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As designers, we have established a series of false dichotomies:
Fine art vs. pop culture
Artistic purity vs. pragmatic populism
Artists and architects vs. the movie and entertainment industry
Design theory vs. strategic planning
Additionally, we have established a series of dogmatic statements which, depending on one’s point of view, are either foundational principles or ludicrous and pejorative assertions:
Pragmatism without design principles = kitsch
Design theory without an understanding of behavioral psychology creates cold, hard places
Only architects understand how to create beauty (primarily visual)
Only entertainers understand how to capture imaginations through stories and metaphors (5 senses)
CityWalk is popular but not beautiful or timeless
The Salk Institute is beautiful but empty
The best places, however, the most timeless places, combine both the purist and the pragmatic schools of thought:
Prague’s Old Town Square
Siena’s Piazza del Campo
New York City’s Rockefeller Center and Museum of Modern Art Sculpture Garden
Must timeless beauty and effective pragmatism, sense and sensibility, be mutually exclusive?
Destination Design Developers in the Mix
A few populist, yet possibly high minded, developers have stumbled upon this dichotomy. Perhaps they see a more complicated public, a society that does appreciate gorgeous architecture and outstanding public spaces, yet often simply wants to escape and be entertained. I myself consider Dostoevsky and Tolstoy two of my favorite authors, yet find a good cheap mystery novel a grand distraction on an overseas flight. Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso is the quintessential example of a developer that, by design or simple intuition, has stumbled upon this split, and seems to seek to be both populist and high minded.
Not a retail design architect, Caruso’s early work accomplished this in an unrefined manner. His first significant work, The Promenade at Westlake, combines highly associative storefronts suggestive of old Italy with crudely designed, modern shops expressive of the Golden Mean. People flock to the center, drawn by the romantic appeal of the historic architecture, yet also enriched by Caruso’s attention to detail, fine materials, water features and sculpture. It is destination design architecture on the scale of a supermarket, one of the first strip centers that seems to understand that it was built to be inhabited by people, not just cars and shopping carts.
While the Promenade’s poorly conceived “modern” architecture likely appeals to no one, Caruso seems to understand that just as Apple is wildly popular, there is a public for a more sophisticated, more relevant, more modern architecture. His more recent work, including The Grove in Los Angeles and The Americana at Brand in LA suburb of Glendale, both include more thoughtfully designed modern storefronts. While the modern shops at the Grove are so infrequent as to be disruptive, modern architectural elements are more frequently included, and of much better quality, at The Americana.
The elevator Tower at The Americana at Brand
With the possible exception of a rusty steel elevator tower that dresses the parking structure, however, the bifurcation remains. The modern architecture is adjacent to, yet entirely separate from, the historic architecture. It is as though the interior of a Honda Element as been installed in an otherwise beautifully recreated 60’s Corvette. Unlike the previously cited examples of the VW and Mini, neither architecture seems to acknowledge the existence of the other.
I’m an expressive modernist at heart, yet surround myself with non-architects, non-designers. Consequently, I’ve become increasingly interested in finding the Bug, in designing the Mini, of the architectural world. It seems arrogant and self defeating to ignore the appeal the popular, yet short sighted and an enormous missed opportunity to design to the lowest possible standard. Perhaps a more detailed study of the appeal of the past, popular and romantic in the minds of the public, as well as an increased understanding of the appeal of the modern, and an evolved and systemic coupling of the two, will create an architecture that will lift an embracing public.
This coupling represents a blue ocean of opportunity for designers – we will study it in more detail in coming articles.
Part One: The Divide
Most in the design community reside in either of two distinct camps. Many, especially those trained as architects, consider themselves modernist or contemporary designers. Others, those with an entertainment background are of particular interest here, relate more closely to the associative, or traditional and romantic, genres. Depending on one’s point of view, the debate might be framed as rational vs. romantic, design vs. kitsch, or arrogance vs. populist.
