Overt Consumerism

by: karenvosjan | Total views: 43 | Word Count: 1200 | View PDF | Print View

What is the impact of extreme wealth on design and what is
the role of design professionals when retained to participate in obscenely
expensive projects?

Swiss-born Architect Mario Botta, best
known in The United States for designing the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
and considered one of the world’s foremost architects for churches and museums,
once said that "making architecture is a way of resisting the loss of identity,
a way of resisting ‘banalization’ and the flattening of culture brought about
by the consumerism so typical of modern society." Although these are truly
noble intentions for designers everywhere, we live on a planet filled with
globally expanding economies and a steadily increasing number of people now
ranked somewhere between the terms ‘millionaire’ and ‘billionaire’. With the
global share markets booming, it is worth taking a moment to consider the
effect this growth of extreme wealth is having on architects and designers in
an increasingly westernized world where consumerism and wealth are often seen
as the ‘be all and end all’. 

Stephen Jolson of Stephen Jolson Architects believes that
“designers and architects should always possess a moral and ecological
obligation to their project, regardless of budget, and maintain a commitment to
the integrity of the design. However, with a number of overt consumerism-based
design projects in Australia
tending to be residential, there has been a shift towards the Georgian and
Tuscan style residences – which often employ polystyrene molding in the design
and construction, the use of which alone demonstrates a callous disregard for
these obligations.”

Mr Jolson, whose firm specializes in producing both large
and small scale commercial and residential Design 
projects that focus on the synergy between lifestyle and innovation, believes
Australians are generally much more design savvy, with a broad spectrum of
design needs. “Our clients come from a broad range of financial backgrounds,
but the common factor we find is that they are much more concerned with
individual project integrity and creating a lasting design that is devoid of
market forces and temporary wealth-based style. However, I think that it also
often depends on whether or not you are dealing with ‘New Money’ or ‘Old
Money’, as I often view the push towards purposefully branding designers as a
newer phenomenon which is rather ironic considering branding and marketing
something often leads to mass production, whereas design should always be
personal.” However, one area in Australia
in which branding and overt consumerism has had a strong influence is in
project development, rather than design. “I think developers are certainly
susceptible to indulging in overt consumerism and branding to get their
projects across the line, depending on the extent to which they can use their
name to leverage the implementation of the project,” he added.

This point would seem to hold a substantial amount of weight
when one considers Bruno Grollo’s attempt to build Australia’s (and indeed the
world’s) tallest building in Melbourne’s Docklands precinct – aptly titled
‘Grollo Tower’. The project was originally proposed at 680 metres (2,230 feet)
and 137 levels in 1997, before being scaled back to 560m (1,837 feet) and 113
floors in 1998. And the price tag for such a project? A cool AUD $1 billion.
Such a project would have clearly dwarfed the rest of the Melbourne
skyline, with the Rialto
Tower being the tallest
building at the time and standing at only 253m. Despite the Victorian
Government’s approval of the planned construction, the proposal faced equally
as much opposition as it did support and the deal eventually collapsed before
construction had even begun.

Professor Kim Dovey, Head of Architecture at Melbourne University,
commented on the ABC’s The 7:30 Report that the ‘Grollo Tower’
project was “a gross development, really. It's over-scaled and it's one
family's landmark which will totally dominate the city”. Further fuelling the
argument against overt consumerism, ego and branding he was also quoted at the
time as saying that the Grollo tower symbolised an “urge to produce a timeless
vertical erection [that] cannot be divorced from the phallic”, and that Bruno
Grollo’s pursuit to build the world’s tallest building is “a variation on the
schoolyard game of mine’s bigger than yours”. Despite this knock back, however,
the project eventually found a new home in Dubai – for a whopping AUD $3
billion – and Bruno Grollo returned to build Melbourne’s current tallest
building, the Eureka Tower, for AUD $500 million and standing at a much-reduced
297m. Melbourne’s experience with the Grollo Tower
illustrates that extreme wealth can often impact on design by steering it
towards projects that are arguably ego-driven in nature; particularly for
developers.

One man who does believe that extreme wealth can have a
negative impact on design as a whole is Professor Miles Lewis, Professor of
Architecture at The University of Melbourne. “Extreme wealth often goes with
extreme vulgarity, and we are finding in Australia that wealth is also
giving rise to a great amount of waste in design. At the upper end of the
market, I have seen houses in suburbs like Hawthorn with huge areas of space
which have no apparent purpose. And I have seen apartments in Toorak in which
every room had a bathroom but the master bedroom had two bathrooms, two toilets
and two dressing rooms, this suite alone approaching the size of a small
house!” he said.

According to Professor Lewis, such indulgences “serve no
practical purpose, and seek only to expand the size of the dwelling for its own
sake.” Although Australia,
for the most part, has avoided the glorification of designers and the
over-indulgences that extreme wealth can buy, Professor Lewis also points out
that this is predominantly a cultural factor. “In Australia, the rich and the poor
have the same dream to own their own home with a swimming pool etc, the only
difference being whether or not they can afford it. In Europe,
the rich and the poor have entirely separate tastes and therefore every
architect signs their building so every passer-by will know who has designed
it. In Australia
we have escaped that and, as a result, escaped the kind of designer branding
and glorification that leads to overt consumerist design,” he added.

Although it is highly likely that Australia will eventually follow
the rest of the world in branding and glorifying designers, the question still
remains as to ideally what the role of the designer should be when commissioned
to design an obscenely expensive project? The truth is their role should remain
the same as it always has been, with a commitment to the integrity and
functionality of the project. However, this may be more idealistic than
realistic. As Professor Lewis concludes, "A tighter control of space, more
demands for energy efficiency, and more height and envelope controls will all
improve design. The essence of a good designer is that they can successfully
work within a range of constraints; without constraints less skill is required
and this often leads to gimmicky or vulgar design."

About the Author

Karen Vosjan is the owner & operator of Domain Design, Australia's  leading image driven portal featuring leading Architects and  Designers, and showcasing their projects, and capabilities.For more details,visit:www.domaindesign.com.au

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