Is Faux the New Actual? Trying to find an Architectural Actuality

Is Fake the New Real? Searching for an Architectural Reality

Excerpt from the book: Real and Fake in Architecture–Close to the Original, Far from Authenticity? (Edition Axel Menges)

The term “fake” has been in the media frequently in the early 21^st century, referring to headlines and fictional statements that are perceived as real and are influencing public opinion and action. Replacing the historically more common term “propaganda,” fake news aims at misinformation and strives to “damage an agency, entity, or person, and/or gain financially or politically, often using sensationalist, dishonest, or outright fabricated headlines.” Tracing fake news and differentiating “real” information from personal opinions and identifying intentional (or unintentional) deceit can be complicated. It is similarly complex to trace the duality of fake and real in the built world. To explore the larger context of fake statements in architecture and environmental design, a look at the definition of fake and related terms might be necessary.

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Fakes teach us many things, most obviously perhaps the fallibility of experts. — Rem Koolhaas

Fake architecture

Fakes might be embedded in the copy of a built original or relate to the unbuilt design executed in a different context, a reconstruction re-creating something that no longer exists, rendering it irrelevant or just nostalgic. Fake can be in the appearance: pretending value or specific materiality, a low-cost version of expensive materials, or in any way looking like something it is not. Architecture can fake many conditions through formal expression: sustainability, materiality (fake stone), vernacular origins, high technology functionality, and much more. The line between pretend architectural and cultural relationships and the creation of real cultural references is difficult to draw and is defined by the user’s own history, experiences, and perceptions. Fake architectural elements are a subject of discussion in the field of preservation, where reconstruction and repair live close to imagination and storytelling over the course of history. The adjective fake is used by some critics to describe architectural reconstructions such as the new Baroque Berlin City Palace, the replica of the collapsed Campanile on Venice’s Saint Mark’s Square (which became famous through a fake photograph of the collapse of the original) or the concrete copy of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee (one of many copies of the Parthenon existing all over the world). While the definition of fake has its merits, it inevitably leads to the question of what is true or real, suggesting that once that is defined, everything outside of that definition is fake.

Architectural fakery can be wrapped up in pretense but also suggestiveness: buildings implying sustainable performance, high-end materials, or an iconic condition typically found elsewhere and in a different historic era or suggesting authenticity. Fake, visionary, and virtual spaces all have different purposes, without necessarily all leading to deceit or being a straight lie. In fact, architecture typically illustrates what the client is hoping to represent – power, values, democracy, or other social, political, and cultural conditions. Sacred architecture displays the symbols and references that carry meaning for the community familiar with the narratives shown. At a large scale, theme parks have perfected the technique of making environments from fairy tales, films or, travel destinations inhabitable, realizing what was only imagined before and enhancing it to a point where it seems more effective than the original. Visitors to a theme park are not fooled into believing that they are spending time with the Pirates of the Caribbean, but they enjoy the immersive experience of a large theater combined with amusement park rides. Copies of recognizable landmarks transport cultural values around the globe, such as the replica of the Eiffel Tower identifying with Western history and lifestyle in Shenzhen, China. Miniature versions of those same monuments come home with us as souvenirs to prove and memorialize visits. Memorials recall buildings that no longer exist, in outlined reconstruction or just as a marker. After the Florentine sculptor, architect, and engineer Filippo Brunelleschi had discovered (or most likely re-discovered) linear perspective, it became a popular method to blur the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and architecture. The painter Masaccio applied perspective in his paintings, creating the illusion of depth and architectural realism. He is credited with being one of the first artists to command the principle, showing buildings and landscapes as they recede into the landscape. By the end of the 15^th century, perspective had become ubiquitous in the arts, prominent in the works of Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, and many other artists.

Famous Copies

The Parthenon is possibly one of the best-known buildings of Greek antiquity and acted as a cultural and physical precedent for the Western world for centuries. Its enormous impact on Western culture is difficult to measure. The overall message of the scale and dignity is one of victory over barbaric others who might claim Athenian land and cultural treasures. This perceived unity of cultural message and architectural form is transported to the different Parthenon copies all over the world – in a simplified way, as embodiment of Western values – retaining some of its meaning despite the change in place, climate, material, and program. One of the first 19th-century re-appearance of the Parthenon design was most likely in William Strickland’s Second Bank in Philadelphia, completed in 1824, reduced to three-fifths of its original scale. A complete copy of the Parthenon was erected in Nashville, Tennessee, as a temporary structure for the Centennial Exposition in 1897. This copy paid great attention to the details of sculptural forms but neglected to represent recent findings of polychromy. An act of cultural criticism, it left out the layer of paint but »restored« aspects of the original Parthenon that were damaged or missing: metopes and the pediment sculptures for example. Renovations in 1920 by Russell Hart brought it even closer to the original Parthenon’s shapes, rebuilding the exterior out of concrete with casts of the Elgin marbles and other artifacts. Other parts of the world built their Parthenons or selected parts of it as well, borrowing the dignity and perfection that symbolizes justice, educational depth, and democracy. Edward Hollis writes: “the High Court of Sri Lanka is lent an air of gravitas by the expedient of attaching a Parthenon to it as a porch, while Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland was designed to house casts of the sculptures that once adorned the Greek temple. Everywhere it appears, the Parthenon is used to symbolize art and civilization, liberty and eternal fame.” The latest replica of the Parthenon was a re-issued version of the ‘Parthenon of Books’ by Argentinian artist Marta Minujín, a reconstruction made from metal scaffolding covered by banned books originally set up in Buenos Aires 1983 and re-built in Kassel for the art show Documenta in 2017.

