young architects have even told me thatit inspired them to study architecture.

McGetrick, Brendan

and Chen Shuyu.,

ed. MAD Dinner.

Barcelona: Actar,

2008.


20/141


I really like that book a lot. I thought it was actually really daring and unusual,resh. It took risks where no one else takes risks.

I talked once at the Institute o Contemporary Arts in London and people werecriticizingContent and I said, Look, our attitude was that there was no booklike that, so we should make one. I in ten years there are dozens o books likethat andContent seems like an amateurish, primitive attempt, then that wouldbe great, because that would mean we have that many more interesting, experi-mental books. But as long as its the case that nobody else is trying to do it, thenI think a book like thatdeserves a small amount o respect or showing what elseis possible.

Right, what I liked about it was that it didnt eel derivative. Or that what it elt

derivative o werent architecture books. What was interesting was that it tooka tabloid approach to a subject that had become tabloidized by the way it wascovered anyway. I thought that was an interesting critical maneuver in a way.

It was one o the only successul attempts that Ive seen to apply this idea thatarchitects oten have o bringing in someone who has no idea whats going onand getting them to apply that ignorance to come up with resh ideas. AroundOMA there was this recurring antasy, Yeah, well let the lady who makes thelunches do the image selection and thatll be super interesting! And it almost

never works, but it did or Content, because neither o the designers knew athing about architecture or particularly cared to. So they simply applied this tab-loid language, which was their native language, because they had been doing amagazine like that or years. Thats why in the end it eels authentic, because theycouldnt have done it any other way.

I just eel really worn down by the architectural publishing world to a certainextent. Its not where I go to nd inspiration or interest at the moment. But Ithink maybe exhibits are a slightly more satisying way to deal with architec-ture, because you can deal with lots o dierent media. You can have models

and you can have movies and you can have text and sound. In that theyrequasi-architectural themselves, they might be a way to address the dicultyo books somehow.


21/141

13Brand DNA

Some o the animations that are used to describe a building in design Ithink are pretty interesting in the way that they can conceptually assemble abuilding and move you through it. Im talking about those Crystal CG fy-

throughs and stu like that. In terms o telling the story o a building I thinktheyre pretty compelling. Theyre cheesy in the sense that some o the graphiclanguage is a little bit cheesy at this point, but I dont think its ully developedas an experience yet. But on a Hollywood level, o course, you can start tomake those things really incredible. Im sure theres huge potential or it, butits super expensive to do at the moment, so that limits what can be done.

Over the years 2x4 has been involved in a ew projects that have gradually ex-panded to include a variety o disciplines and media. The collaboration betweenOMA, 2x4, andPradais maybe the most obvious example. I know that you also

recently worked on Clo, a wine bar here in New York, where you ended up doingalmost everything rom the development o the name and brand identity, the weband interactive components, packaging, to the architectural and interior design.Im curious about how this sort o total integration works. As you mentionedbeore, graphic design is a complimentary component to architecture, but so is

plumbing or HV/AC and you rarely see the people responsible or those aspectsentering any others.

I think that branding has become so embedded in the way that everyone thinks

about their business, their organizations, that all design, including architec-ture, is pushed into becoming an expression o that. I youre going to build acorporate headquarters now, youre absolutely thinking about how this selec-tion o architects supports the overall brand o the company. So thats part othe programmatic demand o architecture now, and because designers havealways been pretty integral in developing what a brand is, its only a small shitrom determining what it is to starting to create the expressions o it.

Nike always talks about their brand DNA. They say that their brand DNAis so strong and you need to understand the DNA o Nike in order to under-stand how to make work or them. Once thats established, everything has

to be an expression o that DNA. O course, you can say that the work Rem[Koolhaas] is doing or Prada is clearly an expression o Pradas brand. Remsan integral part o Pradas brand, and were a part o Pradas brand also.

Further mentions

Crystal CG: 19-27

Further mentions

Prada: 14, 75, 85

Further mentionsRem Koolhaas: 10,

79, 87, 100-101,

103-104, 112


22/141


For a ashion company to associate itsel with OMA is a branding state-ment and then the work that they do or them pushes their brand in certaindirections, expresses it in certain ways. Because o that I think the distinction

o whats architecture and whats graphic design becomes a little bit blurry,because all o them become equal expressions o this central branding. I thinkthats actually a major change in the way that the world works. O course,its probably happened in natural ways beore, but when a museum becomestotally obsessed with what its brand is and what it means to have Renzo Pianodesign their museum or them, it changes the nature o what theyre expect-ing rom their architects and what theyre expecting rom their designers. Itsalso implying that, or example, i Nike has really clearly dened DNA and thearchitects are working rom that and Im working rom that, then naturallyour work should somehow go together, because were all reerring to the same

object o representation. So I think that the change in our practice comesrom the change in that understanding o brand. The more we work with or-ganizations where our interaction with them is considered part o their essen-tial branding, the more the things we work on changes, because we becomeexpressers o their brand in all these dierent ways.

With Prada its dierent, because Prada has a big brand that were a smallpart o. Also part o Pradas brand is the unexpected, so i you do somethingweird it ts, because theyre dealing with unexpected things. But with Nike,or instance, they have very strong expectations about exactly how they rep-

resent themselves and what is or isnt an appropriate Nike expression. So, asin this wine bar project, i youre in charge o developing the brand o a com-panyits name and its eeling and the qualities that its supposed to exudethen you can move into other things or them as well: what the experience islike or what the space is like or what the interactive parts are like. Controllingthe branding part o it allows you to have a much larger scope o what hap-pens next, either by commissioning people or doing it yoursel. So, as wevetaken on these roles where weve become much more integral to the establish-ment o the idea, that allows us to have more scope in terms o the work wedo. Does that make sense?

