What’s in a name? What we call buildings might seem arbitrary and trivial, but it is,
in fact, an expression of our values and culture. A name can shape how we think about a building,
interact with or care for it. It can be an important part of the design itself to communicate
an architect’s intention. Or, it might be something sold to the highest bidder. In this
video we will take a look at how and why buildings are named and explore some of the unexpected
consequences. Stay tuned.
Hello, welcome to Architecture with Stewart, I’m Stewart.
Here in Chicago, it seems like building names are always in the news for some reason. Whether
its Comiskey Park changing to US Cellular Field or to Guaranteed Rate Field, the name
changes are often followed by a collective refusal to adopt the new name. And then, over
time, everyone just gives in because it makes communication easier.
This building was built in 1973 to house the corporate offices of the Sears corporation.
They sold the building and moved out in 1988, only 15 years later, but the name stuck around
until 2009. Then, it was renamed after the Willis Group who agreed to pay $1,000,000
per year until 2025 for the name recognition the change would offer.
These kinds of name changes happen all the time and get forgotten as quickly as they
can change. For instance, did you know that Wrigley Field used to be Weeghman Park?
Either way, naming a building can be a complicated, costly, and important action that can have
real consequences for everyone involved. Naming something categorizes it, gives it personality,
and sets us up to understand it in a certain way. It allows for us to talk about it easily
by offering a common language to discuss an object or the environment.
In the book of Genesis in the bible, Adam is given the task of naming all the animals.
God makes them all parade in front of Adam as he gives each one a name. This is telling
as a certain way of understanding how we construct our image of the world. Presumably, these
names are not assigned at random, rather they should relate to a characteristic or quality
of the animal.
This painting is called arrangement in black and grey by James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
This name makes me think about the paint the painter used as well as the overall composition
of the work. But, the painting is also known as Whistler’s Mother. Doesn’t that change
how we see it?
Audience members used to compliment the composer Aaron Copland on his piece Appalachian Spring,
by saying they could hear the mountains and sense the spring when listening the song.
But Copeland didn’t even name the song, it was named by the ballet choreographer after
it was written.
Of course, talking about buildings, names can come from a lot of different places. An
architect might be responsible for the name of a building, but a name could also come
from the client, or a third party might be responsible for it, or finally, the public
might come up with some nicknames that relate to their personal experience with a structure.
Names coming from architects are motivated by all sorts of different factors. Often,
in the firm, a project will take on a few working names before one is solidified. That
name can come from the client’s name, as in the Farnsworth House, or it can come from
the town its in, like the Villa Savoy, or it might come from the street its on. But
beside names coming from some external or context derived moniker, architects might
have their own internal naming system that has more meaning for them.
For instance, in the early work of the architect Peter Eisenman, he did a series of houses,
named by a Roman numeral in the chronological order of their design. House 1, House 2, House
3, and so on. While most of these were commissioned houses, the series can also be imagined, by
virtue of their nomenclature, as a series of siteless conceptual design exercises.
That way, if the house is built or not doesn’t really matter. For Eisenman the work of the
architect had already been done by making the drawings and conceptualizing the challenges
he set forth during the design process. And, for him, its more important to see these houses
as the progression of an architect working on a consistent conceptual problem.
Naming the houses as a series allows the architect and others to see them as a collection. They
aren’t individual acts of design that only respond to contextual or client needs, rather
they form an iterative series of autonomous design exercises for the architect. In this
case, oy an investigation into the presence of a grid and the ability to read or understand
the grid’s deformation.
On Eisenman’s website, in an essay written about his work, there is a comparison between
his House VI and Beethoven’s 5th symphony, also known as Symphony No. 5 in C minor. The
essay makes the analogy that this house is his most famous, but house #2 is where the
original voice really emerges, in the same way as Beethoven’s 3rd is a transitional
piece that prefigures the Fifth.
One important point about this naming strategy is that we always have say the author’s
name as part of the title, Beethoven’s 5th, or Eisenman’s House VI. That seems like
good marketing. The Beethoven analogy is also interesting because symphonic compositions
often have a generic name that can describe the work’s composition type, key signature,
featured instruments, etc. This could be something as simple as Symphony No. 2 (meaning the 2nd
symphony written by that composer), Minuet in G major (minuet being a type of dance),
or Concerto for Two Cellos (an orchestral work featuring two cellos as soloists). And,
buildings might be named like this too...
