Imagination in Architecture

Routine is the enemy of creativity. Any ordinary production in which artistic, cultural or technical innovation has not taken place — however usable, pleasant or agreeable it may be — is not considered a work of architecture. Imagination is the product of the mind's work on non-visual information acquired from the external world. In our discussion, the function of imagination is to expand the aesthetic dimensions, add new meanings to architecture and enrich the formal culture of architecture. Expanding the range of form and meaning in architecture means, first and foremost, discovering the latent potential of familiar objects and phenomena to become new design concepts. In this respect, architecture is similar to other arts. A painter tries to depict a bouquet of flowers, a landscape or a face in an unparalleled manner, and if necessary, distances themselves from nature and the subject of the painting to the point of complete abstraction. Some painters, like Matisse, replaced natural colours with brilliant and pure unnatural colours (Figure 7). Lichtenstein depicted images from magazine cartoons far larger than their natural size (Figure 6). Cézanne, in his artistic investigation, altered the formal structure of natural landscapes in pursuit of discovering the essence of their form (Figure 10). And Salvador Dalí, in many of his paintings, placed familiar forms in strange and entirely imaginative relationships (Figure 9).

As seen in the examples above, disrupting the habits of the eye and imagining new conditions is one of the techniques of imagination, and it is of course only through experience and practice that the results turn out well. When the design we are working on is not going directly to the construction site to be built, imagination can be free. When strengthening the power of imagination through various exercises, one should by no means think about the usefulness or beauty of ideas. These belong to later stages, and one can never solve problems belonging to different levels of engagement simultaneously.

Change means altering one of the characteristics of a form or object that already exists. Tension between the familiar and the unfamiliar is what creates attraction. Today, there are architectures whose forms are entirely non-classical and, so to speak, unfamiliar. In these works, a tension arises from the modification of a pre-existing and familiar form.

The defamiliarisation of elements in the built environment is related to a characteristic of visual perception. This characteristic can be called visual economy. Our eyes apparently see a wide range, but they see only a very small area in sharp detail. The eye, guided by the human brain, adopts a specific strategy to register an image of the environment in the minimum amount of time. When we look at a chessboard, the eye does not examine every square one by one; rather, it sees the pattern or overall design and then one of the repeating elements, and this is sufficient for registering the form of the chessboard. Symmetrical buildings, because they are easier to comprehend, are more visually economical. We recognise the general appearance of most major streets of a city, yet we rarely remember their individual buildings. Those buildings that attract our attention and are registered in our memory are ones that, for certain reasons, stand out from other buildings. If a building has a conventional form consistent with expectations, it goes unnoticed. In historic fabrics and medieval cities, residential buildings were often highly harmonious with their surroundings, and they did not leave a symbolic and memorable impression on the mind. In such spaces, architecture was not presented as an individual work, and the architecture of the city as a whole was the focus of attention. In historic fabrics, symbolic value belonged to the view of a row of houses (a streetscape) or the panorama of a city. In old cities, although houses may not appear very different from one another, the views of neighbourhoods — in which special elements such as religious and governmental buildings stand out — are entirely exceptional.

In any case, the possibilities for change are as numerous as the characteristics of a given object.

3.1.1 — Change of Material

In our visual memories, forms are generally associated with specific materials. The form of ocean waves is associated with water, and the form of mountains with earth, stone and so forth. A familiar wave form built with materials such as brick is completely unexpected and activates the mind.

Rebuilding a familiar form with different materials. Mario Botta's project commemorating the four-hundredth anniversary of Borromini's birth (1998–1999) in the city of Lugano, Switzerland, is half of the Church of San Carlo (San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane) constructed in wood. This project, designed using precise computer surveys, quite openly shows most of the details of the original building exactly as they are. Naturally, building this half-model with traditional materials would be completely unacceptable and mundane. The use of wood has made the Borromini memorial not an unsuccessful copy, but a distinguished work (Figure 11).

Discovering the expressive capabilities of new materials. Architects, like engineers and scientists, are constantly seeking new materials for their buildings. New materials provide new possibilities for artistic expression. In the last three decades of the century, synthetic materials such as various polycarbonates for producing transparent panels, new metals (such as titanium), and old metals used in new ways have expanded the expressive vocabulary. Renzo Piano clad the exterior of a building in artificially oxidised (green) copper sheets (Figure 12). Titanium, whose light reflection is very distinctive, is also widely used today. A prominent example of the use of titanium in cladding is Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

Discovering the real capabilities of known materials. In a naively simple way, humans try to generalise what they know to new cases that they have not yet encountered. What we call the sweet fantasy of children in conversation is in many cases the result of such behaviour: a child who has two balls, one larger and one smaller, says the larger ball is the mother of the smaller one. When the technique of photography was invented about half a century earlier, especially in France, photographers tried various tricks — including taking the subject out of focus — to make the camera's image resemble painted portraits. The art of photography grew when non-artist photographers, without any dependence on the methods of painting, tried in a completely natural and instinctive way to use the capabilities of this new technique for recording events. Concrete was a material known since ancient times, from the Roman era, but only during the interwar period and especially after World War II — with important projects such as the TWA Terminal (1956–1962) in New York by Eero Saarinen — did it find its true expression. In the latter project, concrete was used not as stone, but as a simple, flexible and malleable substance that can create complex three-dimensional organic forms whose shape conforms to the complex curves of force transmission in the structure (Figure 13). Until recently, plastic was considered a worthless material, and what was made of plastic was finished in a way to look like wood or metal. Only in contemporary design is plastic used in a way that clearly showcases its expressive characteristics, and this rule is observed even in new plastic jewellery.

