A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Seeing a TV commercial for Verzenio  the other day, I was reminded of that day I made the cover of my local newspaper after getting an architectural commission. Oh, wait. That never happened. Because architects DON'T MAKE IT ON THE FRONT PAGE OF NEWSPAPERS! Much less above the fold – and with a photo, a smiling photo. Sure, there are exceptions: your name is Frank Gehry; the newspaper is The Architect's Newspaper ; or the design contract being awarded is the most coveted one in the entire world, and you're a young architect from a small "central community" nobody's ever heard of. In that case, this example of architectural advertising is, unlike others, spot-on.

Before heading to work this morning I caught a glimpse of a commercial on TV for LG Signature. What stood out was the way the LG products – refrigerator, television, washing machine, air purifier – were positioned in front of some fairly notable, if not all widely known, works of architecture. There's Johan Otto Von Spreckelsen's La Grande Arche in Paris: Fumihiko Maki's Four World Trade Center in New York: James Stirling's State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart: And Norman Foster's 30 St. Mary Axe in London: The commercial ends with the lines, "All great things are alike. They are built on essence." More than other spot covered in my architectural advertising posts, this commercial explicitly equates the products being sold with the architecture on display; the latter are not merely backdrops. Unfortunately, the comparisons are strictly formal, geometric; such as with the round openings of Stirling's building and the...

When I saw this spot for Vistaprint business cards recently, immediately I was surprised that the company selected an architect as a professional to sell the service. After all, what architect – after a moment of inspiration involving water spilled from a plastic cup, no less – would rightfully select a readymade style and customize it rather than designing it herself? I've worked for a few architects in my day and all of them designed their own business cards. It's what architects do . Vistaprint says, "You have a vision. We have your card." Sorry, Vistaprint, but the architect portrayed in your ad has no vision – the fake firm's logo even has a compass in it!

Recently I saw a car commercial that struck me for the way it ended in the plaza of Louis I. Kahn's Salk Institute: Here is a GIF of the car screeching to a halt on the travertine plaza: If you're like me, you're wondering, "Where is the fountain?" Compare the above with a photo of the plaza: On watching the commercial the first time, I figured the car was superimposed onto a photo of the Salk's famous plaza, but the omission of the fountain doesn't make sense in this regard. The makers of the commercial must have covered the fountain – as well as the pieces of travertine flanking it, as they appear different than the rest of the plaza – with something else that would not be damaged by the car coming to a stop. Whatever the case, this commercial is just another example of how architecture is used to sell cars; see also my earlier posts on the subject. Actually, this Mercedez-Benz spot is not the first time the Salk has been used as a set for a...

It was only a matter of time before some company incorporated images of Santiago Calatrava's World Trade Center Transit Hub into its marketing efforts. Per a stroll by Rockefeller Center yesterday evening, the winner is Cole Haan and it's "The Art of Elegant Innovation" windows. The shop windows layer three elements: photos of the inside and outside of the Hub; photos of dancers striking graceful poses (in Cole Haan shoes, of course); and white fins that echo Calatrava's design and frame the first two elements. At first I though the addition of the slats was off the mark – a shallow rendition of the architecture. But visually the combination of the three elements works really well, especially the way the fins create an aperture-like opening that leads the eye. And certainly the windows are much better than those  Banana Republic "Architects at Work" ads  at Rockefeller Center last decade.

Most of the posts in my ongoing "architecture advertising" series focus on architects and/or buildings used in print ads, commercials, and other forms of advertising. As most people probably know, often advertising takes less obtrusive means, such as being embedded into editorial content. The most obvious means of this is the fashion spread, which is a magazine's way of saying "this is the way men or women should dress," but which is really advertising for the clothes being worn. In the latest Esquire , the "Epic" September Style Issue (subtitled "How to Dress Now") an architect makes an appearance on page 174 (of 190): I'll admit it's pretty cool to find Joshua Prince-Ramus in the issue. He might not be the most obvious choice (BIG's Bjarke Ingels would make sense, though for all I know he's already done it), but his shaved head and cool determination work well. Heck, I'd buy those clothes. Wait – that outfit costs ...

