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Corporate
Architecture: Building a Brand by Alejandro
Bahamón, Ana Cañizares & Antonio Corcuera
W. W. Norton, 2009
Hardcover, 504 pages
A couple months ago this web page
featured a book showcasing the
architecture (among other secondary creations) of a fashion
house well aware of the power and importance of the images
their buildings convey. The coffee table book captured a
number of recent architectural gems, though this awareness
is hardly a newfound condition. The middle of last century
saw glass box headquarters in Manhattan and elsewhere bearing
the names of their corporate clients, and the ensuing postmodern
skyscrapers continued the trend of using the latest style
to mark the skyline. But the current wave of high-profile
corporate architecture -- the office buildings, stores,
banks, and even automobile museums documented in this book
-- is markedly different from last century's relatively
tame and homogenous designs in one main way: branding. Where
last century's glass boxes and skyscrapers dressed in stone
changed hands and names, exhibiting their interchangeability
of not only the architecture, today's corporate architecture
is tied into the company's branding of itself at levels;
a building is just one more image among many reaching consumers.
This book makes that fact readily apparent, while also exhibiting
the impact the corporations are having on cities via cutting-edge
architecture.
The three authors split the book
to reflect the four types of companies that are overtly
"building a brand" with architecture: fashion,
banking, telecommunications, automotive. The first are primarily
stores in urban centers, like Pradas in New York, LA, and
Tokyo;
the second and third are primarily office buildings, but
also banking halls and industrial infrastructure; the fourth
comprise offices, showrooms, and the newest trend, automotive
museums. One can find consistencies in the architectural
imagery produced by the various, mainly European companies.
Fashion houses, for example, tend to focus on how a building
is clothed, be it in a veil-like exterior (Louis
Vuitton) or in an innovative structural solution that
doubles as the building's skin (Tod's).
Banks tend to be glassy buildings (putting their practices
on display?) and the buildings for automobile companies
are flowing, in some cases blob-like, a contemporary update
of last century's streamline fad that accompanied the automobile's
boom.
In this generously illustrated, large-format
book the author's capture a time when architecture serves
corporations in "building their brands," and when
architects find clients willing to embrace experiments in
form, structure, and material. Many of the buildings here
are part of this century's important iconic architecture
(BMW)
by former members of the avant-garde. If each piece of architecture
is really suited to its client as a branding device,
or if we see a repeat of last century's build it and sell
it condition, remains to be seen. Many of these buildings
are so particular in function and planning that their longevity
depends on the success of the corporations. Of course each
building here can be seen as an important aid in making
such successes continue.
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