media architecture: origin, synonyms and

MEDIA ARCHITECTURE: ORIGIN, SYNONYMS AND INTERPRETATIONS
KATIA GASPARINI
Università Iuav di Venezia
[email protected]
Abstract
Nowadays the role of media architecture and their relationship with the landscape they identify have completely
changed: from urban signals to symbolising themselves. Te media architecture and urban screens are now the place for
the most inventive experimentations of the latest colour and light technologies: multi-coloured or mirrored materials,
new materials or innovative materials tested in buildings. Te essay will describe the analysis carried out on the book
“Schermi Urbani” (K. Gasparini, publishing Wolters Kluwer) on new light and colour smart technologies available
nowadays for the cladding of architectural surfaces and with visibility and communication purposes.
Keywords
Urban Screen, Media Architecture, Light Architecture
Introduction
Screencity Journal #2 is structured in three sections, each one dedicated to one of the three topics under the
call for papers: colour, environment and interactive media.
In his essay Eléments de sémiologie (Elements of semiology – 1964), Roland Barthes maintains that “when
we say that today we are living in a civilization of the image, we fatally presume that previous civilizations
hardly used iconic communication”. Actually we probably underestimate the phenomenon and its origins,
forgetting that in ancient civilizations “the image was a fundamental part of everyday life (windows,
paintings, almanacs, illustrated books). As a matter of fact the historical opposition concerns a purely iconic
communication and today’s mixed communication (image and language) rather than writing and image”
(Barthes, 2002). According to Bathers, the feeling of being surrounded by a society of the image makes us
forget that the image is never separated from words (pictures with captions, sound flms, etc.). Terefore,
nowadays we are dealing with a concept of image redoubled by language, in particular with our specifc case
concerning media façades or the media value at an urban or architectural scale. We might defne it as
“logical-iconic communication” (Barthes, 2002). Tis article is aimed at explaining and analysing the meaning
of media façade on the basis of a few concepts that identify the project and its functional and building
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features in order to distinguish the diferent words used in contemporary architecture, both in Italy and
abroad: media architecture, media building, media façade, light architecture, and so on.
First of all, this article makes a distinction between media façades and media architecture (this article is a
synthesis of a more detailed analysis that I published in the book Schermi urbani. Tecnologia e innovazione.
Nuovi sistemi per le facciate mediatiche, 2012). In both cases the word “media” is used as a prefx referring to a
visual communication of texts and images. For the sake of clarity, media façades are defned by the specifc
materials and technologies used on the architectural surface for communication purposes, while media
architecture can be also described by means of the cultural, planning, social and economic implications that
its façades create within the surrounding landscape through their entire surface – identifed by their shape,
and not only as façade-screen – detached from the content. Te concept of media building started to make its
way in the early 2000s by means of a largely unknown composed phrase, conceived by a few experts who
identifed for the frst time the existence of a new type of media and theorised its function: Paul Virilio,
François Buckardt, Bernard Tschumi and others. Light architecture started to make its way almost at the
same time. Shortly after search engines started to provide results containing words such as: media
architecture, meta architecture, media façades, hyperarchitecture, interactive architecture, transarchitecture,
etc. In the 1960s the concept of media building, clear only to a few “enlightened” architects and planners –
Robert Venturi and Archigram for example – was considered a utopia. Nowadays it is instead a largely
widespread type, above all in metropolis and big cities in Asia and North America. Few journals and
magazines defned media building as the actual fusion between real and virtual world on an urban scale. In an
era based on pure information, media building is a communication type dedicated to the building sector by
which the information purpose prevails on the housing one through the use of interactive and multimedia
systems and façades. It blends these two worlds by mixing together the spectacularization of physical fows
and the spectacularization of virtual fows in a single support (Ranaulo, 2001).
A classifcation, still in progress and certainly not complete yet, of the terms currently used in the media
architecture feld is provided below, aiming at assigning each term a precise identity in connection with its
functions and the technologies used.
