‘Love at first sight’ - it is a cliche that I am a constant victim to. Whether it’d be a quick eye contact at a party, or in a queue at the art gallery, a conference in Europe, if my heart is already missing then I know I will be spending the night trying to figure out where to meet that person again for the fatal encounter.
And it goes the same for me when I see a lovely three by three image on my Instagram feed.
Last year, my friend invited her to join her to participate in a competition for NGV, when we were towards the final stages of the competition, deciding on the hero images for the presentation. It was stressful, looking through various rectangles and adjusting it to make it ‘social network bragging worthy’. It is fascinating, that to see how one person or multiple people can simply take a photo from similar angles, give a few touch-ups and filter and we will be able to create a ‘like-worthy’ image that maybe boost some of our (including mine…) confidence. And somehow, these repeated actions sprinkled with hashtags (some shameless ones too), we are left with an impression that anyone can simply appreciate aesthetics or create aesthetics with enough practice and learning from others over-time.
And this is where many of us (including myself) can fall into the trap of thinking that we can appreciate architecture or photoshopped items very well because of the commonalities and ease of affirmation. Which is also where we start to forget about not taking everything simply from face value. Gone were the days where we simply look at a building and understand the purpose and role it served in the society. Now we are admiring facades and spark conversations among ourselves questioning what building would have a facade of an alligator skin or even a curve that was simply inspired by a pop singer’s curves - and it makes me wonder, why are we growing to become so focused on looking at the aesthetics of buildings?
Is it because it is the only way to captivate a mass audience in order to support ourselves in the future?
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” - there is so much irony to this phrase nowadays. I feel like as our society is growing more impatient we are beginning to look at things from face value - we start to neglect the substance and the context that becomes lost. During the lecture at MPavilion ‘Storey/Story : Telling architectural tales through new narratives’ , I asked the panel whether ‘boring’ buildings are because architects are so focused on the external appearance of architecture thus leave a boring interior (as one of the speakers made a comment about architects being removed from leaving narratives thus boring buildings). Though the panel admit that boring may not always be boring, but rather be the details that are minuscule that it passes before our eyes. Which makes me slightly confused - then if that is the case, where should architecture media and aesthetics be focused on? The large overall scale? Or a multiple of five angles that would be plastered over magazines and grace the internet?
Which is why sometimes I find it disheartening when I hear judges discuss about their modes of judgement for competition entries. I understand - that while it is indeed tiresome to look at many countless entries combined with time as a precious commodity, it would be nice if judges can take their time and actually understand each entry with more sympathy, not judge each image by aesthetics, nor judge by how eye-catching the panel could be. There needs to be a different angle that we need to judge competitions, and not just by sight - but with other senses.
Unfortunately, this idealistic dream may not come into fruition in our fast paced generation. We are still at the course where we heavily rely on technology. Moreover, because there are other factors that must be pulled into consideration that it is hard to realise these ideals. Having said though, while we can leave those dreams for a near future, we still need to be considerate of how we judge competitions and the greater details behind. Otherwise soon we may as well be dominated with a lot of buildings that while have good aesthetic, but may forget to include service rooms for air conditioners or the heaters.
However, in my overly idealistic and optimistic mind - I would love to see if there is a competition entry that is judged on our ability to describe it to someone who doesn’t have great vision, or hearing, or senses of smell. And if we establish these types of assessment, wouldn’t it be interesting to see what kind of competition entries would be realised? It would be fascinating to see how designers push their creativity to an adventurous levels.
MPavilion: Storey/Story: Telling archtiectural tales through new narratives