What this MVRDV Rendering Says About Architecture and the Media

What this MVRDV Rendering Says About Architecture and the Media

Digital visualisations and hollow sales pitches hide the ugly sides of architecture and urban development. And the media buy it. MVRDV's recently proposed Valley in Amsterdam is a good example.

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In the near future a building designed by the world-famous architectural firm MVRDV will be constructed in Amsterdam. An inhabitable mountain cliff, covered in greenery. That is, if we are to believe the computer-generated image that was recently presented by the designers. In reality, though, the building will never turn out like the rendering.

The rendered building is a symptom. It illustrates how the media represent buildings, with unrealistic visuals and irrelevant writing. The press do little more than spread the visual candy produced by architecture and city planning’s slickest players.

Gaze on the pristine newness of exclusive architecture. In order not to distort this fantasy, the social implications, political dynamics and internal problems of architecture and spatial production are conveniently left out of the picture.

What this MVRDV Rendering Says About Architecture and the Media

Valley

OVG Real Estate/MVRDV

Let’s start with the case study. The City of Amsterdam chose developer OVG Real Estate and architectural firm MVRDV to produce a new building in Zuidas, the city’s latest emerging business district. The proposed complex, Valley, will house a mix of residencies, offices and amenities, spread out over three towers, overflowing onto terraced balconies. A vertical forest adorns the cliff, and the building will, to a large degree, be ‘open to the public; the public space literally extends into, and over, the building’, according to the CEO of OVG.

Render vs. reality
Now have a closer look at the rendering, that extensive piece of imaginary. You don’t see light dropping in like that every day, do you? No. It’s there because this is a digital interpretation of the architect’s ambitions. The diamond rock looks wonderfully transparent, but glass is reflective, so the building will eventually look more like a mirroring lump. The unavoidable budget cuts on materials and programme won’t contribute to the outcome either. We should also be skeptical about all that space, in and on the building, actually being accessible to the public. However, the fact that those balconies don’t seem to have any balustrades is an exciting quality.

Admittedly, the lush bushes on the balconies and terraces look stunning. But how will those sky gardens hang in reality? Bushy buildings are the trend of the 2010s, but it’s difficult to recall any successful real-life examples on this scale, including Stefano Boeri’s archetypal Bosco Verticale in Milan. These sky gardens never come to look as lavish as their renderings. Not only because of the smog (Valley is situated directly alongside Amsterdam’s ring road) or high winds damaging the plants and trees, but also because the greenery can’t flourish unless it is planted in adequate soil. And more to the point, it’s not spring all year round.

Presenting the building as a vertical forest and announcing it as sustainable, has the distinct whiff of green-washing. The construction industry is a major source of pollution, and the plants which will eventually populate the balconies, won’t compensate for the CO2 outpour produced during construction. Recently, the developer OVG also delivered The Edge, the new headquarters of the consultancy firm Deloitte, also in Zuidas. Based on BREEAM rating, it is now the ‘most sustainable office building in the world’. Wow. But it doesn’t say that Deloitte left its former headquarters empty, elsewhere in Amsterdam, with it only being in use for 12 years. Dumped for a younger, more prestigious showpiece.

And what about the perspective used in the image? Valley is visualised from the view of a bird hovering above Amsterdam’s ring road. Not many people will be able to see it from this angle. With its nearest comparison being the view from ABN-AMRO’s adjacent headquarters.

Walking on ground level, all you’ll experience is another glass box. Maybe with a few green leaves hanging down from the top.

In short, the future reality will be considerably less dream-like than the rendered future suggests.

Architects as make-up artists
Can you even blame the architect? Is architecture today anything more than make-up for real estate projects?

Architects are dependent on clients and often (too happily) play their part in this game of seduction. The rendering of Valley is no more than a sales image used by OVG to convince the municipality, allowing the former to continue to profit. Not that the city is doing this out of kindness: it has also made millions selling the plot.

But looking at the predicted Valley, what we see mostly is an empty, nicely decorated shell. It is not only a visual misrepresentation of a future reality; the accompanying text is a sales pitch filled with hollow marketing terms including ‘unique’, ‘distinctive’, ‘innovative’, ‘sustainable’, and, ‘high quality’. It doesn’t include any of the features by which we can properly evaluate the building. You could argue that they are no more than vehicles for investment, both the rendering and the future Valley.

Everything described above doesn’t mean that Valley won’t be beautiful, functional, and pleasing to many people, but all we see now is a pretty presentation of a potential building. The image is an optimistic representation of progress, and is simultaneously used as promotional material for Amsterdam’s not too popular Zuidas district, as the director of Zuidas district explains: ‘OVG’s proposal, designed by MVRDV, has a bold and distinctive architectural appearance and marks a crucial turning point in the development of Zuidas into a mixed area with housing, employment and services. This plan effectively increases the attractiveness of Zuidas.’ Let’s hope it does, because now hardly anyone goes there voluntarily.

