Learned from Las Vegas: DHUB Design Museum, Barcelona, by MBM

DHUB: a shed with a duck stapled on top of it?

This building is important. It occupies a prominent site at the intersection of Barcelona’s three most important
thoroughfares. But not only that: a chunk of it has been
allowed to singularly invade public airspace over Gran Via, the longest,
straightest and most important of these avenues. Just to give us an idea,
La Sagrada Familia is among the few other buildings in Barcelona permitted
to occupy public airspace over a major street:
when completed, the Glory façade’s monumental
entrance steps will arch over Carrer de Mallorca. The name of the new
building, “Disseny Hub”, also exudes importance, suggesting that it is a point of network centrality, not unlike an international
airport.

It turns out that this important
building is a design institution, not a transportation interchange, although the jet-setting Wallpaperazzi are sure to make it a stopover on their globe-trotting itineraries.
Among Barcelona’s locals, meanwhile, this building’s pronounced cantilever has
already earned it the sobriquet of “la grapadora”, or the stapler; astutely
reflecting today’s growing complicity between architecture, design and
bureaucracy.

But this monumental stapler is in fact only a small component of a
much larger building; a mere hood ornament on a sprawling, low-slung, semi-buried 'groundscraper'. It is as if one part of the building were intended to be highly visible—an eye-catching icon or sign—and the rest much more hidden and discreet. Moreover, the conspicuous element faces the busy roadway intersection, while the
discreet one opens in the other direction onto a more pedestrian-scaled
public space. It is almost...almost...as if the architects, MBM,
took their cue from the ducks and sheds of Las Vegas, stacking these
elements vertically instead of layering them horizontally, as would make sense
in a much denser urban setting. Who would have thought that an important
building on Barcelona’s grand strip would one day take the form of a duck
stapled onto a shed?

[Originally published in Mark Magazine #45]

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Product Placement / Emplazamiento publicitario

[versión en castellano sigue a continuación]



Product Placement



“Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.”
The underside of the laptop computer I’m using to write this displays those
very words alongside the model name, serial number, and safety norm compliance
symbols. Funny, because until not too long ago a product usually only stated
where it was made. But now it is evidently just as important—if not more important—to say where a
product was designed. Could this be because the list of countries that
still actually manufacture things has shrunk to a mere handful, necessitating
other criteria for distinguishing one product from another? Does this mean that
design is increasingly the basis upon which goods and services compete in the
global economy, confirming once and for all the supremacy of form over content?
Curiously, my laptop does not say which country it was designed in, but
which state; California, no less. Now why would that be? What might the
difference be had it been designed instead in, say, Massachusetts? Perhaps this
information is intended for no other reason than to induce some California Dreamin' and good vibrations. Californication über alles.

One of the differences between architecture and industrial
design, I once learned in school, is that the former is contextual and site-specific, while the
latter is industrial and place-less. But
this is not so. While the same Apple product can be found all
over the world, the brand’s identity is very much associated with a specific culture. Indeed, global brand-names increasingly include
place-names, exploiting the cachet that places—themselves often carefully
branded—are able to confer. Think “Custo Barcelona” or “DKNY”.

Barcelona’s new Disseny Hub, as its name
suggests, is a building whose program is none other than to assert the
centrality of the Catalan capital within the contemporary design world. But curiously the Disseny Hub is not a designer-object-building, like some others nearby, but a piece of urban infrastructure designed to contain a variety of programmatic activities (design museum, the FAD design institution, a local
library...) and to mediate between different neighborhoods,
topographies, and  transportation corridors, most notoriously
an elevated viaduct.

MBM's DHUB building comprises two main
elements, one on top of the other: a large, semi-buried longitudinal volume
containing offices and a vast exhibition hall, and a taller sculptural element
with smaller gallery spaces and an auditorium. Reminiscent of Melnikov’s
Rusakov Club in Moscow, the auditorium volume is cantilevered over the viaduct, invading public airspace. “La grapadora” (the
stapler), as local residents have dubbed the sculptural element, is effectively
a hood ornament for the much larger and more discreet volume below. The
exaggerated cantilever was originally intended to enable a gigantic LED screen on its end-façade to be seen from the viaduct. But in the meantime the viaduct has been scheduled for demolition, an
action which would eliminate the entire raison d’être of the cantilever. It seems
that if a computer can exude regional vibes, architecture too can have its
site-specificity taken away from it.

