Three Lenses

La Tour Eiffel

It seems to me that there are three distinct lenses to architecture these days.  Almost every architectural viewpoint I encounter, once broken down, seems to fit into these three perspectives.  Note that I do not assume these three lenses are in any way a complete understanding of architecture, but for the time being I find them an interesting frame work with which to understand, and analyze architecture.

The first and most familiar lens is Form.  This aspect of architecture is the most detached from reality and the most prevalent among designers.  Form is the purest, most ideal design of the building.  Often it is a design without context.  It is what the designer pictures when she/he imagines walking through the spaces.  It can be seen in a model on the computer or in a sketch on a page, but the Form possesses no footing in reality.  It is the idea the designer tries to communicate through models and sketches. It is what the architect strives to replicate when construction of the building begins.  No building can ever be truly what the designer envisioned, only a shadow of the ideal Form.

After construction however, the Form of the building becomes less prevalent.  The ideal is no longer an ideal, but an actuality.  The fantasy gives over to a reality.  Once it is a reality, very rarely can one separate Form from its context or surroundings. 

A good example which illustrates Form is the Eiffel Tower.  It is an iconic shape that is replicated again and again and is instantly recognizable.  Every mini statue, souvenir, or novelty which can be identified as an Eiffel tower is chasing the iconic Form from Paris, France.  Although every replica has its own unique context, tangibility, and existence, they were designed as less perfect forms of the original.

Champ de Mars

The second and most long-term lens is called Flow.  This is the influence between the building and its environment over some period of time.   This includes the flow of people through the building, the changes created by the building on the surrounding area, and how the building is changed by the surrounding area.  It is important to consider Flow in the design of building as well as the Form.  When I think of Flow, I imagine a current or stream.  A stone in the river changes the flow of the water, but in turn the water weathers the stone and changes its shape.   Very often, the dynamics imposed by a building and the dynamics acting upon a building move towards agreement, so that over time the building and its context are seamlessly intermingled.  

Paris never looked the same after Gustave Eiffel directed the construction of his design for the 1889 World’s Fair.  The impact the Eiffel Tower had on the city of Paris was profound, and one can understand how the Flow and dynamics of the city were changed.  This bold construction was originally hated by the local Parisians, and yet today it would be inconceivable to think that it would be removed.  The tower and city have changed together over the past century, and now Paris would not be Paris without it.

The third lens is called Moment.  Moment is the individual experiences of each person at each time.  No point in time is the same and no other point in space is the same.  This means that every viewpoint is a unique experience which cannot be exactly reproduced.   I believe that as Architects we must understand that Architecture is not a single experience which is the same every time.  It is not like a movie which has an unchanging sequence of events.  Nothing in life, including movies, is without context or consequence.   Each Moment is built upon the one before.  In this lens, architecture is a place for these moments to take place.  If the moment is a movie at home, or a good night’s sleep in a hotel, or an unforgettable kiss at the top of the Eiffel tower, these moments are framed by the architecture.

La Tour de Gustave Eiffel

I’ve found that these three lenses are really ways of abstracting buildings into three temporal frameworks.   Moment is the analysis of a single point in time, Flow is mapping change over a length of time, and Form is a perspective of architecture devoid of time.  I still maintain that the best way to design is to experiment and explore, from as many perspectives and in as many ways and as possible.  However, these three lenses provide insights to frame architectural problems and facilitate analysis in new ways.