The architect John Hejduk also named his buildings in a series, then switched to a name that
describes an important element. Like the Wall House, an entire house arranged around a wall
with public space on one side and more private ones on the other. Or the Half House which
is made from halves of shapes. A link to a video on that house is linked above.
Hejduk then switched to poetic names like House of the Suicide and the House of the
Mother of the Suicide, which are part of Hejduk’s Masque series and are often considered two
“characters”—a mother and a son. Each 9-foot by 9-foot cube is topped by a crown
of steel spikes and the name prompts us to see these buildings and empathize with them
almost like living beings.
Or names by architects might be determined by some driving formal concept like in Greg
Lynn’s Embryological House which gains its name for how the building was conceived. The
house was sort of “grown” in the computer based on parameters input by Lynn. There is
no single house, rather a collection of options and possibilities. Referred to by Lynn as
“eggs,”, no two eggs are alike yet all bear a family resemblance to each other.
Today, a number of practices sit on a spectrum with practices like MOS architects takina
a similar to the composer idea. For instance - House no. 17 - House with 10 trees or House
No. 15 House with Two Chimneys. Mlichael Meredith, one of the firms two principals is an amature
composer, so this is perhaps where they got the inspiration. It also works well for a
website when the buildings are all listed in a row.
But not all names come from the architect, many are assigned by the owner or developer.
These are often chosen to evoke a particular association to give a building a sense of
class or elegance. These have varying relationships to the actual architecture.
One notable example is the Aqua tower in Chicago designed by Jeanne Gang. Jeanne Gang’s office
was supported by the architect of record Loewenberg associates. The real unique design work for
the building has to do with the balconies on the exterior, while the interior is relatively
standard. However, this largely skin-deep design strategy creates a unique visual identity
for the building. The name 'Aqua' was assigned by the developer an it fits the nautical theme
of their other buildings, references the wave-like forms of the balconies and the tower's proximity
to Lake Michigan.
But names don’t always create such a synthetic relationship. Some names for stadiums change
so regularly you can hardly keep up.
And sometimes, as history unfolds, a name might become problematic for various reasons.
At my alma mater, it was determined that Woodrow Wilson no longer represented the ideals of
the Public Policy School. The decision was made to change the name of the school and
the building which is now called Robertson Hall, named after the patron who funded the
construction of the building, which was ultimately designed by the architect Minoru Yamasaki.
Minoru was also the architect of the original World Trade Center Towers which were tragically
lost on September 11, 2001. Today if you say the twin towers or world trade center in the
United States, that brings up all sorts of associations and memories of the tragic events
that happen on September 11, 2001. So the building name became synonymous with a date,
events, and group of people.
The replacement for these towers also went through a thorough review before deciding
what it was going to be called. Originally it was going to be called the Freedom Tower.
But in 2009, the Port Authority changed the official name of the building from "Freedom
Tower" to "One World Trade Center", stating that this name was the "easiest for people
to identify with” as they looked for the least controversial name for marketing purposes.
But, back to Yamasaki who had another building meet an untimely fate of demolition. That
project was called Pruit Igoe, a huge housing development in St. Louis that failed its inhabitants
in both design, maintenance, and policy. On July 15, 1972, at 3.32 pm these buildings
began the process of implosion and thus ending the Modern Moement of architecture. The name
Pruit Igoe, like the Twin Towers has become a symbol which is much greater than the buildings
they were originally names of.
But back to the building at Princeton. People endearingly used called it Woody Woo, a play
on name for the school and the building. This kind of nicknaming by the public after a building’s
construction and occupation can also be a powerful force. In chicago here we have the
buildings we call the corn cobs, for obvious reasons. The real name is Marina City. The
shape is the result of a careful calibration between an efficient interior layout with
the structural capacity of concrete. But the corn reference is a powerful reflection of
how people see the building regardless of the clever architectural principles that gave
rise to it.
Not all nicknames are endearing though and some reflect the public’s disdain for a
design that they feel disregards the public’s best interest. OMA’s CCTV tower was nicknamed
pants by the local population, and they didn’t mean this lovingly. Another might be the Bathtub,
which seems like it had to be designed specifically to look like a bathtub. However, I can’t
vouch for that. But either way, the public is baffled by the design that it could never
be taken seriously.
Then you have the Gherkin…a pickle...
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