Yes denitely. It reminds o a text I read on your website this morning. Somethingyou designed or the skin care company Malin + Goetz was described as a pack-age that could unction both as a logo and an architectural element.

Further mentions

Prada: 14, 75, 85


23/141

15From the teaspoon to the city

there was hs early modern noon o oal desgn and he expresson wasalways rom he easpoon o he cy. the archec should be able o ouchany one o hose hngs and pull no a desgn. And o course people lke

[Adol] Loos or [Frank Lloyd] Wrgh were absorbed n he dea ha heywould desgn all he urnure and he lgh fxures and would all makeup one huge, purely negraed ar experence. i hnk brand, n a way, hasbecome he newes orm o oal desgn. Bu raher han sayng ha he deaexss n he archec, says ha ha dea exss n hs knd o brand manual,whch expresses who hey are. then everybody adops ha as her workngmehod. is a ransormaon o he oal desgn menaly, and s ceded con-rol rom he archec o he clen. the clen s now n conrol o he oaldesgn dea and everybody becomes her servan.

Mark Wigley wres abou hs dea ha oal desgn was always mplosve

and explosve, n he sense ha deal boh wh he nernal workngs osomehng bu also how broadcas. tha i hnk s he ulmae noon o ,where brand DNA somehow conrols how he busness s run as a pracce,how people relae o one anoher, all o he producs hey make, bu also all oher publcaons and how hey express hemselves o he world. i deals whhe broadcasng o he subjec and also wh he desgn o . in ha way unes promoon and produc desgn.

theres somehng i haven que been able o ge a hough, whch s hesense ha here s an nsdous aspec o all hs, whch s annoyng and con-

rollng and nescapable. the whole brandng noon bugs me ulmaely, bui can see a way around eher, because s one o hose noons ha n-corporaes any rejecon o . You know, Were he company has agansbrandng! And hen has your brand.

Our gimmick is there is no gimmick.

is one o hose hngs ha s so oalzng heres no ousde o . is knd owha [Anono] Negr would say, you have hs sense ha you wan o rebelagans somehng, bu he hng s so bg ha heres no way o be ousde and

rebel agans , every gesure s absorbed by . Brandng s one o hose orms.i absorbs all s crque. i hnk ha conrollng brandng gves you a lo opower and a lo o agency, bu you never conrol oally so you hen becomea vehcle o or acor n somehow. i doesn resde n you.

Further mentions

Mark Wigley:115-126


24/141


Also when the business-side is given priority, scientically-justied aestheticpreerences start to infuence designs. You start hearing things like green doesntsell or books o that size dont sell and it seems to me the number o options

beore the designer contracts.

It does and it doesnt. Theres a notion o branding thats also expansive inthe sense that, once youve established your brand then presumably you canmove into anything and take it over. One o the tests or whether a companyhas a strong brand or not is to say, I it started a chain o restaurants whatwould they be like? Can you imagine them? And you can imagine what anApple restaurant would be like right away. But i Microsot opened up a chaino restaurants its very dicult to imagine what theyd be like. So i the brandis strong enough it allows expansion and redenition, because it changes the

subject rather than the orm. It injects its orm into it, in the way that Applewent into the phone market and now the iPhone has become a standard thateverything else has to react against.

I was actually talking to a guy who used to be the president o Leica, andI was thinking Leica should go into the phone business, because oten times

your phone is your camera anyway and people expect Leicas to have a certainquality to them. And you can imagine what a Leica phone might be like: superutilitarian, really hardcore, always works perectly with a great camera in it. Itwould be in a way the anti-iPhone, because it wouldnt be about fash at all, it

would be about something which is much more utilitarian.

And I think there are a lot o people who would rather have a camera thats alsoa phone than a phone with a camera added to it.

Exactly, where the quality o the camera is the thing that is paramount, butyou could also call your riend on it. So I think that is what is interesting: thedesign part is about designing the idea and seeing i it is generative enough toallow you to build all these things on top o it. And I think it works to a cer-tain extent, because whatever you think about Nike they have a really strong

image, which you can imagine is generative enough to where they can keepdoing new things. They can go into the business o sports beverages or what-ever. They can inuse it with those ideas that they have and they could give ita certain meaning or direction.


25/141

17Nothing can be authentic

O course, the annoying thing is when it goes to a personal level and youthink, Should I live here? Does this neighorhood t my brand? The annoy-ing part is that it means you always have to step outside o the thing and

look at it in this strange, objective way. Nothing can be authentic; everythingbecomes a manuactured expression o this manuactured thing. I think may-be that is the heart o whats annoying about the idea o branding: it alwaysseems inauthentic, it always seems manuactured.

The personalization o branding is scary in a lot o ways. On a macro level, I thinkyou also see that more and more in the way entire nations represent themselves.

Right. Chinas now looking at itsel as a brand. Every country is.

And Chinas an interesting case, because their brandMade In Chinahasgreat recognition but a terrible reputation.

Yes, but Made In Japan used to be just like that and it changed 180 degrees towhere Made In Japan is now seen as a symbol o quality and innovation.

Part o it must be simply development and improvement.