Media building and media architecture
“Media building seems to be an interactive communication tool by which the city and the architecture
communicate and exchange information with the environment and the users through the synergy of
multimedia interactive systems. Originally the media building was exclusively conceived as a support for
providing information: digital information tools were hanged along the façades of buildings and structures.
Te concept of media building has developed during the last decade as a consequence of the increasing
number of experimentations carried out in diferent places and using diferent technologies. Te term has
evolved as well and what was once considered as media building is now defned as urban screen or media
façade. However, the media building can coexist with the media façade. From both a conceptual and a formal
point of view, the diference lies in how contents are displayed and in the three-dimensional shape. On the
one hand, both media façades and urban screens are based on a two-dimensional object, such as a surface –
dynamic in perceptual and physical terms, and sometimes even interactive – while, on the other hand, in a
media building, the entire structure communicates and visually or electronically interacts with the
surrounding environment. Sometimes one of the façade of a media building can be a media façade or can be
cladded using an urban screen. Normally speaking, the terms “media building” and “media architecture” are
used as synonyms. Te slight diference lies in the planning and cultural features of each project. On the one
hand, the media building can be realised after the completion of a new building or can be conceived as an
installation, i.e. it is a secondary need, often born out of a redevelopment work aimed at increasing the
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visibility of a building or a place with respect to the surrounding urban environment, often for merely
commercial purposes; on the other hand, a media architecture project is based on the media value of the
building and the interactivity with its surrounding space and users: a visual as well as physical and cultural
interactivity, often with artistic or socially important contents. In other words, the building project’s main aim
is to be media architecture. All the other functional and spatial requirements are less important compared to
it.
Video Wall
A video wall consists of multiple video screens connected to each other so that every screen shows a part of
the entire image or the same image is shown on each screen. Te video installation can be laid out in diferent
ways proposing each time a diferent experience. Tey can be based on recorded tapes or close circuits, they
can resemble an object or tend towards an environmental dimension. Sometimes in video installations “the
attention is focussed on the images in the monitors or screens; other times they resemble an entire space and
the connections between the images and the other subjects become more sensitive, capable of reacting to
visitors’ inputs, creating possibilities of dialogue, above all with interactive installations” (Cargioli, 2002).
Nam June Paik was one of the frst artists to understand the potentiality of electronic media and their
infuence on culture and economy. His video art was the result of a synergy of diferent components coming
from cinema, sculpture, visual art and music. Video installation is diferent from other art forms, such as
theatre, cinema, traditional painting and sculpture, for the absence of a front screen separating the scene from
the audience. Te time span occupied by the images and objects of these installations requires the visitors’
involvement since they are the subject of the experience.
Urban Screen
“Te urban screen is a type of media system diferent from the video wall in formal as well as conceptual
terms. Urban screens are usually created using digital technologies with the aim of conveying information
through videos and flms with cultural, commercial, educational contents. Tey can entirely or partially cover
building façades, shop windows and, more recently, scafoldings in building sites. In this latter case they do
not involve digital displays yet systems combining semi-fnished materials (metal meshes), LED light sources
and electronic components.
Te MIA – Milano in Alto – installation in Piazza Duomo in Milan was the frst example in Italy. As
Simone Arcagni (Arcagni, 2012) specifed: urban screens are generally considered as TV and cinema screens
inserted in an urban environment. Tey can be divided into two further categories: urban screens and LED
screens. Urban screens are usually used for the broadcasting system called digital signage (Tirelli, 2009).
Large LED screens are based instead on diferent systems and technologies since they are more often used in
large urban and public spaces within cities (for example parks and squares), inserting a large-size medium
into the urban fabric (cf. S. Arcagni, op.cit). Tey are usually installations connected to a specifc time, event, a
dedicated period or a physical object/subject. Tus they may last a few days, a month or even a year, as it
happened in Milan. Tey are two-dimensional systems requiring a physical support, such as a building façade
or a scafolding structure.
