Another post-Soviet, Eurasian state that has both built iconic architecture and made these landmarks the central focus of advertisements shown on CNN is the Republic of Georgia. There are several advertisements for the Republic of Georgia that have appeared on CNN over the last few years. Recent iterations (many viewable, but not embeddible from the Invest in Georgia website) such as the one titled Why Georgia is Different showcase the country's recently completed glass halls and gilded towers. Another, not posted to the site, shows one the country's 80 newly-constructed, glass-enclosed police stations, and underscores this architectural metaphor as part of the state's commitment to transparency and anti-corruption.
Georgia is fairly unique as a small, developing country without any particular resource boom that has undertaken a nationwide construction of new public facilities. While this might make the pages of the Financial Times, that the Republic's recent buildings feature the stylish attempts at avant-garde form-making from such celebrity firms as UNStudio and J. Meyer H. make this fertile eye-candy for the light-speed semi-pro architectural blogosphere, the universe of DesignBoom and its siblings.
Police Station in Mestia, Georgia.
Designed by Jurgen Mayer H. images via this website, April 2012.
Terminal Building for the Airport at Mestia, Georgia.
Designed by Jurgen Meyer H. Via Dezeen, November 2011.
This has given the leading architecture blogs a little geographic variety in their usual line up: The Fox Is Black recently featured a rest stop along a Caucasian highway designed by J. Meyer H., and last November FastCo Design decided on titling a post: Georgia Builds the World's Wackiest Border Crossing (the childish title is actually better than the horrid copy of the rest of post), which featured another JMH design of what is certainly rather delightful for a border crossing, although it adheres to the cookie-cutter mold look that makes JMH's buildings more punny than clever.
Border Checkpoint at Sarpi, Georgia.
Designed by Jurgen Mayer H. images via Dezeen, January 2011.
The 'Georgia' geographic tag on Dezeen in particular is an easy reference for Georgia's new landmarks. That Georgia's remote airfields have luscious terminal halls worthy of Wallpaper, thought up by some of Europe's most popular architectural talents, is remarkable by itself. Less celebrated is the Ministry of the Interior, situated outside of the capital on the way to the airport, with a half-hearted attempt at showmanship via its undulated glass, looking like a new-built office park anywhere, but proudly displaying its gesture of government openness and accessibility via its shiny exterior.
Ministry of Internal Affairs, Kakheti Highway, Georgia, by Michele de Lucchi.
In a similar way to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, this whole effort, which must be expensive, comes across as a whole lot of marketing. Georgia is working hard to attract investment, with a website and a series of CNN commercials that seem designed solely to increase the country's standings in the World Bank's Doing Business Rankings, a phenomenon that has grown in the last five years to a bizarre fixation. Georgia isn't, ultimately, a wealthy country, and sits in a troubled region. This is before considering the fact that an autonomous region of the country declared its independence, with Russia's encouragement, and the country was invaded and humiliated by its giant former ruling power just as the first of these projects was commissioned.
Renderings for the Border Checkpoint at Ninotsminda, Georgia via Dezeen, July 2012.
Speculatively, it is easy to imagine that Georgia's leadership is focussed on investment-fuelled growth, and that blog-ready infrastructural projects might have a singular ability to brand Georgia as a progressive, cool country. But these undertakings are also surely profitable for national construction companies and land developers. Exactly who in Georgia truly benefits from this is not obviously, and as the above-article makes clear, the answers are not forthcoming from the various government entities which have suddenly taken an interest in awarding jobs to hip architects from central Europe. Whether this is all the worthy endeavors of strengthening a young, weak, isolated state, or another iteration of cronyism is not currently clear, but what is lucid from Georgia's current architectural infatuations is that Georgia may not, in fact, be different and that it takes more than a curtain wall of glass to make democracy and development more transparent.
CNN International has a particular roster of advertisements. Most likely due to its widespread, worldly audience as one of the planet's principal satellite news networks, for years CNN has featured commercials not for cars or canned goods but for countries. A random collection from recent broadcasting includes tourism and promotional ads featuring Taiwan, Singapore, Qatar, and Montenegro.
This leads to some unusual advertising arrangements. "Arrangements" seems the correct terms as the network not only airs commercials during programming breaks, but also has embarked on favorable, sponsored coverage on the economic and investment climate of sovereign states, a somewhat behind-the-curtains practice which was revealed by Max Fisher in the Atlantic in the last week.
The Atlantic article specifically called out some unusual editorial arrangements in which former or even current regime officials in Kazakhstan were interviewed as experts and commentators on Kazakhstan's attractiveness to foreign investors.
Even before this controversy surfaced, I had wanted to post two ads in particular here: one for Azerbaijan and one for Astana, capital of Kazakhstan. Both feature recently-completed contemporary architecture quite prominently.