But its also a choice o which products to emphasize. The act that Japan went

into cars and electronics is dierent than i you go into milk products and petood. I guess its about the proessionalization o image control ultimately.For major companies, its become rened as a technique and the devices

or how its produced have become very clearly dened. You always had ar-chitects and graphic designers and all these people who dealt with dierentthings, but now you have someone who is on top o them, uniying them all,and trying to get them in line so that all their work is complimentary in away that conveys their message. Beore, the architects did their thing and thegraphic designers did their thing and since they worked together that wasgreat. But, to come back to the question, the expansion o the scope o work

is because increasingly clients are looking or all o these things to be uniedrather than separate, so i that can be unied through you then thats great. Iit can unied by you telling them, We should hire this architect also, thatsgreat too. But theyre looking or that unity o message.


26/141

Lu Zhenggang is the ounder and

president o Crystal CG Ltd.


27/141

BRENDAN McGETRICK: Crystal CGs story is very interesting, because almostevery well-known new building in China was rst displayed to the world through

your companys renderings. Yours is really the language through which nearly ev-eryone in China reads modern architecture, and now we are seeing the companydevelop along with China beyond buildings toward a more virtual society. I amcurious about your personal experience leading Crystal through these stages odevelopment.

LU ZHENGGANG: Crystal was set up in 1995 and at that time I had justgraduated as a student majoring in architecture. From 1993 to 1995, Auto-CAD rst emerged in China, and I became part o the rst batch o people toget in touch with computer mapping. At that time, elder architects in designinstitutes were unable to do digital mapping, so we youngsters took chargeo blueprint digitization jobs beyond sketching and design. At the beginning,we just did it or ourselves, rom CAD mapping to three-dimensional eects.Later, other architecture institutions heard that we were able do this kind o

job and asked us to do it or them, so gradually our ocus changed rom de-sign to digital mapping.In regards to collaboration between Crystal and modern Chinas develop-

ing process, I think two huge events need to be mentioned. The rst one is theglobal tender o The National Center or the Perorming Arts in 1998. I stillremember that over 40 institutions rom home and abroad competed or thebid, which required close communications and interactions between domes-tic and oreign architects. As the organizing committee openly collected theplans and opinions o the public, and all bidding schemes were to be exhibitedin the Military Museum o the Chinese Peoples Revolution, we were under

great pressure. All competitors spent a lot o time on visual perormance, andwe tried to use cartoons to represent architecture or the rst time. From thenon, we got the chance to be in touch with so many oreign architects, and theyound that China had a good ability to display architecture.

2. Lu Zhenggang

The ollowing

discussion took

place at Lius ofce

in Beijing on

December 25, 2008.

Also included in the

conversation are

editor Qin Lei and

architect Liu Mi.


28/141

20 Lu Zhenggang, Digital Renderer

The second event is Beijing Olympic Games. Crystal started to participatein Beijings bid or the Olympics in 1999. At that time, an important part obidding was selecting the site o the Olympic Games. Besides Beichen, the area

that was eventually selected, there were two other alternativesYizhuang andFatou in the southeastern part o Beijing. From then on, the Beijing Munici-pal Commission o Urban Planning (BMCUP) became Crystals client, withthe agreement that we would help BMCUP to exhibit the planning results othese dierent sites. Following that, Crystal became a sponsor o the Beijing2008 Olympic Games Bidding Committee (BOBICO). At that time, BOBICOwanted to persuade inspection teams rom the International Olympic Com-mittee (IOC), so it asked us to draw the eatures o 2008 Beijing in the year2000 through digitized images. Apart rom that, [the lm-maker and eventualdirector o 2008 Olympic opening ceremony] Zhang Yimou montaged some

pictures o mine or the trailer.In 2006, we ocially became a sponsor o the Beijing Olympic Games,

and thats the rst time in history that a digital imaging company has beenresponsible or the Olympic Games. For the opening ceremony, as the generalcontractor o images, Crystals responsibilities included creating the digitalrehearsal, the image o the bowl-shaped top o the Birds Nest, the images oall the huge scroll paintings, etc. Beorehand, many international companies,including some rom Hollywood, were invited to bid to be the general con-tractor o images, but in the end, we won.

And how has that victory aected the company in the years since?

The change that the Beijing Olympic Games has brought to us is an upgraderom digitized imaging to working on the citys planning, promotion, andpublicity. So you are right that we have developed along with China. Now wenot only ocus on architecture, cities, products, lms, sports, culture, public-ity, and education, but on cartoons, including Fuwa Journey to the Olym-picsandOlympic ABCwith [Chinas state broadcaster] CCTV. We alwaysact as a communicator, and try to help dierent people to acquire knowledge

via images. But in architecture, we have expanded rom doing renderings andcartoons at the beginning to working in more extensive elds, such as archi-tectural education and historic building preservation, rom uture planningto historic recovery, and rom assisting communication between architect and

Further mentions

Birds Nest: 22, 29,

40, 129-137


29/141

21We always act as a communicator

developer to that between architect and ordinary people. For instance, Crystaltook charge o the visual recovery o cities rom the Ming Dynasty in Bei-

jing, Xian, Nanjing, and many other cities. Besides, we restored some historic

spots like Changan City rom the Tang Dynasty. And in our sel-sponsoreddocumentary series, we rehabilitated ancient Buddhist buildings in India.

As you changed rom architectural design to architectural rendering, how didyour understanding o architecture change?

Thats a good question. When I was working as an architect, I knew that I wasond o architecture, but I couldnt become a rst-class architect, because omy personal qualications. But when I went to rendering, I realized that Icould be exposed to more things, because as an architect, I could only do one

project in a year. As a renderer, I could also communicate with dierent peo-ple rom dierent areas, or example, not only architects, but government o-cers, developers, and even ordinary people, and understand dierent pointso view rom dierent groups. Thats useul.

