Week 8 | Visualisation and the Image

Digital renderings have become a common tool in everyday practice for the presentation of design. 3D models developed in the computer also provide the ability to view, explore and critique formal propositions from the conceptualisation stages. Designers employ these types of images every day and they can have significant influence on the way design is developed and how we perceive the unbuilt. Walter Benjamin explored these visual implications and the changing meaning of the reproduction. Through the works of Benjamin and others, we can develop our appreciation of the power of the image.

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Digital renderings commonly implemented in architectural practice today, transform our perceptions of the unbuilt and design conceptualisations whilst also stressing their unique importance in the world. This shift from a mechanically orientated paradigm was transformed into a technologically based one during the 50 years after the world war. Now this revolving tradition of planimetric projection in architecture is “persisted unchallenged because it allowed the projection and hence the understanding of a three-dimensional space in two dimensions” – Eisenman, P (2013) Pg. 17 [1]. These viewing standards set by the architectural industry allow for personal judgement to be the driving factor of perceptions during the conceptualisation phase.

In regards to the reproduction of digital imaging, it is made clear that, “Man-made artefacts could always be imitated by men” – Benjamin, W (1936) Pg. I [2], ever so simply. Benjamin discusses this further by highlighting particular flaws of these types of approaches where he states, “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be” – Benjamin, W (1936) Pg. II [3]. Which emphasises the importance of the relationship between time and space between the static imagery and the world, as it stands as a staple in present day. These appropriated iterations are then deemed seductive and misleading, and is led by our unfolding perceptions which derive around, “The electronic paradigm [which] directs a powerful challenge to architecture because it defines reality in terms of media and simulation, it values appearance over existence, what can be seen over what is” – Eisenman, P (2013) Pg. 16 [4].

This complex notion of the digital image is further explored by Perez-Gomez as he establishes the deep importance of the availability of digital rendering in the design process. He states that, “Control is essential in our world: drawings, prints, models, photographs and computer graphics play diverse roles in the design process… they are surrogates or automatic transcriptions of the built work” – Perez-Gomez, A (2007) Pg. 11 [5].  As each drawing, print, model, photograph and computer graphic, relies on “reductive syntactic connections” – Perez-Gomez, A (2007) Pg. 12 [6], as they piece together an ideal projection of a “dissected whole” – Perez-Gomez, A (2007) Pg. 12 [7].

As architecture continues to rely on digital rendering as a common tool in practice, architecture must be challenged to deal with the forces of gravity, “to have ‘four walls’. But these four walls no longer need to be expressive of the mechanical paradigm. Rather they could deal with the possibility of these other discourses, the other affective senses of sound, touch and of that light lying within the darkness” – Eisenman, P (2013) Pg. 22 [8].

Wexner center by Peter Eisenman

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r e f e r e n c e s

[2] [3] Benjamin, W. (1936). "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."

[1] [4] [8] Eisenman, P. (2013). Architecture After the Age of Printing. AD reader: The digital turn in architecture 1992-2012. M. Carpo. Chichester, Wiley: 15-22.

 [5] [6] [7] Perez-Gomez, A. (2007). Questions of representation: the poetic origin of architecture. From models to drawings : imagination and representation in architecture. M. Frascari, J. Hale and B. Starkey. London ; New York, Routledge: 11-22.