[originally published in Arquitectura Viva #153 under the title "Marcas y contextos / The Disseny Hub in Barcelona"]

Emplazamiento publicitario

«Diseñado por Apple en California. Fabricado en
China.» La base del ordenador portátil que estoy utilizando para escribir estas
líneas contiene estas palabras junto con el nombre del modelo, el número de
serie y otros datos. Y esto es curioso, porque hasta no hace tanto en un
producto, por lo general, sólo se indicaba dónde se fabricaba. Sin embargo,
ahora parece tan importante, si no más, decir dónde se diseña. ¿Acaso lo es
porque la lista de los países donde todavía se fabrican cosas se ha reducido a
un puñado, lo cual exige nuevos criterios para distinguir un producto de otro?
¿Significa esto que el diseño es cada vez más la base sobre la que los bienes y
lo servicios compiten en la economía global, confirmando la supremacía de la
forma sobre el contenido? De una manera curiosa, mi portátil no dice en qué
país se diseñó, sino en qué Estado: California, nada menos. ¿Cuá sería la
diferencia si hubiese sido diseñado, pongamos por caso, en Massachusetts? Quizá
el dato no tenga otra intención que transmitir el sueño californiano y las
buenas vibraciones a él asociadas. Californication über alles.



En las escuelas se enseña que una
de las diferencias entre la arquitectura y el diseño es que aquella es
contextual, mientras que este es, en principio,  global. Sin embargo, tampoco esto está claro. Mientras que
el mismo producto de Apple puede encontrarse en cualquier lugar del mundo, la
identidad de marca está fuertemente vinculada a una cultura específica. De
hecho, las marcas globales tienden cada vez más a incluir topónimos,
aprovechando el prestigio que los lugares por sí mismos son capaces de dotar al
producto. Piénsese en ‘Custo Barcelona’ o ‘DKNY’. 



Como su nombre indica, el nuevo DissenyHub de Barcelona es un edificio cuyo programa es afirmar la centralidad de la
capital catalana en el mundo del diseño. Pero, contra lo que pudiera esperarse,
no es un edificio-objeto de diseñador, como otros de la zona, sino que forma
parte de una infraestructura urbana concebida para albergar un programa de
diferentes actividades —un museo de diseño, la sede de FAD, una biblioteca— y
para mediar entre barrios, topografías y corredores de transporte, entre los
cuales el más notorio es un viaducto elevado. Proyectado por MBM, el edificioDHUB está compuesto por dos elementos principales, uno encima de otro: un
volumen grande y enterrado que contiene oficinas y una gran sala de
exposiciones; y un elemento más alto y escultural, que alberga una zona
expositiva más pequeña, y un auditorio. Recordando al Club Rusakov de Mélnikov
en Moscú, el volumen que contiene el auditorio se lanza en voladizo sobre el
viaducto, invadiendo, sin tocarlo, el espacio público. La ‘grapadora’ —así se
le conoce por los barceloneses— es un elemento escultural, una especie de
ornamento de capot que cubre el volumen inferior, que es mucho más grande y
discreto. El exagerado voladizo fue pensado en origen para sostener una
gigantesca pantalla LED, que podría ser vista desde el viaducto. Entretanto,
este ha sido condenado a la demolición, lo cual podría también eliminar, a la
postre, la razón de ser del voladizo, un hecho que demuestra que, igual que un
ordenador puede emanar vibraciones regionales, la arquitectura también puede
seguir siendo específica, aunque sea a costa de su propio contexto.

[Originalmente publicado en Arquitectura Viva bajo el título "Marcas y contextos / The Disseny Hub in Barcelona". Traducción: Eduardo Prieto]

El País, 7.7.2013

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Optimization Takes Command: Angelo Roventa's Elastic Dwelling

[originally published in ST/A/R special issue 23 catalogue for the Vienna MAK exhibition "The Game of the Mighty: Heidulf Gerngross archistrates Franz West's Nageltower. With Hofstetter Kurt and Angelo Roventa"]





Architect Angelo Roventa operating his Elastic Dwelling prototype at the MAK, Vienna



Angelo Roventa’s Elastic Dwelling applies a principle—and a mechanism—that is borrowed from a commercially available pre-manufactured industrial product: the high-density mobile storage system that is quite common in large archives, libraries, offices, and warehouses. The principle behind this product is quite simple: the ratio of useable storage space to circulation space increases drastically when storage cabinets can be moved sideways along a track such that only a single access aisle is ever open between any two cabinets at any given time. Space is completely optimized in such a system since circulation space (that all-important difference between net and gross) is reduced to only the location at which it is actually needed.