Thats very interesting, especially because you talk about Crystal as a communi-cator. How did you adjust your job to communicate with these dierent groups?

Thats simple. We have dierent departments to handle those things.

I mean, when youre obligated to show a rendering to an architect, developer,and ocial, how can you cater to the tastes o these dierent groups at one time?

Its actually hard to satisy everybodys taste. Like an architect, he may use di-erent strategies or dierent groups, like developers and the government. Themost dicult thing is to draw renderings or developers, because they need tomake popular things or common people.

So how does each division in your company handle these dierent requirements?

We have a department just to communicate with architects and a departmentjust to communicate with developers. But they share their resources, like thesame dish with two dierent ways to cook.


30/141


Another thing that I nd interesting about your story is the idea that Crystal isnow moving in two directions: recreating the past and imagining the uture. Iam curious about the dierent ways that you approach these two things. I can

imagine that the uture has to seem very exciting, while the past should perhapseel dierent.

Technically, there is no dierence. But its strange that you insert the map o ascene rom the uture into a book on ctitious historic spots. Actually, manyo the renderings that we have made look almost the same as real pictures. Istill remember when I saw a picture o the Birds Nest in Beijing Youth Daily,I was astonished and shouted, Somebody stole our picture! But the truthis that the picture was truly taken rom the Birds Nest. That means that ourimitation is accurate.

Well, I am thinking that your style is very modern which I think is perectly suitedto rendering things like the newCCTVor theBirds Nest. But when you repre-sent something which is two thousand years old, I wonder i you think using thesame sort o visual language becomes more dicult.

Actually, we require more details and energy to restore the old ones, because ithas to be more authentic, and or that we need to consult a lot o people, likehistorians and experts researching historical documents and antiques. We do

a great deal o research with Tsinghua University and Beijing Library. Besides,we work with lm-makers, you know, and lms need higher requirements indetails and images than ordinary renderings.

I know that you are probably trying to question whether the same tech-nique is suitable or ancient buildings, because our images are too foweryand have a lot o embellishments. Actually, we have two dierent groups, in-cluding a group with sta that understands archaeology, working on ancientbuildings. On the other hand, some o the images that we illustrated are alittle articial, but thats up to the architects.

Actually what interests me is understanding the range o visual languages thatCrystal is developing. For instance, I see the initial work o Crystal as beautiulrenderings like those o CCTV, but recently Ive seen some simple pictures thatteach peasantshow to build houses. These are very dierent styles.

Further mentions

CCTV: 4, 6-7, 23,

29-36, 38, 133

Birds Nest: 20, 29,

40, 129-137


31/141

23The company is like a matrix

There are 2200 people in this company. Crystal is not a big workshop or mili-tary group, and it is composed o dozens o teams with huge cultural dispar-ity. Our core value is variety.

Do you adjust based on the audience or clients?

The clients will adjust by themselves. Like the same client, he probably wantssomething like CCTV today, but tomorrow he may ask or something totallydierent.

Our teams compete with each other. Sometimes, one team may say theproduct o another team is awul. Every year, Crystal holds contests or em-ployees. We compare dierent styles o work and hold a contest in dierentcities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and invite proessionals to act

as judges. The company is like a matrix, and it depends on dierent people. Sowe never worry that someday we may exhaust ourselves. Now weve started tohire some oreigners, and we will enlarge the proportion o oreign employees.

QIN LEI: Whats the background o your sta? What kinds o elds did theymajor in?

We have our kinds o sta: the rst kind is majoring in architecture and de-sign, such as architectural design or interior design; the second is in arts or

ashion design; the third is in computer technology; and the last but not leastis doing business operations. Everyone can dig out his own niche here, i.e. aperson studying architecture in college can start to make lm, as he realizesthat his avorite is lm.

BRENDAN McGETRICK: In the beginning, Crystal helped other companies toulll their thoughts, but recently youve started to create original productions.Does you plan to expand this part o the business in the uture?

Yes, we will increase original productions, mainly on what we are skilled in.

With the development o visualization, many new elds appear which lie inblurred strips among existing elds, such as digital education and digitalizedcommunities. So we may explore the elds in which we are skilled or thosethat others havent yet well handled.


32/141


In the past ten years, we have learned a great deal rom our clients, includ-ing architects, engineers, ocials, developers, directors, and so on, and this isvery important or our accumulation. We hope to become an expert special-

izing not only in architecture but also in new media and new visual technol-ogy. We recently publicized N City, a new website that visualizes all regionso a city.

How was N City developed? Did you rely on the catalog o renderings you hadalready designed or develop all o this exclusively or the website?

Some parts are rom jobs we have done in the past. But it is like the ShanghaiWorld Expowe signed a contract with the Bureau o Shanghai World ExpoCoordination to set up an online world expo so that all exhibiting halls can

be seen on the Internet. And or another example, we are developing the betaversion o a website or Zhongguancun Zone.

LIU MI: Is that allowed in China?

Google Earth may have legal problems, but we will not, because we developedthis kind o production as authorized by trustees, including some rom com-mercial and cultural elds.

BRENDAN McGETRICK: I think it may be saer than Google Earth, becauseGoogle Earth uses real photos, and that makes people eel nervous that their pri-vate lives could be exposed.

Yeah, besides taking photos rom satellites, Google Earth has Street View.Some people may be photographed by chance. But our productions just mapa three-dimensional city without real human beings.

