Copying.
Copying happens all the time in architecture. Whether its finding inspiration in the work
of others or explicitly making multiple versions of the same thing. They say its the sincerest
form of flattery.
“I’m so flattered”
Copying is even baked into our DNA, its how we reproduce and its how we learn. But with
all this copying can come some murky territory when the expectation for originality encounters
unscrupulous idea thievery. In this video, we’ll explore when architects copy, when
its productive and clever, and when its just lazy and malicious. Stay tuned.
Hello, welcome to the channel. My name is Stewart Hicks and I teach architecture design
studios and lecture courses at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Sometimes I really like when architects copy and make reference to other buildings. I liken
it to the way Quentin Terrantino references other films inside of his work.
PLAY SOME CLIPS
This kind of self-referential mining of history to create new works...ya know, it kinda caters
to insiders. Tarrantino is a film-makers film-maker. You can either know where these references
came from or not , but this does change the way you view the work. Terrantino famously
worked in a video store before becoming a director
and so he has an almost encyolopedic knowledge of past films. Viewers might not know about
the references he incorporates, but Tarrantino is such a good filmmaker that it doesn’t
really matter. You can appreciate the film on its own as a great story. But, if you do
know the reference, you enter into another world of appreciation and nuance, links to
the past, and hidden easter eggs.
This occurs in architecture too and can be met with praise or frustration and scorn.
Some people call this kind of insider appeal, navel gazing — making designs that only
few can understand and ignoring the needs of the world at large. Or, it might lead to
outright copying, leading to lawsuits and copyright infringement. But, when done well,
I think it can be part of creating some of the richest and most engaging buildings that
not only respond to their context, but also thrust you into a world of history and memory.
Copying is a complex endeaver and there are all sorts of copying in architecture.
The Beaux Arts model of architectural education was built entirely around students drawing
and copying the masterful designs of past architects. The ideas was that through reenacting
the processes and actions of those masters, students would gain a feeling for and practice
with the rules that govern their design.
The idea that architects copy clashes with the expectation that each building should
be considered a unique prototype. And that each building should be a perfect reaction
to the needs of the interior married against thoughtful response to a context. In this
way, copying feels antithetical to the genius of architecture design at a fundamental level.
But in between the idea that buildings can be copied ad nauseum or that each is a unique
snowflake, are some really interesting examples to look at that help us to think about the
importance and usefulness of copying in the design of buildings.
Sometimes copying might be a means of creating a building that fits into or relates to its
surroundings, by copying certains aspects of nearby buildings into the new construction.
Such is the case of the Sainsbury Wing to the National Gallery in London. It takes the
column from the building its attached to and copies it so many times and in so many ways
that it stops looking like the original column. You have one exact copy, thin squared off
versions, then they just start to pileup at the edge of the addition.
INTRO VANNA VENTURI HOUSE
But copying can also be a way to fit into much broader context within the history of
architecture itself. Sticking with Venturi examples like the Vanna Venturi House are
a cacophony of samples from a grabbag of architectural history. The overall shape looks house-like,
even though it isn’t produced by a gabled roof, rather its shaped that way only to look
similar-ish to its neighbors.
But then you have things like the window to kitchen which is long and narrow like the
ribbon window of the villa savoy. Le Corbusier invented a new kind of window when he stretched
sideways into a long ribbon. Regardless, most architects know the story of how it came to
be and when it used elsewhere will immediately associate it with the original. To add to
the complexity of its use in this application, Venturi’s example has 4 bays, while Corbusier
uses 5. But where is the last bay? Well, its all the way on the other side of the house.
So, while we recognize the element being used, its also made unfamiliar through an act of
deformation.
Where the gable copies other buildings in only a very general way, the window is a specific
reference to a particular house. In order to fully understand the games being played
in the changing of elements, one must be familiar with where the original came from. I love
watching videos of all the easter eggs in an episode of wanda vision and i appreciate
doing the same thing with buildings.
Then we have examples like the howard kronborg medical clinic by ARM architects in Australia.
They literally took a page from a book, that had an image of Venturi’s Mother’s house
and moved the page during the scan process. Then they produced the building from the scan.
Streaks, blemishes, errors and all. It’s a copy of a copy of a copy. That’s dedication
to copying.
That firm, ARM architects even went to the source and made a direct copy of the Villa
Savoye itself in as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
They colored it brown.
They claim its an understanding of a local version—an inversion, a reflection of Aboriginal
architecture, culture or perceived attitudes. But sometimes copying might be more like a
one-liner than an essay filled with nuance and complexity.