Discovering new possibilities for using known materials. Herzog & de Meuron, in a factory project for processing agricultural products in California, used river stones of various sizes — a well-known and very ancient material — to create an entirely new wall. This wall, formed by stacking stones without mortar according to specific size gradations, unlike conventional stone walls, allows light to pass through. The lighting effect inside the building is very striking (Figure 16).

3.1.2 — Change of Function

Change of function is very common in everyday life. In home furniture and decoration, it often happens that we change the function of things: the base of an old sewing machine used as a table, an old pot used as a flower vase, and a pitcher used to make a lamp. In this way, one can reassign value to obsolete forms and identify new capabilities of objects and architectural elements. In the ancient Erechtheion on the Acropolis of Greece, we see six stone figures that have replaced columns (Figure 15).

3.1.3 — Change of Dimensions

Change of dimensions means increasing or decreasing the size, length, width or height of a known typology or element to achieve different visual effects. A door that is made much larger or taller than the usual size, or windows that — like Le Corbusier's Ronchamp chapel — become much smaller than expected, are examples of this. Since the normal and conventional dimensions of buildings have been derived from centuries of experience, disrupting these dimensions can create unpleasant effects — an overly narrow corridor or an overly large room leave disagreeable impressions.

Change of form occurs when the usual shape of an element or a known typology is altered. For example, one can point to the reconstruction of the roof of an old building in Vienna by Coop Himmelblau. This strange roof, with its highly complex geometry, draws attention to itself (Figure 14).

I had expected to see an environment with white walls and dirty grey mosaics, with views of white rooms separated by nylon curtains, each containing a white bed with an IV drip hanging beside it. To my surprise, I encountered a brick building whose interior was also brick, with a very beautiful warm-coloured floor covering. There were no white rooms, and the examination room was difficult to find. Instead, there were restaurants, hotel-like rooms for patients and companions, a television room, a library, a chess room, a swimming pool and other healthy recreations. On both sides of the corridors were wide windows offering beautiful views of the surrounding plains. Here, contrary to my expectations, the hospital setting had given way to something resembling a hotel, and the atmosphere was very warm and pleasant.

Old museums are palaces containing separate, decorated halls and rooms where paintings and sculptures are arranged. The setting of modern museums is technological and completely neutral. With the Jewish Museum in Berlin by Libeskind and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao by Frank Gehry, the museum setting once again lost its neutral quality, and the museum as a positive and dramatic work of art was reaffirmed.

Familiar typologies have a specific order. Some principles related to the order of buildings are so universal that they transcend the question of style and take on a cultural dimension. These principles change over long periods of time. At any historical juncture, the general public holds certain assumptions about architecture, and changing those assumptions requires imagination — this is one of the techniques for achieving a creative work. Disrupting the order leads to a contribution to the culture of architecture. For example, before the modern era, most buildings at the point of contact with the ground (the ground floor) appeared heavier in terms of materials, overall appearance and proportions, and as one moved upward, the architectural elements became more delicate and lighter. In this regard, one can reference the principles of Leon Battista Alberti, who believed that on the ground floor, smaller windows, large rough stones, and heavy Doric columns — which are the most massive and rugged — should be used. He believed that on upper floors, more delicate materials and, in order, Ionic and Corinthian columns should be employed. Le Corbusier, in the Villa Savoye, by placing the main volume of the building on the upper level and dedicating the ground floor to pilotis, reversed this ancient order. Oswald Mathias Ungers, in the Frankfurt commercial tower, designed the central core of the building in glass and the outer shell in stone. The exterior facade of this building contradicts the conventional order of towers, since in commercial towers, the central core is typically heavy and the outer shell is glass (Figure 17).

Closing Reflection

Creativity and imagination have methods and techniques that cannot be regarded merely as methods and tricks for producing a work. An architect cannot decide to be creative at 9 a.m. when arriving at the office and set aside creativity at 4 p.m. when leaving work (and of course, we have rarely seen an architect who works only during office hours). The power of imagination, being innovative, being creative, using intuitive perception, and other points discussed in articles on design methodology in recent issues of Memar magazine must become part of the designer's individual character and behaviour. The designer must use every moment and opportunity to practice and strengthen these capabilities.

Personally, I believe that changing order — the ultimate form of which is reverse thinking — can serve as a very useful exercise for developing the capacity for creative thinking, without necessarily being connected to any practical benefit. It is possible that while watching an apple fall from a tree, someone might think, “Well, why didn't the apple go toward the sky?” and from such an elementary observation come to think and discover the law of gravity — which is of course a significant matter. Scientists have long been attentive to the specific form of the catenary curve — today we know that the curve of a hanging chain with both ends attached is a form that naturally transfers the forces of the chain's weight along the direction of the arc to the supports at both ends, a property used today in suspension bridges. Renaissance engineers realised that by inverting the curve of a hanging chain, they could obtain the form of a perfect arch that transfers forces to the supports in the most optimal way.

For a long time, architects built structures that appeared static not only technically but also visually. Deconstructivist architects in the 1980s and 1990s created works that appeared not to be static and seemed to stand in place as if by miracle. When a condition in society gains strength and becomes a given assumption, it is necessary for creative individuals to consider what the reverse of established conditions might look like. Of course, in the realm of painting, such imaginative exercises found a wider field. Cubists like Picasso disassembled the human face and body and reassembled them according to a new order. Le Corbusier, who was influenced by Picasso, could not do the same with architecture, and consequently his paintings were far more dramatic and cohesive aesthetically than his architecture. It took more than half a century for Frank Gehry to be able, using the latest technologies, to propagate that same free composition of decomposed, fragmented and space-suspended volumes in the world of architecture. In any case, even in science, from the moment a rule is discovered, minds set to work to prove its opposite, and it is in this way that science advances.