LIU MI: Did you come up with all those ideas by yoursel?

No, we have many ideas on the table each year, and some good ideas are in-spired by our clients. But lots o them may not go orward. So we have aavorable corporate culture in which everybody can put orward their ownthoughts and try.

www.ncity.com


33/141

25A three-dimensional city without real human beings

BRENDAN McGETRICK: When you talked about the history o Crystal, youmentioned that two events were critical to the companys development, theNational Center or the Perorming Arts competition and the Beijing Olympic

Games. Can you imagine what the third milestone in Crystals developmentmight be?

Its hard to say, but possibly the London Olympic Games. We will disclose thedetails o the agreement to sponsor the London Olympic Games in the mid-dle o February. Its a big challenge or Crystal, as we will undertake all image-related jobs or the Olympic Games in London, a city o design and creation.

QIN LEI: Do you have serious contenders?

Not yet.

So are you most likely to succeed?

But there is a problem that under the current nancial crisis, the sponsorshipee is over 10 million RMB. I no nancial crisis, we would undertake the taskwithout any hesitation.

Does that mean that Crystal is the most powerul company in this eld in the

world?

At least we have successully undertaken the Beijing Olympic Games. We havemade a screen 145 meters long and 27 meters wide, and a circular screen witha length o 495 meters.

The London Olympic Games is a challenge to Crystal. I the situation goeswell, we probably enter the upper echelon o the international creative indus-try. I not, we may be in troubled water. So I am still worried about that.

I think our technology is OK, and the biggest diculty is culture and cre-ativity. London is the worlds creative capital. As a Chinese company, we eel

under great pressure. So we must adjust ourselves and buy a local company inLondon, or it will be hard to satisy the requirements.

LIU MI: So Crystal plans to step into the international arena?


34/141


South China tiger

photos are ake:

provincial authori-

ties. China Daily

11 Nov. 2007.

Yes, so our uture job will ocus on blending lots o internationalized digitalstudios. We need to elevate our brand and capacity, and tolerate people romdierent countries and cultural backgrounds.

BRENDAN McGETRICK: I have one more question about those renderingsyou showed us earlier. You mentioned that Crystals imaging has reached a statewhere it is dicult to distinguish between a photo and a CG image. Do you thinkthis will cause problems, especially when recreating historical images, such asDaming Palace? Couldnt unamiliar people believe this was the real thing?

That was actually a sample to show what the technology can do, because thebuilding in the picture is gone. The building has been restored but everybodyknows that it does not exist. But these two images even make us conused,

whether is it a rendering or picture. Actually, according to Chinese law, wemust label whether it is rendering or real photo in promotional materials.

Besides, thats a worldwide issue, not just existing in Crystal. Take cur-rent photography as an example: competitors integrate digital technology intheir photos and its hard to make a distinction. Even worse, many photos areaked, such as the South China tiger hoax that happened last year. Imagesthemselves are just tools and a tool isnt right or wrong in itsel. I want to say,people wish to see the uture via more direct visual methods, and commu-nication based on vision is irreversible. I you see a DVD, you will never go

back to VCDs. People become more and more critical, and they like to obtaininormation in a quicker manner, rather than reading.

That brings up another issue: Does Crystal do any work with text or is it a purelyvisual company?

We just visualize some texts to make people understand. For example, we willteach illiterate peasants by means o images to build houses, as they cantread or understand the drawings. We are not addicted to drawing pictures.And were not a super manuacturing company with large-scale production.

A mature company like Crystal will be misunderstood by others, and theymay doubt that when a company is getting stronger, he may try to infuenceothers with his style. But actually, we have done many things in many eldsthat others will never know about, such as charity.


35/141

27Variety and democracy, at the expense o speed and benets

LIU MI: Ive always been curious about how Crystal can enjoy such high prestigein this eld, because many companies draw renderings, and its easy to be sur-

passed by others.

Well, we have taught many people, and at least hal o the practitioners in thiseld are rom Crystal. We depend on variety and innovation, and we encour-age variety and democracy, at the expense o speed and benets.

At present, we set up a Spacelab or architecture design. We have ull-timearchitects, as well as some part-time architects. We own a wide customer re-source network, and we have successully won many tendersso we are com-petent at tendering. [Laughs] I think architectural design can be supported incapital and resources by other elds and, on the other hand, it will push andelevate other elds, but nally, the dierent elds will be separated. All in all,

what we should do is set up a platorm and nish more tasks.


36/141


37/141

The ollowing

discussion took

place on

January 8, 2009 at

McGowans ofce,

overlooking the

CCTV construc-

tion site in Beijing.

BRENDAN McGETRICK: The purpose o this interview series is to try to reacha better understanding o what architecture is by collecting the perspectives o

people who contribute to it in one way or another. Engineers are essential to anyarchitecture project, o course, so to begin I wonder i you could provide a sense ohow you as an engineer look at buildings. Is there a particular lens through which

you would view architecture that others wouldnt?

RORY McGOWAN: There are obvious dierentiations I would make lookingat a building, and one o the rst and oremost is: can you read the structure?Theres a greater level o interest when you can see the structure expressed orwhen it is clearly an engineered building, as opposed to the build em high,sell em ast type o architecture, or buildings that are completely wrappedup in something so that there could be anything behind. In this case you haveno reading o them whatsoever. I was always drawn to older buildings wherethe timber structures were the building, where architecture and structure arevirtually inseparable.