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Light Archtecture
In 2001 Gianni Ranaulo defned light architecture as “a model of synthesis between two worlds, often still
considered to be incompatible: the real and the virtual” (Ranaulo, 2001). In several essays and articles recently
published on general rather than scientifc journals and magazines, both in Italy and abroad, the term “light
architecture” is often confused with “media architecture” to indistinctly identify the same type of system. As a
consequence, light architecture is considered as lighting architecture, a lightweight, immaterial, interactive,
fast or evanescent type of architecture, reaching its climax in the media building. Light architecture,
considered as the translation and interpretation of the concept of lighting architecture, can be read in a
broader sense, not necessarily linked to the role of communication tool or of a tool dedicated to a specifc
event. For the sake of clarity, lighting architecture refers to the project for an artifcial lighting system on a
façade or building (light design). In media architecture, the light design is much more complex and aimed at
creating and conveying written and/or voice messages, and/or dynamic images in order for the building to
interact with the urban environment and the users.
Blurring Architecture
“Blurring architecture” is a term coined and theorised by Toyo Ito in 1999 after the exhibition held in
Aachen. It was then translated with the Italian concept of “architettura evanescente” (evanescent
architecture). “Blurring Architecture is an architecture with soft and difused borders as a consequence of the
overlapping and blending of the built space with the natural environment” (Longobardi, 2003). In one of his
written works in 1999 (ibidem) Toyo Ito defned blurring architecture as a continuation of the modernist
experience, yet characterised by the creation of an artifcial environment through the use of technology. He
believes that we can no longer rely only on the natural environment or pursuit a self-enclosed architecture
completely detached from nature. Te main aim of “blurring” architecture is to increase the homogeneity and
transparency of the framework in which the project is developed by creating spaces unique from an
architectural point of view through the use of light and climate control of a group of people, or the special
concentration of information content.
Hypersurfaces and Transarchitecture
Te concept of hypersurface comes from the mathematical-scientifc feld through the generalisation of the
hyperplane concept. It is considered as a surface in a hyperspace. Stephen Perrella believes that the prefx
“Hyper” involves a change. From a material point of view, this concept identifes the new contemporary
architecture status in which the shape is detached from its function, the project is released from the
surrounding environment and the structure is separated from the signifcance. Perrella maintains that a
hypersurface in architecture is the result of endless relations between shape and image. For example, when an
advertising image is attached to the side of a bus, its graphics both accepts and rejects the bus shape. Te bus
surface is therefore hidden and at the same it can be seen by the several willy-nilly readers. Te bus keeps its
main function while being perfectly suitable for these types of advertising.
Te term transarchitecture (liquid architecture) describes “a transformation or transmutation of architecture
that is intended to break down the polar opposition of physical to virtual and propose in its stead a
continuum ranging from physical architecture to architecture energized by technological augmentation to the
architecture of cyberspace” (Novak, 2000). Since then the rise towards the experimentation of new virtual
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architectural spaces encountered no limits. Te frst two transarchitecture projects were designed by two
transarchitects, Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture of the Asymptote group.
Interactive Architecture
Interactive architecture signifes a feld of contemporary architecture in which objects and space have the
ability to meet changing needs with respect to evolving individual, social, and environmental demands. Tis
relationship is created through the application of embedded and kinetic systems on the architectural surface
in order for it to interact with users and the environment. Te project aims at creating an architecture that
might be defned as interactive or responsive or even cybernetic.
In the project “Emotional Cities” made in Stockholm, the fve tallest buildings in the city refect the mood of
the citizens (Penelope, 2011). Te architectural surfaces become sensitive and responsive skins, based upon
the study and visualisation of the emotions of individuals and groups. Te fve skyscrapers constantly change
colour according to the prevailing emotion.