The Elastic Dwelling transfers this principle to the domestic realm, not in order to increase storage capacity or reduce circulation space, but rather to enable domestic “rooms” to be enlarged and reduced as needed. Instead of storing files or documents that are rarely consulted, the Elastic Dwelling's mobile cabinets contain home furnishings which are used on a daily basis: there are cabinets containing beds, others containing a desk and bookshelf, and others wardrobes. Immobile cabinets at each end contain the “wet” functions of bathroom and kitchen. A generous lateral space from which the elastic rooms are accessed serves as the more public, multi-use living and dining room. All this allows, just as it does in archives and offices, for much fewer square meters to deliver the same level of performance. A saving of square meters entails a saving of construction material, energy, maintenance and, of course, cost. Space is money too.



The idea of space as something to be optimized probably worries some architects. I can think of more than one academic who would very likely disapprove of the Elastic Dwelling's optimization ethos. Their refrain goes something like “optimization only serves capitalism and instrumental rationalism, which architects must resist.” But isn’t the proposal of a real, viable, and yes, financially feasible alternative to business-as-usual more constructive and effective in implementing change than mere resistance? The interesting thing about the Elastic Dwelling is precisely that it withstands some of the typical criticisms levelled at architects by the more conservative building industry. For example, the Elastic Dwelling does not rely on any expensive yet-to-emerge technologies: the high-density mobile storage system has been around for decades. Which raises an obvious question: how is it that no architect has thought of this until now?



The clues have been there all along. What is the most oft-repeated client criticism of architect-designed housing? “There isn’t enough storage space for all my stuff!” (“Hey, this is my way of forcing you to become less materialistic!”) It was a comedian and not an architect who gave us what is arguably the most accurate definition of a house: George Carlin and his famous line “a house is where you keep your stuff while you run around getting more stuff.” In a consumer society, a house becomes a storage depot of sorts, and storage technology is exactly what makes the Elastic Dwelling possible.



But storage technology is applied in the Elastic Dwelling in order to elastically accommodate the activities of everyday life in less space; not to store goods per se. The Elastic Dwelling's ad-hoc use of a pre-manufactured commercial product recalls Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver’s 1972 book Adhocism: The Case for Improvisation, which celebrates a DIY hippy-culture of making-do-and-getting-by with the goods of an overabundant consumer society. Although some of the mobile cabinets are indeed used for storage, their larger purpose in the Elastic Dwelling is to act as mobile partitions. In fact, if there is one thing the Elastic Dwelling possibly lacks it is, ironically, storage space.



An important limitation of the Elastic Dwelling idea is that it is really only suitable for singles or couples at most; certainly not large families (“Mommy: Hans is shrinking my bedroom again!”). The Elastic Dwelling demands consensus when there are multiple dwellers in its interior, something that is increasingly difficult to achieve in these post-modern times. Flexibility, which has been the dream of countless architectural utopias, is a double-edged sword, since it is also potentially a cause of disagreement and difference. Perhaps the Elastic Dwelling is ideally a bachelor machine. But then again, households have become much smaller and taken on diverse forms in the last three to four decades, with “singles” forming one of the fastest-growing market segments. Small households must still all-too-often settle in relatively larger dwellings if they want all the comforts of a modern home. The Elastic Dwelling makes it possible for smaller households, especially singles, to occupy significantly less space without sacrificing comfort. In the end, the Elastic Dwelling optimizes quantity for the sake of quality.



When I studied architecture in Canada, one of the early design projects that we were assigned involved randomly picking three pre-manufactured construction-industry products out of Sweet’s Construction Catalogue and combining them in such a way that put them to new, never before imagined uses. The project was all about eschewing arts-and-crafts values in favor of bricolage and “adhocism”. I vaguely remember picking automatic garage doors, Pirelli rubber flooring and barbed wire, and transforming those into some sort of architectural sado-masochistic contraption (what else?). After seeing Angelo’s invention, I now really wish I had picked high-density mobile storage systems as one my three products, and that my attitude had not been so cocky back then. Perhaps then I might have thought of the Elastic Dwelling first.