Its dicult, because Im used to looking out the window here at CCTVand I do wonder how other engineers coming along look at it. Do they actu-ally understand the pattern? Do they get it or not? That was always somethingthat we ound exciting about the pattern on the CCTV headquarters: it wasntimmediately obvious, even to a technical person, what was going on there. So,

yes I look or a story in the buildings when I look at them.

Since you mention CCTV, lets talk about it a little bit. I think it is already clearthat, like theBirds Nest, the CCTV headquarters will have to endure an enor-mous number o descriptions rom all sorts o perspectives and degrees o exper-

tise. The architects have their ways to describe the building and its values, thecity o Beijing has its ways, CCTV has its own ways, etc. Could you provide theengineering description o this building?

3. Rory McGowan

Further mentionsCCTV: 4, 6-7, 22-

23, 30-36, 38, 133

Further mentions

Birds Nest: 20, 22,

39, 129-137


38/141

30 Rory McGowan, Engineer

Well, rst I would denitely look at it in the broader aspect: where does itcome rom? Theres been a reluctance within the design team to dene itsorigins, but or me theres a number o strands [o OMAs past work] that

explain itstarting with [OMAs design or the headquarters o ] Universal,where the our parts o the company were pulled together and skewered bycommon program. Another strand is the Togok and Hyperbuildingprojectsrom the mid 90s [that explored] very high-density population in a singleentity, the need or alternative methods o circulation and speed o connec-tivity, and then using that diagram to actually create a structural system that,rather than being single, stand alone elements, were actually interdependentelements, reinorcing the architecture. So when I saw CCTV as a blue oamorm or the rst time, while it was not something we had drawn explicitlybeore, it was very clear in its origin.

Looking at the structure, one o the key components that weve alwaysbeen trying to exploit is the act that the two towers are not ree-standing,but propped o each otheralbeit in a radical way, but they do prop o eachother. Its very clear to us, and I hope that its clear in the reading, that CCTVis one structure. Its not two towers and a bridge and a link building at thebottom. Its one structure and its a continuous tube element. For lay peopleto understand that in a simple way, Ive said its like when you bend a pieceo copper tubing to make a three dimensional orm. I always describe it as atube structure, but the tube isnt solid; it actually needs to be open to serve its

unction, and so instead o the solid surace o a piece o piping, its actually atriangulated surace, which gives you the stiness but also gives you the open-ings to achieve the building unctions. Thats the simplest explanation.

Another aspect that aects the look o the building is the structure, which is madeexplicit and perorms almost as an exoskeleton. As I understand it, the patterno braces is designed in a way that the structure becomes denser in areas that aremore stressed...

Yes, because i you slice through the building at any point, its a airly uniorm

section. Its about 60 [meters] by 60 or 60 by 50, whether you slice it verticallyat the overhang or horizontally at the towers or vertically at the base. So itsan idea o a constant section with a constant structure. Yet, due to its geom-etry, due to variations in wind loading with height, due to the application o

Further mentionsUniversal: 75


39/141

31An unpredictable fow o orces

seismic orces, you get an unpredictable fow o orces around the surace, andyou do need the power o computers to truly understand the fow o orces inthis structure. And this fow o orces around the surace is expressed bythe

density o the bracing that you see there.So, yes, the parts o the building that are working hardest have the highest

density, much like you would patch the elbow [o a jacket] or a tailor wouldcut the cloth to suit the areas that are harder wearing than others. Then thereare areas that are working less hardas you can see to the let hand side oTower Onewhere the pattern opens up, because the actual tube is not work-ing so hard. But the structure is not just the diagonals. Its the columns andbeams that make up every foor, and its the columns and beams interconnect-ed by the diagonals that give you that triangulation o the surace. But it is thediagonals that is the key element and the one that is expressed in the acade.

Lets return or a second to the moment you mentioned earlier when you rst sawtheblue oam model o CCTV. One o the things that I think is crucial to un-derstand in terms o the role o engineering in architecture is the process throughwhich a scheme that is made in a purely conceptual phase o architectural designbecomes something that can actually be built. Could you explain a bit about howthat process usually works?

The process or each project that weve worked on has been slightly dierent.

For CCTV, it was a very, very conceptual piece o art, a sculptural orm, atthe beginning. One that worked with the programmatic requirements o theclients, etc. but which was certainly very sculptural. But it was clear that it wasa deadly serious proposition and rom experience I knew that it was deadlyserious and an incredible challenge and opportunity.

We saw it or the rst time around April 2002 and the submission went inin July I think. It took us a while to understand what it was we would needto do, and during that process we did question the geometry as part o it. Weworked with the given concept, but we also examined other geometries. Whatwe realized was even when we played with the geometry the question was still

the same, so actually there wasnt much point in questioning the geometrywhether you tilt it this way or that way or do something slightly dierent withit. It was either make a completely dierent design or accept the orm, takethat as a given, and then move orward. And on CCTV thats what happened:


