Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was scored for a small orchestra (two of each in the wind family) whereas large orchestras (having four of each) were more to people’s taste in the late 19th century as audiences then, liked the volume turned up. The mid-20thC trend was for smaller orchestras and authentic instruments. The style was called HIP – for historically informed performance. It got mixed reviews.
Harnoncourt, of course, made his name as one of the bright lights of historically-informed performance (HIP). He constantly pushed the limits of expression and took huge chances in his interpretations, which, more often than not, paid off in revelatory readings. This set, however, is not HIP. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe plays, for the most part, modern instruments in the modern way. Harnoncourt does make use of the valveless natural trumpet (for a very interesting reason; read the interview in the liner notes) and what sounds to me like natural-skin timpani. In short, the performance falls into the category of “modern, with slightly reduced forces.”
The same phenomenon exists in architecture. Old favourites are continually re-photographed. I can think of several reasons.
- As with music, to suit the style of the times. Sometimes the difference is only slight but sometimes the change is huge.
- To obtain new, uncopyrighted phtographs. Later building activity has meant the old views can’t be replicated anymore anyway.
- To make them seem new again. Sometimes, the old photographs are just too old. They remind us that the building is slipping into history. I suspect this refreshing of imagery has something to do with rebooting our perceptions and stopping us from losing interest, of keeping the buildings and their myths alive.
New photographs for these three reasons all have the same function in that they are used to create a new media product in the case of books, or used as content on which to hang advertising in the case of magazines and, to an increasing extent, the internet. As a content provider of sorts myself, I’m not going to think about it too much – it’s the world we live in. It’s the world much architecture inhabits.
Tastes in photography swing between the contrivedly dramatic and the apparently uncontrived – and then drift back again. Even buildings with a set money-shot can be photographed in a multitude of ways to freshen them up and make us look at them anew, even if only for a click.
We should be thankful for photo-sharing sites such as flickr. Architects and photographers no longer have absolute control of what images of their buildings are published and circulated. The stage-managed money-shot is soon found out now we have a wider range of visual evidence on which to form our own visual aesthetic opinions. I say visual aesthetic opinions because photographs convey the warmth of timber or the coolness of marble, the aroma of timber, or the sound of a space. (I can’t think of an example where our sense of taste comes into play. This says as much about the essential nature of humans, as it does of buildings.)
Of the four sets of examples below, three are of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and one is of a Le Corbusier building. I’ll order them chronologically.
The Robie House
- This is a photograph from 1931 when the Robie House was used as a women’s residence by the Chicago Theological Society. Note the smallish tree on the right.
- This is a typical textbook photograph. The building at the rear has been badly airbrushed. This was back in the day when airbrushes used air.
- Here’s an amateur photo that tells it like it is. A tour is in progress.
- This is much the same angle, but in Spring.
- A better photo – they’re trying hard to keep that tree out of the picture.
- Here, the trees have done their job. It’s not looking much like a Prairie. With the Robie House, there’s not much one can do. Like Fallingwater, there’s only one angle it was designed to be viewed from. The problem is how to hide the building at the rear.
- It’s just not the same from the other direction.
- Other amateur shots mean we now get to see the rear. I’d like a better look at that building on the other side of the road now.
- I suppose I could go on StreetView … That tree’s getting awfully big now.
The Kaufmann House
- This view can’t be too much after 1937. It’s a view we don’t see much these days. It’s a landscape with a house in it, rather than a house in a landscape like the 1937 photo.
- I like this one. Neither landscape nor house dominate. It’s balanced.
- These views are the majority. The house, framed by trees, is iconified, made central, the main event.
- Another professional shot, taken with an architectural camera that will keep those verticals (more or less) vertical, defying the rules of perspective.
- This last one does the lights-on thing as a way of getting some red into the frame. Cliché waterfall effect adds more white. It’s all easy-on-the-eye, calm rather than dramatic.
The Villa Savoye
- This is an image that’s as close to completion as I’ve ever seen.
- This is the classic shot but the garden’s a bit messy so it may have been taken in that interval around the war.
- This is getting close to the mid-1950s. This is more of a documentation shot, than an architectural one.
- Photographs from around 1957 like this one is, are curios, outside of the main story. (C) Rene Burri (http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchDetail_VPage&IID=2S5RYD5YJBX)
- “Architecture is the masterly, correct, and magnificent play of masses brought together in light.” This caption dates this as a post-restoration shot.
- This is the classic shot taken by a straying member of a tour group.
- The recent trend is for the full-frontal.
- Another flickr shot. It’s difficult to say whether it is naïve or arty.
- And this one too. It doesn’t matter really – we’ve all seen the exterior from all angles, in all weathers (except snow) and lighting conditions. There’s nothing more to see here.
The New York Guggenheim Museum
- This view has always been the ‘natural’ view of the Gugg.
- It was the view for a good few decades.
- A classic postcard shot. This angle was also the default in architectural books for many decades.
- It remained the main view even after Gwathmey-Seigel’s 1992 addition.
- Recently, the preferred view has changed to this one, that de-emphasises the addition and the wide-angle lens that is necessary to contain the original building makes it look rather bulbous.
- Another view of the view now preferred.
- The currently preferred view might be a rediscovery of this original drawing. Notice how the previous photo even replicated the pink.
- Of course, flickr and other photo websites, and even the Google street thing, let us see views we have never seen before.
- Some angles are better than others.
- And even the others with nothing special to recommend them photographically, still add to and alter our virtual experience of this building. This is a healthy thing. It’s prevents the single composed image from being mistaken as how it is.
With music, and especially with pieces of music such as Beethoven’s 9th, some people know an awful lot about them even though it might sound incredibly pretentious. These days, in addition to scholarly essays and knowledgeable opinion, there are also applications such as this one.
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony for iPad presents four of Deutsche Grammophon’s legendary recordings of this iconic work, with the amazing ability to switch instantly between each performance at any point in the piece. As you listen, you can watch the synchronized musical score, be guided by expert commentary, follow Beethoven’s 1825 manuscript or immerse yourself in the hypnotic graphical BeatMap of the orchestra, precisely highlighting every note. The app also includes a treasure-trove of specially filmed video interviews with musicians, writers and great conductors discussing Beethoven and his masterwork.
Will this result in an understanding greater than a lifetime chasing orchestras between concert halls? Or will it perhaps result in a different understanding or perhaps more applicable insights into the process of creating symphonies? I don’t know. I shall find out.
But what would be an equivalent app for architecture?
It’s easy to imagine a virtual model of any building, and for that to be bundled into an app with a set of drawings and a walkthrough with ACTUAL PHOTOGRAPHS and VARIOUS COMMENTARIES by VARIOUS COMMENTATORS. But what new knowledge would this produce, given that we can’t be the original users and have the experience that was theirs alone? (And why should we? They paid for it – we didn’t.)
Such applications exist.
Just as talking about something endlessly is easier than actually understanding it, collections of the same old visual and audio information re-marketed as ‘interactive’ because it’s on an iPad or something do not represent new understanding. Seeing something from a different angle or on a different device is not the same as seeing something in a new way.
It could of course be that we’re seeing more than there actually is to see. It could just be that the imagined timelessness in these buildings lies in their ability to act as a subject for new people to generate new content on which to hang new advertising. If learning how FLW did it was ever the objective, then we would have more FLW looky-likey buildings as subsequent architects tried and failed, or perhaps bettered the guy. We don’t. People learning how to replicate a real or imagined architectural magic is the last thing an architect’s PR machine wants to see. Especially a posthumous one.