The Azerbaijani advert is a more straightforward pitch to the business traveler: zip to Azerbaijan for the day on your Citation, seal an investment opportunity by sunset. While there is some of footage of the sandstone buildings of the old city of Baku, that capital's newest addition, the Flame Towers, are unmissable: the towers shown no less than 5 times, and form the backdrop of the conclusion of the ad. As the names make obvious, the towers are supposed to resemble flickering fire, a reference to the country's Zoroastrian fire-worshipping heritage.
However, with their blue-green glass slimming upwards, the resemblance to the Financial Harbor Towers in Bahrain, (previously blogged about here) although likely unintentional, is unmistakable, and the effect of booming Baku having a Bahrain- or Dubai-style skyscraper set was surely part of the allure of their addition to the skyline.
The second advert shows the instant-city-on-the-steppes, Astana, the circa 1997 capital of Kazakhstan, an immense country which boasts even more extraction-action than Azerbaijan. The ad is similarly storyboarded if slightly less overtly financial. It is mainly some cloudless vistas of the capital's glistening new towers, aligned on what is surely, during the long sub-Siberian winter, a frigidly-windswept central promenade: apparently called the Green Water Boulevard or Shining Path, which is the central part of the city's master plan, designed by Kisho Kurokawa.
The camera rests as 0:25 on Norman Foster's Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center, an indoor beach resort and shopping center (again, that winter), but the footage doesn't show Foster's other Astana edifice, the pyramidal Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, perhaps because that slightly older structure has less permanent use (This 2010 Blueprint Magazine article thoroughly covers the story of Foster in Kazakhstan.
I've posted previously about Astana, and the Kazakhstani government's use of architecture to visually promote trade. The prominence of contemporary architecture, putting its "iconic" these emerging economies as worthy business destinations, is neither a particularly new or unique use of architecture. In fact, as much as it boasts of where the global growth seems to be these days, it also evinces the come-from-behind status of these investment frontiers, in comparison to more established markets. Its hard imagine that places such as Milan or Los Angeles would either need television commercials or have them feature recently-constructed buildings to reassure potential investors; but then American and European cities hardly have the budgets to buy spots on CNN, and the government would have to answer to its own constituents if its spent taxpayer money on a TV spot. The leaders of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan don't have to worry about that.
The Shard's baptism by beacons occurred in the same week as the "LIE-BOR" scandal oozed out of London and around the world, and the building's constant honorific--the tallest building in Europe-- is spoken in a period when the very word "Europe" is a source of anxiety in a way unimaginable a decade ago. Similarly, a metropolis that had long-since sold its Georgian squares to Kuwaitis, and its department stores to Egyptians, and allowed the Saudis, Russians, Qataris and others to own and build so much of the city, now see this foreign control as endless and out of control. It is a tower of luxury in a city and country divided by wealth and privilege.
And yet, here it is, London's newest tower, meant to be a towering symbol of London's continued relevance, renewal, and righteousness. Yet a comparison of the completion of the Shard with the arrival of the Gherkin less than a decade ago reveals two completely different receptions. The juxtaposition is an apt one: the Gherkin was the most prominent addition to London's skyline in years, and furthermore is just more glass-enclosed office space for foreign financial firms, like the Shard. Yet the very different regard for these two towers is remarkable.
The Gherkin, firstly, did not rise in a controversial area: The Gherkin rose in the existing business district, among a shiny cluster of financial office blocks that had walled off the City since the 1970s. It was not even the tallest spire among these, whereas the Shard looms alone over the streets of Southwark.
If the appellation is just unimportant, the origin story is not, and the Gherkin is more British than the Shard will ever be. Designed by a British architect, a Lord no less (in a slightly more innocent, pre-MP expenses and pre-phone hacking era which had less disdain for the wealthy and more regard for Parliament). Even its address, St. Mary's Axe, was atavistic and adorable, suggesting both the christian shrines of the pre-modern City and the quirky serendipity of English geography (what other nation names an alley an axe?).
Finally, its swirling strips of climate-controlling rhomboid glass curtain recall the lead-paneled windows of Tudor timber-frames that the district once had, bridging its most futuristic feature with the ancient heritage of the area: the Gherkin managed to be both forward-looking yet quintessentially British (whereas the Shard has been accused of being not just Qatari but North Korean).
In this patriotic fable, the Gherkin embodied the core sentiment of London's fin-de-siecle self-satisfactory myth and self-congratulatory mood that swept over the city: London, ancient, creaking, damp, and increasingly diminutive, had remained atop the rankings of the most important, relevant, modern, and cool cities in the world. Indeed, London, long-past its prime as the capital of empire, had remained the center of the world.
Online Adverts for Iceland Express airlines, c.2009.
London is shown by Westminster Cathedral, the Tower, Big Ben, St. Paul's,
and most prominently the London Eye and the Gherkin.
It was that the Gherkin, along with its earlier contemporary, the London Eye, a similarly-circular and equally-visible contemporary, that were the celebrated as symbols of this triumph. Both were cute: a plump priapsism of late-cool Brittania exuberance, with the Eye as its sister iteration, a childlike-carnival ride over the Thames, just opposite Westminster.