40/141


we decided no matter what we might want to modiy, it doesnt change thequestion, and then we addressed the question. And it was only with threeweeks to go beore the deadline that we came up with a structural system that

we all believed worked.We knew rom the outset that we had to turn it into a tube, that a con-

ventional core + column skyscraper would never be adequate to deal withthis geometry and the brie. There were a number o meetings in Rotterdam[where OMA is based] and in London [where Ove Arup is based] duringthe summer o 2002 and there were some very earnest proposals about howto build the tower, including one like the Bank o China building in HongKong, you know with the big diamonds. Another one looked at a mixture oconcrete and steel and how you might take this orm and try to balance itsweight to achieve the cantilever and the overhang. So we played around with

it, but there was no solution that we were happy with and it was during phoneconversations between London and Rotterdam that the idea was brought up,Why dont we do what we did or [OMAs design o] the Whitney Museum,which was just take the shape and analyze it without any consideration o astructure, just give the surace a property and then look at that and how itsbehaving under ordinary gravity load and moderate horizontal loads. Fromthat we got this pattern o stresses which showed immediately that theres ahuge diversity in terms o how hard the tube is working and also that the pat-tern it was throwing out, this sort o camoufage pattern, wasnt necessarily a

pattern that spoke o any logic to an untrained eye. It seemed contrived, andso we said, What do we do with this? Its clearly not a solid like the Whitney;it cant be. So rather than make it a solid surace lets redo this and turn it intotriangles. We basically triangulated the whole surace so it became a wholeseries o diamonds which have foor beams behind, and that basic diamond isstill represented there in the west acade o Tower One. You can see iteachtriangle is over two stories or each diamond is over our stories.

That was the mesh that was put over the entire structure and analyzed.Then we said, Ok, instead o making the members bigger or smaller to re-fect the orce, lets just make the pattern bigger or smaller and try to keep the

members the same size. And, unusually, most o that discussion happened bytelephone and by digital camera shots, doing analysis, making models, mark-ing up images with pencil, scanning it, sending it down the line to Rotterdamand getting their reaction. There wasnt that moment o ace-to-ace where we

e


41/141

3350 percent sheer terror and 50 percent sheer exhilaration

came up with it. It was literally: we got an image onscreen, we sent it over toRotterdam, they saw it, and we said, Thats it, weve got it.

That was unusual, normally these sorts o moments occur in a particular

meeting, but it didnt happen or CCTV. It just happened over two or threedays, three weeks beore the deadline and ater that it was basically trying tounderstand more and more about the structure and whether we really be-lieved we could build it economically and make it work. So in the ew weeksup to the competition submission basically Arup had to decide whether itwas something we were really going to put our name to or not, whether it wassomething we really believed we would ultimately deliver with only having amatter o weeks knowledge o one o the most unique structures in the world.

So when Arup enters into a competition, how condent do you have to be in the

proposals easibility?

You can never have the luxury o total condence. When [OMA partners] Ole[Scheeren] and Ellen Van Loon and I met ater the CCTV contract had beennegotiated, they asked me how I elt, and I said its basically 50 percent sheerterror and 50 percent sheer exhilaration. At the end o the day, we said it couldbe done, but it was a small number o people and it was a dicult moment,and behind the scenes we had a team working on it long beore the contractwas even signed. All the way rom August 2002 to the contract signing in De-

cember we had a team secreted away in London working on it to reinorce andmake sure it was really something we could do.So, yes, in a competition you have to make a call based on experience and

in making that call we called on individuals in the rm who would have ex-perience with buildings o this sort o sophistication and i we get enoughpeople agreeing that we can make it work then we eel condent enough ata competition level. Then you are going through a process o building up

your levels o condence to a point where ultimately you have to give thegovernment here condence and the Ministry o Construction condence.Its not just the client and the architect, you actually have to build up levels o

condence to the point where other people are accepting what youre sayingas reality.

How does that process work?


42/141


Through hard work and having the right people. It takes time and its an it-erative process, but or CCTV, as I said, the rst stage was the competitionand the second stage was the back room analysis that was going on during

the contract negotiation. The next phase was the ormal scheme design andthe key hurdle there in terms o public liability was the approval o the struc-ture by the Ministry o Construction at the end o design development. Thatnally happened in February 2004, and so when you think about it: we rstlooked at [the design] in April 2002 and we got an approval with commentsin January 2004 and we carried on answering some o those comments. It wasa very detailed process, very intense, working with the Ministry o Construc-tion, with a group o twelve or thirteen experts appointed by the Ministry.

Buildings like CCTV, and more and more were nding that modern build-ings or whatever reason, all outside the normal codes which govern 95 per-

cent o buildings and you have to engineer rom rst principles. So we basi-cally had to take the code, understand the spirit o the code, put it to one side,and then write a code to design CCTV, get the code approved by the Ministryo Construction, then design the building to that code, show them the results,demonstrate that we know how the building is perorming, that we know mil-lisecond by millisecond how the building will perorm in an earthquake andthat we can predict how its going to behavenot just understand what orcesare in what members but predict how its going to behave in a severe event.

We build up our knowledge o the structure and we use that knowledge to

go back and tweak the code. Theres an iteration there between tweaking thisbespoke code, doing the work, and going backand ourselves and the Minis-try o Construction are part o that process. At the end o it, youve agreed onthe code, youve agreed on all the work you need to do, you present the nalresults, and you get approval i youve done your groundwork. But in gettingto that point we held 50 to 60 meetings with individuals, groups, and gather-ings o the entire Ministry o Construction expert panel. It was an incredibleeort and involved all o Arup basically.

But now i someone wanted to build several new versions o CCTV youve done

all the legwork or them.

Yes, i one o these [points at CCTV headquarters] was to be built over there,yeah. The basis is there. O course, i you built it in Tokyo its very dierent.


43/141

35Something that challenges the skyscraper

There are lots o local issues, but the act is that its basically groundbreak-ing work or the Ministry o Construction. They were accepting practice thatArup believed was appropriate to use on the building rom, say, Caliornia,

rom Japan, rom Europe, putting it together into a specic code or thatbuilding. That work represents a huge body o research into unusual struc-tures, and that methodology could be applied and orm the basis or similarprojects by the Ministry o Construction here but also or countries aroundthe world. It stands as a huge advance in designing alternatives to towers:there are other ways and it is possible economically to do something that chal-lenges the skyscraper.