Another example of a Villa Savoy copy is Rem Koolhaas’ Villa D’Alva which is basically
the equivalent of taking the Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe and sandwiching it below
the Villa Savoy by Le Corbusier. Here, the elements like windows aren’t challenged,
rather its the overt use of the entire building that is striking. However, the materials have
changed drastically. The smooth white facade of the villa savoy gives way to the utilitarian
corrugated metal facade and construction fencing holds people on the roof.
Architects have copied things from outside the history of architecture as well. People
like Frank Gehry have made buildings in the shape of binoculars, a perfectly scaled up
pair of binoculars. And while this is one of his most overt copies with others at various
levels of abstraction like the fish. Gehry isn’t working in a vacuum, these experiments
themselves owe their gestation in the work of an artist named Claes Oldenberg who would
famously create artworks of familiar objects supersized and out of their normal context.
So, Gehry is copying his friend Oldenberg by copying binoculars.
For Gehry though, the copying isn’t an end in and of itself. Rather, its a means to an
end. The fish doesn’t really look so much like a fish anymore. And it allowed Gehry
to invent new ways of evaluating objects based on their complex curvature. It also prompted
ways of solving the problem of fabricating these kinds of forms which leave the world
of traditional building constructions. So, armed with these new interests Gehry moved
on to creating buildings out of swooping shapes devoid of their initial starting point of
trying to look like something else in particular.
Of course now, Gehry might be said to by copying himself when various buildings start looking
alike. When the swoopy shapes are a readymade solution to almost every problem of building.
This starts to become a style, a word that most architects try to avoid today. If its
only one architect working in this particular style its usually called a signature style.
The binoculars might be similar to replicas, like one might find in places like Las Vegas
or in China. China has their own Ronchamp for instance. This is copying of buildings,
done in such a way that isn’t trying to be a new interpretation and isn’t hiding
the fact its a copy. That doesn’t mean it can’t be used to create new experiences
though. Places like NY, NY in Las Vegas is similar. A NY themed environment, like a concentration
of it built somewhere else.
In addition to replicating certain architectural landmarks like the Empire State Building and
the Chrysler Building, there’s also a 150’ statue of liberty. There are also theme restaurants
and room titles taken from the east coast city. The art critic Dave Hickey wrote about
Fake Honesty, Honest Fakery and makes the distinction between places like Las Vegas
and Sante Fe New Mexico. Each is made of new buildings that look old. But Santa Fe is meant
to fool you into thinking they’re genuine while Las Vegas is up front about being a
spectacle made of copies. He prefers Las Vegas.
Of course, copying isn’t always so overt and architects find influence all around them.
But sometimes its more than that. When Joe Rogan accused Carlos Mencia of stealing jokes,
Mencia claimed they much have just unconsciously filtered into his brain only to come out as
identical tellings of the same punchlines.
Sometimes this happens in architecture too. One of the weirdest is from a competition
in the 1990s for the Eyebeam Museum of of Art and Technology. Two entries, one by the
architect Thomas Leeser and the other by the firm Diller and Scofidio, came in looking
oddly similar. Each featured flowing singular folded surface. This surface bends around
to create the different spaces inside. In this instance no one claimed original authorship
but I think the reponses were telling.
Leeser "It's the zeitgeist," "If we copied anything" "we copied our own work."
Liz "The only way to avert the problem of plagiarism is to be a moving target. If your
work is copied and that upsets you, it means you waited too long to move on.”
In one of the few instances of copying that led to a lawsuit was after the unveiling of
the replacement for the world trade center tower. David Childs of SOM was sued by a former
student over the new building design. The student design in question was the result
of a thesis project at IIT here in chicago and Childs was his thesis advisor.
While the designs look strikingly similar, and I do think Childs ripped off the design,
I’m not sure a lawsuit is where this complicated issue of copying and plagiarism will get resolved.
"There's so much rich activity going on at the schools," said Bill Sharples of the Manhattan
firm SHoP/Sharples Holden Pasquarelli, "it's hard not to be influenced by it." With so
many influences and so many echoes, authorship is rarely a simple question.
The design was pretty simple and to be honest, its the exact same shape as the columns here
at UIC, so to claim a shape as intellectual property seems dubious to me. But either way,
I’d love to hear what you think.
What are some other ways you think copying plays how the built environment is designed?
Let’s discuss it in the comments below. Do you have some favorite building copies?
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