The Vivian Westwood Christmas display window at Selfridge's Department Store,
Oxford Street, London, December 2005.
The London Eye, The Monument, St. Paul's Cathedral,
Landmarks they became, and symbols they remain. The Gherkin and the Eye took their place among the pantheon of London's architectural idols in print, posters, advertisements, and other media, joining its elders St. Paul, Big Ben, the Monument, and Tower Bridge. The Gherkin popped up across the visual landscape of London in those years, and still does today, in the constant graphic representation of the skyline, and by extension, a city and country enjoying a renaissance of its own ingenuity.
Above: An advert on a tube escalator, December 2005, showing
St. Paul's, the Gherkin, and the Tower Bridge.
Above: Great Southwest Trains billboard at Waterloo Station, February 2006.
The skyline shows the Houses of Parliament, Westminster, Nelsons' column,
the Eros fountain, St. Paul's, the Monument, the Gherkin, the London Eye, and Tower Bridge.
Above: A commemorative Kitkat bar box, c.2010.
St. Paul's, One Canada Wharf, and The Gherkin stand for London.
Above: two posters for the 2007 Tour de France in London.
The Gherkin is the most prominent landmark shown,
but Lloyds of London makes an appearance.
Quite awkwardly, the Shard has yet to receive such graphic laurels. The supertall was deliberately crafted to be an icon of the city, yet thus far there are hardly any outlines of London's skyline, whether within the UK or elsewhere, that include it.
A mural on 5th Avenue, New York, in January 2012, advertising
the opening of a Ted Baker clothing emporium. Robot mannequins trim a hedgerow into the shapes of London landmarks:
Lord Nelson, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, St. Paul's Big Ben, Westminster Cathedral, Eros, Tower Bridge, and the Gherkin.
Even the hideously unloved Natwest Tower, the thoughtless trifecta of Canary Wharf, the heinously bizarre city hall helmet, and the long-loathed and utterly defunct BT Tower appear more often (interestingly, the 3-year old Heron Tower, officially the city's tallest but with even less to distinguish itself than the drab Natwest Tower, has not been adopted, either).But it is constantly the Gherkin and the Eye that are purposefully included to indicate the contemporary city.
The Gherkin, the London Eye, Big Ben and Tower Bridge. The Shard is also prominent.
Above: The Londonist, a widely-read events blog, is one of the first and few to incorporate the Shard
into its logo, alongside Big Ben, the Eye, the Gherkin and St. Paul's dome.
The lack of acceptance of the Shard is especially remarkable in the year 2012, when London and the rest of Britain, were are told, will be renewed via the magic of the Olympics. The Shard already has an awkward relationship to this spectacle, in that it actually has nothing to do with the Olympics at all, but is being finished in the same year and that the Olympic games will occur in the same city. Last week's laser-show opening was a kickoff of the Olympics, just weeks away, but one that didn't make reference to the games at all.
The Reporting from London, 2011.
Top: Al Jazeera shows the Gherkin and the Tower Bridge.
Above: SkyNews from the London Stock Exchange, showing St. Paul's,
Tower 42, the Gherkin, and the towers of Canary Wharf.
The games have ratcheted up the provision of graphic representations of the city, even among those media groups which do not have official Olympic broadcasting, such as CNN and the BBC, but also by NBC Universal:
Above: CNNGo! celebrates London, 2012.The skyline is clearly made up of the London Eye,
Westminster Cathedral and Big Ben, and the Tower Bridge,
with the Gherkin and what may be the helmut-shaped city Hall on the underside. Below: NBC's promotional trailer for the Summer Olympics. The opening sequence shows Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace and the Gherkin, but not the Shard.
All of these 2012-specific spots pay respects to the Gherkin and the Eye, along with the classic tourist landmarks such as Big Ben, Tower Bridge and St. Paul's, but none of them show the Shard, not even the BBC's non-Olympic Olympic extravaganza: "London Calling, The City of 2012" whose title animation shows One Canada Wharf and even the forever-loathed Centre Pointe, but does not include this year's debut tower:
The uplifting television advert, with panoramas of the Thames and long shots of a dozen London landmarks, especially St. Paul's and the London eye, shows the Shard only for a split-second in the background of a night vista:
Surely the Shard will be more widely depicted over time, when its presence is more in harmony with the mood of its city. Its not like its going anywhere, and in the future its initial associations will wear away. But it is this lack of inclusion thus far, the lack of celebration around its arrival, reveals that it is so disdained as to make its artistic ambassadors act as if it wasn't there.
Big brash buildings often take time fit in, especially in older, historic cities which fret over threats to the appearance of its ancient cityscape. But the faint praise for Piano's feat is due to more than just an uneasy reaction to this enormous erection's sun- and landmark-view blocking height or mass. Skyscrapers are landmarks, and landmarks are symbols, which by definition stand for something, and the creator cannot always declare the definitions. For an architectural gesture that was always designed to be an icon, it is the very fact that it is a symbol, and what it is a symbol of, that has made the Shard so unwelcome.