Responsive Architecture
Responsive architecture is an evolving feld of architectural practice and the research feld that has preceded
that of interactive architecture for a few years now. Responsive architectures measure actual environmental
conditions (via sensors) to enable buildings to adapt their shape, colour or purpose responsively (via
actuators). One of the aims of responsive architecture is to refne and extend the architectural scope by
improving building energy efciency through the application of sensor technologies, such as sensors, control
systems and actuators, and the realisation of buildings mirroring contemporary cultural and technological
innovations. Tese architectures are diferent from other types of interactive projects since they feature smart
and responsive technologies integrated into the building envelope and structure, thus directly connecting the
building shape with environment inputs. Te term “responsive architecture” was coined by Nicholas
Negroponte, the frst to understand its existence in the late 1960s when spatial planning problems were
investigated by applying cybernetics to architecture. On this issue, I recommend consulting also: T. Sterk,
Toughts for Gen X— Speculating about the Rise of Continuous Measurement in Architecture, in T. Sterk,
R. Loveridge, D. Pancoast, Building A Better Tomorrow, Proceedings of the 29th annual conference of the
Association of Computer Aided Design in Architecture, Te Art Institute of Chicago, 2009; P. Beesley, S.
Hirosue, J. Ruxton, M. Trankle, C. Turner, Responsive Architectures: Subtle Technologies, Riverside
Architectural Press, 2006; L. Bullivant, Responsive Environments: architecture, art and design, London,
V&A Contemporary, 2006; N. Negroponte, Soft Architecture Machines, Cambridge (MA), Te MIT Press,
1975.
Kinetic Architecture
Kinetic architecture, considered in the broader framework of media architecture and façades, may be
generally defned as “transformable kinetic objects occupy predefned physical space as well as moving
physical objects can share a common physical space to create adaptable spatial confgurations” (Fox-Miles,
2009).
Kinetic architecture embodies a concept according which buildings are designed in order for signifcant parts
or systems of them, such as the façade envelope components, to be able to move while maintaining the
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building overall entirety. Te fact that the entire building or parts of it can move may have a pure aesthetic
and formal purpose (e.g. a communication purpose for the building façade) or it may allow the building to
react to specifc environmental conditions and to perform functions (e.g. dynamic solar shading systems),
otherwise impossible for a static structure. Te increase in the kinetic architecture applications starting from
the 19th century, as a consequence of the development of mechanical, electronic and robotic technologies, led
to new possibilities in the architectural feld.
Bibliography
Arcagni S., “Post Cinema. Architettura e media”, in K. Gasparini, Schermi Urbani, Wolters Kluwer, Milano,
2012.
Barthes R., Elementi di semiologia, Torino, Einaudi, 2002, pp. 116-118 (Original title Eléments de sémiologie,
Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1964).
Cargioli R. S., Sensi che vedono. Introduzione all’arte della videoinstallazione, Pisa, Nitri-Lischi, 2002, pp. 7-14
Fox M., Miles K., Interactive Architecture, Princeton Architectural, 2009, p.27.
Gasparini K., Schermi urbani. Tecnologia e innovazione. Nuovi sistemi per le facciate mediatiche, Wolters Kluwer,
Torino, 2012.
Longobardi G., Toyo Ito. Antologia di testi su l’architettura evanescente, Roma, Kappa, 2003, pp.5-7.
Novak M., Babele 2000, http://www.trax.it/marcos_novak.htm
Penelope, Progetto Emotional Cities: i cinque grattacieli più alti di Stoccolma rifettono il mood dei cittadini,
http://www.artsblog.it/tag/architettura+interattiva, 2011
Ranaulo G., Light Architecture, Testo & Immagine, Torino, 2001, p. 22
Tirelli D., Digital Signage. L’immagine onnipresente, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2009
Biography
Katia Gasparini, architect, PhD on Architectural Technology, adjunt professor at the Università Iuav di
Venezia and at the Polytechnic of Milan (teaching: Technological Innovation for building enevelope).
Involved in didactic and research work about environmental quality, technological innovation for the
architectural envelope, color and light in architecture. Member of the Iuav research group “Colour and Light
in Architecture”; promoter and director of Screencity-International Academic Journal; member of national
and international scientifc committees. Freelance architect, mediabuilding and new technologies for mediaenvelope consultant.
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