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Us and Theme

If Venice, the Wild West, or Asia can be themes for parks, casinos, or hotels, then why not contemporary architecture? "Theming" has, after all, been a part of architecture for quite some time, as the interesting collection of essays Variations on a Theme Park, edited by Michael Sorkin (New York: The Noon Day Press, 1992), makes evident. Even Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli can be seen as a theme park of sorts, so architecture is on some level intrinsically bound with the very idea of theming.



What is significant about Hotel Puerta de América in Madrid, in which each of its 14 levels is by a different architect or designer, is that it is a theme hotel whose theme is precisely contemporary architecture and design. Of course, merely having interiors on different floors designed by different architects or designers does not necessarily a theme hotel make. What makes Hotel Puerta de América one is the fact that clients choose which designer they would like to sleep with when they make a reservation.



In most hotels, choice is normally limited to amenities, degree of luxury or size. But here, the design--specifically the designer--becomes the object of choice.



There are lots of theme hotels designed by well-known architects and designers. But the themes of these hotels are "Santa Fe" or "Swan Lake": the architecture may be themed, but the theme in such cases is not architecture itself.



Curiously, the Hotel Puerta de América does not bill itself as a theme hotel. The word "theme" is absolutely nowehere to be found in the hotel's promotional literature or on its website. The prices are also quite a bit higher than a "normal" theme hotel. Perhaps this explains why.



Oh, in case anyone is wondering, the rooms with the highest occupancy rate are Zaha Hadid's.

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Disseny Hype

"Disseny Hub" is a new cultural institution in Barcelona dedicated to design; or, to put it more correctly, to promoting this city as a global design centre. Located in a palace on Carrer Montcada that was previously the home of the Textile Museum, directly across from the busy Picasso Museum, DHUB's inaugural exhibition is none other than "Tourism: Spaces of Fiction".



The name of this institution is curious: the word "disseny" is Catalan (meaning "design") while "hub" is an English word that is not normally used in Catalan. Penny Sparke wrote in 1986: "The English word 'design' is currently used widely in countries such as Japan, Italy, France, the Scandinavian countries and the USA, a fact which indicates that its meaning in contemporary society has moved away from its definition in previous centuries when it was interchangeable with the Italian il disegno and the French le dessin. The fact that these countries have abandoned these native terms in favour of 'design' suggests that more than just a mere shift in meaning has taken place and that what has occurred is, in fact, the emergence of an entirely new concept." This concept, according to Sparke, is one in which design is "an extension of marketing and advertising" in addition to being "a silent quality of all mass-produced goods." Sparke wrote this in 1986. Maybe another concept is emerging now, where the international use of the word "design" is abandoned in favour of "disseny"?



If "design" contains the word "sign"--as in the "sign-value" that design delivers--then the interesting thing about the word "disseny" is that it contains the word "seny", meaning a combination of common sense and frugality; attributes by which Catalans have traditionally differentiated themselves from Spaniards. But then, judging by DHUB's inaugural exhibition, "seny" is the last thing that this place seems to be about. "Tourism: Spaces of Fiction" is so unquestioning, so lacking in any problematization whatsoever of this industry, that it comes across as one long infomercial. The inclusion of a colossal model of Bawadi, Dubailand's development proposal for what appears to be yet another simulation of Las Vegas (i.e. a simulation of a simulation), is a case in point. Neither its architecture (cloned buildings from elsewhere) nor its urbanism (one long, wide commercial strip) are anything even remotely new. So what is it doing here? The only thing missing next to the model was a sales representative pressuring me to buy a timeshare.



The same goes for much of the rest of the exhibition, which sticks to a fairly kneejerk notion of tourism. There is little mention of the current interest in eco-tourism, for example, or how the heritage industry--not to mention the Gaudí industry--has grown as a direct consequence of tourism. The role of tourism in the transformation of Barcelona is conspicuously absent as a topic in this exhibition, unless the Macià plan, displayed as a panorama, counts in this regard.



The most interesting material in this exhibition is a series of architectural models investigating new forms of tourism and a montage of classic film clips that is quite entertaining. But overall, it focusses rather heavily and uncritically on what we have come to expect from the tourism industry: ever more spectacular and hyperreal large-scale over-development.

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