ICONOGRAPHIC CONDENSATION IN THE WORK OF REM KOOLHAAS. ON THE WAY FROM TRIPLE DISSOCIATION CONCEPT/MEANING/IMAGE TO THE AMBIVALENT IN-SIGNIFICANT MEANING
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29121/shodhkosh.v4.i1.2023.370Keywords:
Iconic Condensation, Semantic Iconography, Connotative Meaning, Ungers, VenturiAbstract [English]
This article shows the attempts and struggles of recent architecture to reconcile the question of meaning (also image) with the abstract and schematic structure of modernity. This is a question that architecture has apparently not yet managed to synthesize, hence the interest in addressing this issue.
With this aim, the study follows the trace of Koolhaas’ controversial interest in meaning, starting from the semantic conglomeration of his first works, which are a re-appropriation of avant-garde elements. Then this paper continues with the analysis of Zeebrugge Terminal and the latest iconic buildings of the last decade (2000-2012) which represent an iconographic condensation in the work of Koolhaas, a communicative wholeness which recovers iconicity through its unity.
The paper will follow Koolhaas’ trajectory until its latest (2013) contradictory re-adoption of illuminist rational and neutral language. An apparently unexpected swerve which in fact shows that Koolhaas’ approach to iconography was less interested in the question of meaning but rather in the intention of perverting it.
Therefore, the method of this article is based on a descriptive route through some of Koolhaas' works. This route is accompanied by certain references that advocate iconic architecture, Jencks (2006/2007), Van Berkel & BOS (2006/2007), or show an interest in diagrammatic architecture, Somol (1999). At the same time, this study includes the curious comparisons of the book: Morphologie, City Metaphors by Ungers (1982), Koolhaas' indisputable referent. The study ends with a comparison of the ways in which Koolhaas and Venturi claim, each in his own way, the iconic and signifying recovery in architecture.
Regarding this question of research method, the suggestive character of the content of this text is rooted in and based on the systematic and precise study of the previous article on the Dutch Embassy in Berlin by Koolhaas.1 This previous article constitutes a thorough deconstruction of the building of the Embassy, which the author recommends reading beforehand.
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