However framed, the issue continues to generate ceaseless and heated debate. The public, however, seems to see no conflict between the two and appears perfectly comfortable mixing objects and spaces resultant of each of these concept design paradigm throughout their daily lives. Typical living rooms surround clean, crisp entertainment systems with traditional furnishings, while tract homes, increasingly historically associative from the curbside, are filled with gorgeous, minimalist tech products by Apple and others. In kitchens, stainless steel appliances live beside aged and distressed “old world” cabinetry, seemingly oblivious to the discord.
Historically themed apartment building in Rancho Cucamonga, California
Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles
A few in the auto industry have grasped and successfully exploited this trend. Both the VW Bug and the Mini manage to combine the appeal of nostalgia and desire for refinement and technology, unifying these contrasting concepts to create decidedly modern automobiles that celebrate the past while looking to the future.
The VW New Beetle
The New Mini
The architecture and entertainment design communities, on the other hand, remain bifurcated in two distinct camps. The architectural community is famously idealistic, and designs for the world as they believe it should be, assuming a level of sophistication that the general public typically does not care to embrace. Entertainment designers, and most developers, on the other hand, are cynical to their core, and design to the lowest common denominator, without desire to increase the public’s appreciation for the built environment. Just as movie producers have, with few exceptions, reduced film to formula, assuming the public desires little more than sex, violence and crass language, designers of all things built to entertain also frequently find success in assuming a simple and unsophisticated public.
This blog was created as an ideas forum, an online place for GDW and our affiliates to share our expertise, as a research tool for those who desire to create successful destinations.
The biggest challenge for Destination Designers is that people have a multitude of destination options – Choices. Whether Destination Designers are creating retail destinations, resort destinations, entertainment destinations or town center destinations, potential guests have many options. Successful destinations are those that people choose – the “places where people want to be.”
In the articles to follow, GDW and our guest contributors will assemble practical, how-to ideas to provide learning opportunities for our current and future clients. We will look at the factors that contribute to successful destinations, and show you how to get your project started, select a site, choose an architect. We will suggest places for you to visit and will conduct case studies of successful retail, resort, entertainment and town center destinations.
Additional resources include GDW’s Genius Loci blog, an ideas forum dedicated to the study of the design theory behind the creation of great destinations, places and architecture, and Destination Design Industry Links, a collection of useful articles we have come across in our endeavor to increase our expertise in the theory and practice of creating the world’s best destinations. Educated clients are successful clients.
genius loci |ˈjēnēəs ˈlōsī; -kī|
noun [in sing.] the prevailing character or atmosphere of a place.
the presiding god or spirit of a place.
ORIGIN early 17th cent.: Latin, literally ‘spirit of the place.’
Genius loci. The ‘spirit of a place,’ the prevailing character or atmosphere of a place, of a destination. In more common parlance, ‘Sense of Place.’ A modified version of a definition from Answers.com:
Either the intrinsic character of a place, or the meaning people give to it, but, more often, a mixture of both. Some places are distinctive through their physical appearance, like the Grand Canyon; others are distinctive, but have value attached to them, like the Piazza San Marcos in Venice.
Less striking places have meaning and value attached to them because they are ‘home,’ and it is argued that attachment to a place increases with the distinctiveness of that place. Planners use this argument by consciously creating or preserving memorable and singular architecture to make a space distinctively different. Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House, Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and, in an entirely different manner, Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens are all examples of distinctively different places, destinations designed from the start to create genius loci. All this is done to encourage in people an attachment to that place.
A final element is our own experience of that place; if you had been extremely happy in central London, the sight of Trafalgar Square would reawaken a sense of pleasure in you. (http://www.answers.com/topic/sense-of-place)
GDW created this blog as an ideas forum dedicated to the design theory behind the creation of great destinations, places and architecture, the human psychology behind peoples’ responses to places and architecture, and the methodology necessary to create design excellence, to craft genius loci.
This forum is a depository of ideas, a research resource, and ultimately a tool to create new ideas. We will discuss the elements common to great places, study the distinctiveness created by inventive architecture, and exam fractal design theory.
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