It was hard not to laugh at the " Depends Legends " commercial on last night's Saturday Night Live, a highlight of an otherwise mediocre episode. In trying to overcome the stigma in talking about grown-up diapers, the fake commercial recalls the " Oops! I Crapped my Pants " ad from a 1998 SNL episode. But why feature "Depends Legends" here, on an architecture blog? Because in the middle of the 90-second piece – whose description is "There's no shame in wearing diapers when you're wearing Depend Legends, the diaper with classic movie stars' faces on it" – is the "Masterpieces of Art and Architecture" line featuring Fallingwater . Although incorrectly labeled as "Falling Water" with two words instead of one, it's obvious to see why the building worked its way between Clark Gable, the women of Law & Order, and other screen stars. [Screenshot from "Depends Legends" commercial | source ] Watc...

The first time I saw this futuristic house in a commercial for New Jersey lottery's "Cash 4 Life," I thought it looked familiar: Turns out it's the highly photogenic Museum of the Moving Image expansion in Astoria, Queens, designed by Thomas Leeser : [Photo: Elizabeth Felicella | Image source ] Specifically it's the cafe at the back of the lobby, which doubles as an event space: [Photo:Wendy Moger-Bross/Museum of the Moving Image | Image source ] And in the land of commercials it doubles as a house in the not-too-distant future:

Watching this commercial for prescription drug Xarelto earlier today I couldn't help notice that... A visit to a Mario Botta building ( Bechtler Museum of Modern Art in Charlotte, North Carolina) + Seeing a model of the Roman Coliseum in one of its galleries + Popping some Xarelto = A trip to see the Coliseum in person (well, through a car window, at least). Thank you, Xarelto! (and Mr. Botta and Mr. Bechtler)

Here is a newspaper ad—no comment necessary— spotted at Dezeen that is worth filing in my " architectural advertising " posts.

While waiting for my bagel this morning, the TV behind the cash register had a commercial for Superfocus , in which Joel Grey, Penn Jillette, and others were hawking glasses that resemble what architects were wearing half a century ago. Lo and behold, the Icon Collection Frames go by the names Bauhuas and Corbu. Some screenshots and descriptions from their website. Named Bauhaus in appreciation of the iconic movement created by design master Walter Gropius in Weimar in the 1920s. The Bauhaus has been a profound worldwide influence in art, architecture, graphic design, and last but not least, product design. We believe that Dr. Gropius would have approved of the sleek, utilitarian look of these Superfocus glasses. We proudly call this style Corbu. Named after Le Corbusier, one of the great pioneers of modern architecture, whose signature look was his famous, round, dark-rimmed glasses, with the temples centered on the circular rims. Look familiar? It looks the only difference...

I must admit I was baffled upon seeing this ad for Zurich Service Corporation on the back page of The Atlantic . After all, Madison Square Garden is the increasingly unloved replacement for the much loved (often nostalgically) Penn Station, which was demolished in the mid-1960s to make way for the circular sports arena. Recently even, New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman has called for moving the Garden , saying that the "present arena is a flimsy, aging eyesore." For his predecessor, Nicolai Ouroussoff, it was tops on a 2008 list of candidates for demolition in which he called the Garden "cramped and decrepit." Most people hate the Garden for what it did to the remains of Penn Station underneath it -- "one of the city’s most dehumanizing spaces: a warren of cramped corridors and waiting areas buried under the monstrous drum of the Garden", again Ouroussoff. The Garden may be an eyesore, but remove if from atop one of the busiest transit hubs ...

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed I have a thing for the intersection of architecture and advertising , be it iconic buildings used as a backdrop for a product, clothiers using the profession for style "cred," or an architect hawking merchandise . The last two converge in a J.Crew ad I noticed today on the inside cover of February's Fast Company : Pushing the Ludlow Suit , the ad features six gents sporting six variations on the "bespoke-inspired" suit. Two are restauranteurs, one is a journalist/activist, one is a business analyst, one is a creative director, and one is an architect, Charles Renfro of Diller Scofidio + Renfro . Given the firm where he is partner, his name is fairly well known with architects, but not his mug. This ad will certainly change that, while also making people wonder what his sock drawer looks like. Each of this six stylish professionals has their own idiosyncratic way of personalizing the J.Crew suit. Renfro has...

Last year I posted about some advertising in Architectural Digest that used architects and architecture to sell cars. Well the other day I was flipping through a travel magazine and was surprised to see an ad for Buick Lacrosse using the America's Cup Building in Valencia, Spain by David Chipperfield Architects . In my previous post I focused on how Lexus used the architect's name (Richard Meier) more than his architecture for their purposes; in effect the architect was promoting the car. But for Buick it is the image of the building that matters; the architect in name or personality is nowhere to be found outside the architecture. Remembering other advertisements with cars using architecture as a backdrop ( I blogged five years ago about VW and OMA's Seattle Public Library), I think the America's Cup Building works similarly here: it does a better job of distinguishing a car from its peers than the car does itself. Given that cars increasingly look like each ot...

