A Little Something About Nothing

What do you do when you run out of ideas for buildings you can actually see? Build one you can’t, apparently.

Due for completion in 2014, the South Korean Infinity Tower near Seoul’s Incheon airport will use outside cameras and projection screens that capture real-time images of the proposed tower’s surroundings (mostly sky) and then project them onto the tower’s LED façade, making the building appear to disappear.

The architectural firm GDS says of the project, “Instead of symbolizing prominence as another of the world’s tallest and best towers, it sets itself apart by celebrating the global community rather than focusing on itself. The tower subtly demonstrates Korea’s rising position in the world by establishing its most powerful presence through diminishing its presence. Korea will have a unique position of having the ‘best’ tower by having an ‘anti-tower.’” Um, yeah.

I’m not sure where they got the idea that symbolizing prominence was the only function of a tall tower (although, I’m sure its impetus in many ego-inflated cases) but this isn’t architecture — it’s engineering meeting technology. Architecture, I say with no small dose of curmudgeonry, should reflect an esthetic, some character, maybe a style. I suppose its time was bound to come, and it may be the wave of the future, but to me it lacks permanence. What sort of impression will such a building make 100 years from now? Isn’t that one of the tests of great architecture? That it still have relevance, provoke response, create an atmosphere after its designers — and you and I — are gone?

(If your first thought was, Hey, that doesn’t bode well for passing air traffic, you’re not alone. Kim Hee-jae, the man in charge of its “architectural” planning at Korea Land and Housing Corporation, the project’s state-owned backer, told the Wall Street Journal the illusion would only be used at certain times to prevent associated risks, and that red aircraft warning lights would stay on all the time.)

If it’s not architecture, it at least, one supposes, is art of a sort. Australian football commentator Sam Newman famously built a three-storey, three-bedroom box with Pamela Anderson’s giant face on the façade in Melbourne, for which I’d have to make the same argument: it may be art, but it’s hardly architecture. I draw my personal divide when what you tack onto the building lends more to the esthetic than the building itself.

It’s also commerce — originally built for $150,000 in 1995, the Pam house most recently sold for upwards of a million.

The idea isn’t without its merits. I’m all in favour of public murals, and such buildings are an extension of public art. I doubt our conservative city planners will soon see their way to approving such things, but one wonders where it leads. Would the Pam house have received planning permission if the designer wanted, instead of a pouty-lipped Baywatch star, a giant head of, say, Steve Buscemi? How about a picture of my dog? Or, in an arty protest sort of a way, Biafran orphans?

Obviously, architecture too can be polarizing. You likely either love or hate the massive, tiled occasional table tacked onto the OCA. Is that the point? Is beauty the goal? Or is engagement? And how long can a city stay engaged with a building that disappears?

What do you think? When the line starts to blur between art and architecture, which side are you on?

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The Toronto Star reports that a suite owner at the Trump hotel is trying to auction off his unit after it and a dozen like it languished on MLS for more than a year. Through Richies Auctioneers, the 950-square-foot unit will be put up with other goodies at an event in the ballroom at the Trump Tower Sept. 22. If you’re in need of a Fabergé egg, Patek Philippe watch or a five-carat diamond, you may want to clear your schedule. Suite tours will be held this week, on the 19th.

The Star reports that a suite similar to the one up for auction is currently listed for $1.6 million. The suite does offer an in-mirror television in the master bath, but doesn’t have a kitchen, which means eating out of the minibar could quickly total the asking price. The Star says, “One window of the tastefully decorated corner unit offers a bird’s-eye view of the Bay-Adelaide Centre construction site” and the other “looks out on the ventilation system of ScotiaPlaza.”

While property auctions are common in other countries, we’ve traditionally looked at them as a way to get rid of white elephants. If it does sell at auction, it’ll go a long way towards establishing real market value on the troubled Trump tower units.