CCTV is a very globalized building in that way, because its based on experiencesrom dierent parts o the world and, now that its established, could be the basis

or projects around the world.

Right, as well as be accepted here. A lot o the work weve done on CCTV wasnever done in China beore. We had to bring the Ministry o Construction upto speed with cutting edge international practice. And we learned more andmore about their attitude towards building design and what theyre comort-able with and not comortable with. We really enjoy those processes as longas theyre not political, and that process is one that is particularly presentin seismic countries. Places like Caliornia and Japan have this engineering

rom rst principles approach to buildings that all outside o the normalprescriptive codes.

What exactly is engineering rom rst principles?

I youre doing [a standard building like], say, Fortune Plaza across rom here,in the structural engineering law here in China there will be a code that gov-erns buildings o that height, made o concrete with those beams, and basi-cally the code tells you what you can do and cant do. Then you basically tickthe boxes and do it exactly as the code says, and i youve done it to what the

code says then youve carried out the design to the national standard and as acompany you dont take any liability or any ailings o that code. Its prescrip-tive; its a catch-all guideline. So, or example, there might be limits on thepercentage o shear walls you can transer at the ground level o a building:


44/141


the code might say that you can only transer 50 percent o the shear walls,so the designer will limit the shear walls to 50 percent, tick the box, and onhe goes.

In engineering rom rst principles, you would understand why they dontwant you to take out more than 50 percent o the wallsthats basically toavoid a sot story at the bottom o the buildingthen take that understandingand generate a structure that achieves the same perormance but in anotherway that the code didnt envisage. Thats the dierence between prescriptiveand engineering rom rst principles. Youre basically building the structureselement by element and deciding all the design criteria or it, analyzing it,agreeing that its all appropriate with the authorities, and getting approval.

Engineering rom rst principles is, or engineers, very exciting. Ratherthan just working to a code, we are actually engaging with the people who

write the codes here in China and agreeing on the code or this building. Soits a antastic process or engineers, and OMA was almost jealous o the inti-macy that existed between engineers [and the Ministry o Construction] onthis project. You could see at some points the rustration that it was such anintimate process and one that they didnt eel part o. But also they couldntinfuence it, and the process was undamental to achieving the architecture.

Is it air to say that, because China at that time didnt have codes that were atthe cutting edge o what was happening architecturally, you were provided more

fexibility in terms o developing a new code?

No, the code here in terms o structure is already up there with most o thecodes in the world, and there isnt a code anywhere in the world that wouldallow you to do [CCTV]. So it would be the same process anywhere else. But

you can imagine in some countries it would turn into a political process; inothers it would turn into a mess where you would never get any agreement.Whats been achieved here, and its similar to what we nd in Caliornia andJapan, is a workable, pragmatic, non-political process, and thats great.

Due to the act that China, Japan, and the western US are seismic areas?

In China, the codes are law and i you dont ull the codes youre actuallybreaking the law. I you go to other countries, the codes are guidance, they


45/141

37Get real and understand what the limitations are

have a dierent level o status in law. But its law in China, in Japan, and inplaces like Caliornia, and thats because o the concern about seismic eventswiping out an entire city. Its such a major issue with such huge socio-political

ramications that the degree o damage to an economy has to be considered:whats the appropriate level o security or a building in a seismic event?

This idea o the diering status o codes around the world reminds me o some-thing I wanted to ask you at the beginning. Youve done work on our continents,is that right?

Well, North America, all over Europe, Arica, India, Chinanot Australia andnot South America.

Increasingly even small architecture oces operate globally, and Im curiousabout the eect that working in dierent cultural and legal conditions has on the

process o designing and building.

There are huge dierences. I you start with Germany, say, where theres aDIN [German Institute or Standardization] standard or how to old a draw-ingand Ive always thought, I dont want to work in that environment. Then

you go to developing countries where, in reality, there arent codes so youreactually applying codes rom another part o the world and youre making

a judgement about cost benet and consequence in a rural situation. Youreworking outside o any codied environment in terms o personal responsi-bility as an engineer. Ive built buildings in Tanzania and bridges in Cameroonand in each situation decided what I elt was the appropriate code o practiceto that particular situationto the materials, to skills and workmanship, etc.In those situations you have to be highly responsive to the realities on theground and in developing designs you need to just get real and understandwhat the limitations are.

It gets blurred when you go into Europe. Ive had very dierent experienc-es working in somewhere like Portugal on the Porto Casa da Musica[Con-

cert Hall]. You have countries where clients question the design authorshipcontinuously and expect the role o the design team to be that o techniciansrather than designers. And while Casa da Musica was eight years in the pro-cess o being designed and built, the design was never questioned, despite the

Further mentions

Casa da Musica: 8


46/141


diculties o the process. The diculties only had to do with people andmoney and politics, but design was never questioned. In other countries, thedesign is continuously being manipulated and changed to suit the last person

to come in, so you get very strong cultural infuences on the process. In theUS, and China as well, theres a tendency or architects to do as the clientinstructs, and I think the client gets, in a way, what they deservebut dontdeserve at the same time.

Then youve got the legal ramework in which you work. For example, orIITin Chicago, one supplier wouldnt supply basketball netting as a wall ma-terial, because they were araid o being suedthey were araid that studentswould climb up it, that they would become

who is architecture?

Documents