Flipping through October's Architectural Digest , " The Architecture Issue ," a couple advertisements stood out, each using architecture and architects to sell cars. The first is a two-page spread for Lexus, its HS Hybrid sitting in front of a Richard Meier sketch of his "much-anticipated Italcementi Innovation and Technology Central Laboratory " in northern Italy. The fairly ho-hum sketch is accompanied by text that boasts the lab "will be built of TX Active concrete that will 'eat' smog and significantly reduce pollution caused by car emissions and industrial activities." Not surprisingly the pollution-mitigating cement was developed by Italcementi and tried out on Meier's Jubilee Church in Rome. The ad's text further states that the other features of Meier's building (insulated low-e glass, geothermal, solar energy systems) will supposedly "provide close to total energy self-sufficiency." The second ad is one o...

Flipping through a lifestyle magazine in a waiting room last week, I couldn't help but stop my speedy flip through the rag on an ad for Blackberry featuring Asymptote 's Lise Anne Couture. While easily more photogenic than co-principal Hani Rashid , nevertheless I was quite shocked to see an architect hawking expensive mobile electronics. I was also surprised that a more well-known architect didn't get the job. But when one pictures the most famous woman architect, Zaha Hadid , it's easy to see the shallow, surface-oriented minds of the advertisers easily making that decision, particularly with the fact that advertising isn't limited to the page these days, but also includes the requisite sound + video .

In my ongoing series-that's-not-a-series of posts on the Blog-o-sphere, I decided to look at advertising after seeing a glut of it on a blog that shall remain nameless. The below diagram is my overlay of four types of content on a single post from that blog (from dark to light): blog post, blog-related information (blog title, feeds, internal links), external links, and advertising (google ads, books, etc.). Without measuring the exact areas, and ignoring the white space, I'd guess the post itself is 10% of the content, blog-related is 20%, external links another 20%, and advertising the remaining 40%. What makes the majority of a page advertising is not the fact that blogs are money-making undertakings -- as that fact is far from true, unless you're Treehugger -- but that advertising now is as easy as blogging itself. Google makes it especially easy to incorporate their AdSense into a page, be it in the sidebar, header, footer, or within a post itself. Amazon makes t...

A few weeks ago I heard about Banana Republic 's new advertising campaign that features "architects at work." I have yet to come across their print ads, but the other day I saw these displays at their Rockefeller Center store. Gawker interviewed an architect about the portrayal of architects in these ads. "Frankie" said, "in my experience no architects dress like that - the Liebeskind [sic] eyeglasses and black turtleneck/blazer, German expressionist style is still the bottom line at most nyc offices. Most people are executing variations on this basic Sprockets-y theme." To me, it doesn't really seem to matter which profession Banana Republic uses as a backdrop (or in the case of the windows "frontdrop") for their M.O.R. clothes, as long as it appeals or relates to their target demographic. It is interesting, though, how the symbols of architecture -- some mythic, some anachronistic -- are used to connote who is wearing them; tak...

Looks like Ralph Johnson of Perkins + Will is looking to join the ranks of celebrity architects, alongside Daniel Libeskind and Richard Meier with Signature Place in St. Petersburg, Florida. Or is he already there? Like David Childs , Johnson's role as a lead designer at a large corporate firm actually precludes him from being seen like Frank Gehry, Santiago Calatrava, and other "singular voices" of celebrity in contemporary architecture. Though unlike David Childs, Johnson is a very capable designer who produces excellent buildings of different types and scales. Thanks to Jeff S. for the head's up.

The always wonderful Things Magazine posted today about billboard advertising, spurred by the clever one below for a suntan lotion. While I'm often dismayed by the fact so much creative effort is expended on something so fleeting as the always-reinventing-itself-to-give-the-consumer-something-new world of advertising, this billboard is reminiscent of a mural along the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago titled Shadow Mural , commissioned by The Catholic Charities of Chicago. The mural is made from hundreds of uniquely-shaped metal strips cantilevered from structural panels to depict Jesus washing the feet of the disciples flanked by the heads of St. Vincent DePaul and Frederick Ozanam, the founder of the St. Vincent DePaul Society. Things goes on to mention Delete! , "which stripped out all extraneous white noise from advertising in a single street in Vienna." A few years before Delete!, Pasi Kolhonen investigated the inverse , removing the context and leaving the adve...