While multiple versions of individual buildings exist, they rarely are clandestine copies that are sold to an unknown buyer as something else or as from a different architect. With ‘copy/paste’ operations being common commands in data processing, in architecture drafting, and 3D modeling programs, replication is easy. Laser scanning, a technique used in the field of preservation, can lead to mass production of any building if combined with 3D printing, replicating the exact geometry of the scanned structure while reproducing it in one homogeneous material. In the same way, photography gave rise to concerns related to the original of the image, 3D printing questions the duality of the fake and the original. The copy becomes its own form of expression – possibly free from the burden of the original.

Repair and Restoration: Changing Views of Authenticity

Preservation of historic monuments and aging structures is important for the cultural continuity of our societies. The determination of what is considered worthy of preservation is part of a complex process. Jorge Otero-Pailos writes: “Preservation is at the core of every cultural institution. By definition, an institution is a society organized around a particular object. A religious institution is organized around religious objects, art institutions around art objects, and cultural institutions around preserved objects.” Cities and buildings are constantly changing; buildings get functionally or stylistically outdated and at times destroyed by disaster or war. How to treat historic buildings has been the subject of multiple theories since preservation became a course of action in the 17^th century. In the 21^st century, the field seems to be caught between regulatory procedures and materials conservation. While the “original” on a historic site might be a testimony of a specific era, most sites undergo continuous change with layers added and subtracted. Typically, the latest layer or intervention is contested at the time of its implementation and receives more appreciation as it settles into the system of evolving changes. The architect David Fixler advocates for a concept of flexibility: “When there can be doubt about the authenticity of a well-documented, museum-quality restoration project, it is clear that, short of jettisoning the concept in its entirety, we must allow some flexibility in applying any notion of authenticity to the interpretation and re-presentation of a cultural resource.”

Several cities in Germany are still executing or continuing repairs of damage done more than 70 years ago during WWII. The Römerberg square in Frankfurt is a popular tourist destination – medieval buildings flank the square, among others the so-called Römer – a large block, originally with eleven different buildings – Old St. Nicholas church, and other small-scale structures. While the Römer was destroyed in 1944 and rebuilt with its neogothic facades in 1955, subsequent reconstructions have continued into the 21^st century. In the 1980s, one of the oldest streets in Frankfurt’s downtown was reimagined by a set of playful postmodern buildings that followed the overall sizing of the previous urban texture. The latest part of Frankfurt’s old town reconstruction effort is going to be completed in the fall of 2018, replacing the so-called Technisches Rathaus from 1974. A combination of old and new as an urban renewal project involves an entire district combining 15 reconstructions with 20 modern buildings alluding to the texture of their reconstructed context.

Fake versus Real

Looking at many instances that weigh real versus fake, it becomes obvious that fake seems easier to recognize than real. The assessment of both is guided by emotions, time, locale, and culture and is strongly connected to architectural practice, material use, and fabrication. Attaching the value of authenticity solely to place would render a relocated historic building unauthentic and fake. Linking the origin of a building exclusively to its original architect or builder would deny cultural and stylistic tendencies that an architect is inevitably part of. Linking »real«with the initial intention of a building would freeze it in time and make any change or adaptation impossible. An emphasis on material culture would suggest that change or even maintenance is questionable. Fakearchitectural elements are easily identified, when focusing on a specific social group or one premise only, citing an emotional attachment to how things must be in order to be real (often driven by nostalgia or random purism regarding materiality and shape). Appropriate buildings are highly dependent on their context and use – if any condition changes, a building’s status will change as well. Most buildings don’t have to be unique; they act as humble participants in the ecosystem that we inhabit, aiming at sustainability and communal well-being. Since it is much easier to point fingers at fake than to identify the real with solid parameters, it comes down to looking for the fleeting poetry that alludes to a combination of sincerity, place, time, and purpose – the poetry that allows architecture to take care of our needs, to make us feel like we belong, and to inspire our fantasy.

Contributions include: The book includes essays by Eric Lum, Dan Hisel, Jennifer Lee Michaliszyn, Morgan McMahon, Nicole Lambrou, Christina Lanzl, Tom van Arman, Justin Vigilanti, Karen Seong, Ingrid Strong, and Kemo Usto as well as projects by Gregor Sailer, Edoardo Tresoldi, Jessica Ronayne, Stefan Al, Kelly Hutzell and Rami el Samahy, Mat Maggio, Allen Spore, Rima Abousleiman and Alun Be.

Sources:

1. Rem Koolhaas, S, M, L, XL (New-York: Sigler, 1998), 476.
2. “Fake News,” Wikipedia, last modified 5 February 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news.
3. Michael Kimmelman, “In Berlin, Rebuilding the Hohenzollern Stadtschloss May Have Become a Grand Blunder”, The New York Times, December 31, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/arts/design/01abroad.html.
4. Isaac Kaplan, July 26, 2017, “Why is there a Full-Scale Replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee?” https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-full-scale-replica-parthenon-nashville-tennessee.
5. Edward Hollis, The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories, (London: Portobello, 2010), 16.
6. Ines Weizman, “Architectural Doppelgangers,” AA FILES, no. 65 (2012): 19.
7. Jorge Otero-Pailos, Erik F. Langdalen, and Thordis Arrhenius, Experimental Preservation (Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2016), 24.
8. David N. Fixler, “Is It Real and Does It Matter?: Rethinking Authenticity and Preservation,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians no. 67 [1], (March 2008): 11, doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2008.67.1.11
9. Fixler, “Is it Real and Does it Matter?: Rethinking Authenticity and Preservation.”