Why question architecture, right?
This is architecture reduced to cosmetics. Renderings hide the ugly sides of architecture and urban development, and the media buy it. But Valley will not turn out to be this ecstatic building. What’s worse is that images like these daze design writers and numb the discussion we should be having about architecture.

Most of the media covering architecture do little more than unthinkingly republish the spectacular imagery and empty PR texts provided by developers and architects. Naturally, it also happened with this MVRDV image and OVG text, on websites including DezeenDesignboomArchDaily and several more (and in Dutch newspapers).

And why would they be critical? Their existence relies on clicks and traffic, they make the most money when they are the first to publish the most sensational content. But while they pretend to cover the news, architectural media, and the press in general, are developer’s and architect’s PR channels.

The architecture celebrated in these image outlets is generally for the happy few. Still, people love to indulge in eye candy, perhaps because it is an unattainable dream to be able to live in a building shown on ArchDaily. It’s not without reason that the comparison with the porn industry is regularly made.

What this MVRDV Rendering Says About Architecture and the Media

Top Google hits for ‘architecture’. Thanks to the media, architecture becomes a false reality.

Google Images

The biggest problem is that because of this visual deluge, people associate architecture with luxury and exclusivity, instead of everyday social and public issues. This diminishes the societal relevance of the profession. The questions that should be asked, are left silent: do we really need this building? What issues are facing the city and how does this building contribute to solving them? Who’s paying for it? Who’s profiting from it? Who will be allowed to use and enjoy it? How affordable will the residential units be? How sustainable is its construction and use?

I’m not arguing that Valley will score badly on all these accounts. What I am saying is that forthcoming architecture is often poorly, if at all, judged on criteria like these. The resulting ignorance is a problem, because a well-informed, critical audience could enforce alterations or suggest better alternatives.

Most media coverage confuses architecture with art; architects with sculptors. Sure, for a small part, the architect is still a creative professional, but it is the only creative profession that has such a severe impact on our living environment. People can avoid abstract art, pottery or a Celine Dion concert, but they are forced to live with the architecture constructed in their city.

We should pay attention to the design of the world we want to live in: the kinds of neighbourhoods, cities and societies we want to inhabit, how architecture can contribute to that, and the different forces that influence it. We should not let digital delusions mislead us.

An earlier version of this article (in Dutch) appeared on VICE’s The Creators Project. The author was awarded the Geert Bekaert Award for Architecture Criticism for this article.

Update: Initially, the project was called Ravel Plaza. When the name of the project changed to Valley, the name was updated in this article.

Update: MVRDV responded to this criticism in the article “In Defense of Renders and Trees On Top of Skyscrapers” on ArchDaily.

