Communicatory Aesthetics

Communicatory Aesthetics (CA) Architecture is considered with aesthetic intent such that the aesthetic qualities are intended to express a specific meaning that is authored by the architect, whether it be symbolic, metaphorical, narrative, nostalgic, a proof of talent, or meant to convey relevance by being for or against a current architectural “style.”

The Communicatory Aesthetics position is the first self-consciously and honestly willful aesthetic category in our developing lexicon of aesthetic modes of architectural engagement. CA is likely the aesthetic category most familiar to nonarchitects, where the building is intended to convey, through aesthetic properties, a particular meaning as intended by the architect. Through the design of form, color, material, and texture, it is then assumed that this intended meaning may be extracted by the viewing public. The aesthetic ambitions of the project are therefore focused on the act of communication. The types of meaning intended to be conveyed are too numerous to be addressed in full, but a brief accounting will be useful in illustrating the concept.

Imagine an architect designing a building from scratch, with total control over the aesthetic appearance of the final structure. If the architect chooses to avoid both the previously addressed AA and SU positions, they are then choosing not only to author the aesthetic appearance of the building but also take credit for this authorship. This inherently engages the architect’s ego, as the aesthetic qualities of the building will be judged against the stated intent of the architect. This, in turn, places the architect in the vulnerable position of needing to express something that is worth expressing, but also of expressing something valued by those who will evaluate the project, be they users, observers, or critics. It is unlikely, then, that an architect would ever choose to design the aesthetic qualities of the building to convey ethically challenging or unjust ideas deplored by users, observers, or critics. To my knowledge there have been no contemporary buildings (thankfully) celebrated for conveying abstract messages such as racism, oppression, or suffering. Similarly, there have been no buildings celebrated for looking like more culturally charged objects—no toilet buildings, Coronavirus molecule buildings, AK-47 buildings, or rotten fruit buildings. Therefore, when architects express messages through the aesthetic qualities of a building, they tend to be simple, for ease of understanding, and always positive messages. For instance, if an architect chooses to express their commitment to ecological sustainability, they make evident their use of recycled materials or sustainable technologies such as solar panels or bamboo. If an architect chooses to express their belief that the architecture and urbanism of past eras were better than those of the current era, they will design in a historical style. If an architect wishes to express their own individual talent and creativity, they will design the building to look unique when compared to other buildings of similar use by other architects. If the architect seeks to convey an even more specific meaning, the building will be designed as an easily interpreted symbol to represent that meaning.

Buildings that are intended to convey symbolic meanings through aesthetic composition are common today, as there is an ease in designing a symbol that automatically associates the building with a positive message. It is more difficult to criticize a building designed as peace sign and dedicated to world peace than it is to criticize a gun-shaped skyscraper to house Academi, formerly known as Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, which provides mercenary services to the U.S. government. An example of such saccharine symbolic appropriation can be found in the work of another Pritzker prize–winning architect, Daniel Libeskind, who when designing the jagged and angular Denver Art Museum said he was inspired by the “rocky and jagged cliffs of the Rockies.” Therefore, when the viewer sees the building, they are intended to extract “rocky and jagged cliffs of the Rockies” from the aesthetic properties of the building—its appearance. In this case the aesthetic properties of the building were composed aesthetically to mimic local geological formations, and therefore having an association with local geology is what is being communicated. If this message is properly extracted, what is there to criticize about geology? Who in Denver, Colorado, could possibly find fault with the desire to be associated with grand and natural mountains? The problem, however, is that the aesthetic qualities of the building are not being judged, only its appearance when compared to a “jagged cliff of the Rockies.” Therefore, an architect who designs the aesthetic properties of a building to support a symbolic reading is able to transfer any critique of the building’s aesthetic appearance to whether or not it conjures its symbolic intent.

A more saccharine1 example of a CA position comes from architectural designer and engineer Santiago Calatrava, who in his design of the US$4 billion World Trade Center Transportation Hub in lower Manhattan composed the building to look like a dove being released from the hands of a child. The reason given was that children represent innocence, and doves represent peace—and that the violence of the World Trade Center destruction that occurred on 9/11 required the healing presence of innocence and peace on the site. Therefore, the appearance of “doveness” and the symbolic relationship between doves and peace was intended to be communicated by the aesthetic properties of the building, and so the building was given giant “wings” that cantilever over the adjacent streets.

There are countless other examples of the composition of aesthetic properties being used similarly to convey symbolism within architecture, but this strategy comes with its own drawbacks. Two unavoidable problems become apparent when designing with a CA position that forces aesthetic properties to act in the service of direct communication. The first is that the messages are limited to being infantilizing and simple. One is not sure how the communication of ideas such as “rocky” or “dovey” are intended to improve urban communities or the human condition. At best, architecture is capable of conveying one-liners that seem unconvincingly simplistic in a world where other forms of communication, such as smartphones, can convey encyclopedias of information instantly. To use architecture as a communication device in a society defined by the continual emergence of more effective communication devices seems to me to be a misuse of architecture as well as the aesthetic qualities it is capable of exploring.

A second problem emerges with the CA position when the message is, though simple, still irretrievable by all viewers. In this case only those with the knowledge of the meaning are capable of interpreting it, meaning that only those with a certain education are invited to participate in the architecture. Once again we can return to an excerpt of the quote by the Seattle Public Library project architect Joshua Prince Ramus, who stated that “the general public did not inform themselves of the ideas behind the project.”2 This is a rather elite proposition, to suggest that the aesthetic qualities of an architectural project are reserved only for those with the education required to correctly interpret them or have the time to go retrieve such information. Architecture, after all, rarely comes with an instruction booklet that outlines the communicatory message meant to be received, so that unless a viewer comes prepared with the information required to decipher the meaning, the meaning will sometimes simply not be received. An observer who does not know that bamboo panels are recycled will not glean the architect’s sustainable intent. A tourist visiting downtown Manhattan will likely not see the new transit station and make the connection that it looks like a dove being released from the hands of a child, or that the (unrecognized) dove represents peace and the (unrecognized) child’s hands represent innocence—and that these associations are supposed to be healing devices when they are located on a site destroyed by a terrorist attack decades prior. In fact, the reverse seems to be true, with the transit station most commonly being compared to the skeleton of a dead whale.

A Communicatory Aesthetics position used as a strategy to guide aesthetic production seems to hold little promise for the future of architecture, as architecture is simply not a very good communication device when compared with the contemporary alternatives. More than one billion smartphones are sold each year, each with the capacity to communicate information in vast quantities and near-instant speeds. To request that architecture continue to operate as a communication tool in the same manner it did four millennia ago is an absurd proposition. It also limits architecture to having its aesthetic properties appropriated by simplistic one-liners, thereby inhibiting the freedom of architects to be more aesthetically speculative. With the compounding benefits of the printing press, increased literacy, the telephone, the computer, the internet, the aforementioned smartphones, and social media, humanity is in possession of far more effective means of communication than architecture. To force architecture into this role in the twenty-first century is effectively to turn architecture into an anachronism, limited to conveying simplistic, even infantilizing, messages to an audience that may not be in a position even to receive them. As such, the CA position seems to hold little promise for the aesthetic aspects the newly unfolding architecture of the twenty-first century.