Mark Minkjan is an urban and architectural geographer. He is Editor-in-Chief at Failed Architecture and produces the Failed Architecture Podcast. He has written for publications including VICE, The Guardian and The Architectural Review. In 2016, Mark received a talent grant from the Dutch Creative Industries Fund to develop new forms of architecture criticism. He received the Geert Bekaert Award for architecture criticism in 2017 and curated the 2019 exhibition “The Right to Build: Self-build Between Dreams and Reality”. Mark currently teaches at Amsterdam's Academy of Architecture and Gerrit Rietveld Academy.
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Gary
Along similar lines: I’ve just attended an end of year degree show at my local School of Architecture. And unfortunately the majority of projects on display fell into the ‘style over content’ category. Wonderful high resolution images of utopian buildings populated with young hip trendy inhabitants and no, older or disabled person represented. Balconies with no balustrades, total disregard for Health & Safety regulations, indeed, some proposals, if commissioned, would be death-traps. There was so ‘facadeism’ that reality rarely intrudes.
Robert Cullen
Good points. It is getting ridiculous the way architects use plants and trees inserted into buildings in impossible ways to make the proposal look pretty. Trees in particular would rarely grow in the places imagined by architects. The greenery proposed here, even if it ever achieved that degree of lusciousness would cost a fortune to maintain. We can all fantasise a beautiful sparkling building covered in leaves but if it isn't possible in reality then find a true way to make the building good.
Clarinda
I'll try to put this to good use imleidatemy.
Andrej Badin
Enjoyed reading the text. These images frequently presented by mass media are hollow indeed. Here we are, digging the pit of babel. Most people tolerate the developments, but what is the reason for that? Insufficient presentation material? Polished hyper-idyllic rendering? Or is it our social relationship - tolerant seemingly - but based on the simple fact, that as individuals we care for ourselves only?
maurice
i think you have confused a good point here! Renders are simply a way for the architect to visualize an 'idea' not a reality, however real the images may or may not be perceived everyone looking at them know that a render is not a real replica of the what will be built. renders are constructed photographs using collage techniques usually on photoshop. when an architect uses these tools to support a design they are doing so knowing that reality will be different and architects are not trying to obscure the fact, they are human and can't imagine what a real building may look like once its built (water staining included). Your other point about the societal effect of pretty images obscuring the reality is very interesting though, however i find it hard to make the connection with a render as the alternative is to make it look bad. do you not look in the mirror in the morning, do you not take a shower have a haircut or buy new clothes? then you are a hypocrite because looking your best is a social lubricant that helps people believe that life can be better!
Name Prof. Krishna Rao JAISIM
Text 95% of presentation these days in 3D and other formats is worse than a dream. In reality these are nightmares. But they get away. The media adds to this frenzy. Realistic evaluation of project has become impossible. The bigger the firm, the greater the fancy. People fall for this myth.
Francesco
@Daniel Carrapa "Architecture as expression of the rich and powerful" is not a statement of purpose, but the ascertainment of the situation. Architecture has a social tradition, but most architects (the ones I know, of course) really don't care if the developer's program is against the citizens' interest. For every De Carlo or Siza planning a social housing complex we have dozens of luxury estates that surely don't get built by themselves, and have little value for the public life of the neighborhood they are built it. The problem is not only this use of architecture, which is only the spatial expression of the issue, but the whole process that allows the dominance of real estate interest above public interest.
Daniel Carrapa
The question is not so much the "legitimacy" of renders, or the right of architecture firms to use them. The real issue is the appropriation of virtual images as a support for a debate about architecture. To use such images as a basis for a discourse about architecture - as the media often do - is the equivalent of trying to make film criticism watching only movie trailers. I am also quite surprised (shocked, even), by some comments. The idea that "architecture is (mostly) the expression of the rich and the powerful". No. No, not really. There is a strong social tradition in architecture that was profoundly manifested in post-war modernism around the world. Just because we’ve been sitting on a credit-based monetary bubble for the last forty years, it doesn’t mean this is what the world is all about – or that architecture should be this way, forever epitomizing a culture of “non-crisis”. But I guess some people didn’t get the memo, in 2008.
JohnAV
interesting take. this article reminds me of the Dodger (baseball) stadium in Los Angeles California, USA. ...and the ugly side to architecture: displacing the populace. I agree with some of the remarks on the comments too. Private (rich/wealthy) have always had that luxury. Be it a modern plant tower or a playboy mansion - 1) the public must endure, and 2) who to say they, the firms and owners, owe something to the city/communities. I do agree with ending of the article, about the proper questions we SHOULD be asking. stimulating.
AK
I don't agree with presenters argument. If he knows about mvrdv architecture it is not about designing pretty or seductive buildings but about the expression of individual units slightly hedonistic design taken to an extreme with a mass produced realization. In that sense the end result is ironic because the requirements of individual units are fufilled and the end result is whatever comes out left as it is. Sonthe article does the njustice to the design intentions of mvrdv
Francesco
"to profit on real estate", my bad.
Francesco
As Joost already said, architecture is (mostly) the expression of the rich and the powerful. The consequence of this statement changed during history, though: if until the 18th century the elites spent their money to embellish their palaces and the public squares mainly for pride, what we are seeing now is the use of architecture to make more money. So, if the first was art for itself, now architecture (and the shiny renderings) is a tool to profit on real This shift was well explained by Henri Lefebvre (minus the rendering bit), as the city changed from a piece of art to a mere product. What is the role of the architect then? Everybody has to earn their share, but I think that there should be an ethical root in architecture (and of course in urban planning), even if that means earning less.
Joost
All points made are fair. It is indeed a strong analysis of the contemporary situation. Two things that popped up in my head. One: hasn't architecture always been the 'toy' of the rich and the fortunate and weren't architects always busy with smart marketing trics to sell their designs (from Paladio to Frank Lloyd Wright and onwards)? Rowan Moore did a very good lecture on the development of this element in architecture up to the indeed heavily colour photo driven presentations in magazines (instead of the in-depth textual analysis). Second thing: I can imagine that offices like MVRDV would not even try to go against all that is written down here, yes they sell their projects and try to do this in the best way possible and that includes sometimes showing the best parts and leaving away some other stuff. In that sense I think they are just opportunistic and it seems to work. Not trying to defend that, but I think it is partially what the game is.
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