A couple of critical thoughts on the way in which social media are changing storytelling in the field of architecture.

1. But Today
We Collect
Bullshit
Architecture and Storytelling
in the Age of Social Media

2. I. Mr. Thompson

4. We have, each of us, a life-story, an inner narrative – whose continuity,
whose sense, is our lives. It might be said that each of us constructs and
lives, a ‘narrative’, and that this narrative is us, our identities... Each of us is
a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by,
through, and in us – through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts,
our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations... A man
needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his
identity, his self.
Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, 1985

6. II. Collecting stories

7. Initial
Problem
Status Quo
Exposition
Complications
Crisis
Climax
Dénouement
Status Quo
Description of
new Status Quo

14. Buildings are conceived and transformed through media rather than simply
represented in the media. Furthermore, architecture is itself from the
beginning a form of media... These virtual systems are not simply opposed
to the material reality of architectural objects. The objects themselves take
on the characteristics of the media in which they are represented.
Beatriz Colomina, Skinless Architecture, 2003

19. III. Poor Images

28. The poor image is a copy in motion. Its quality is bad, its resolution
substandard. As it accelerates, it deteriorates. It is a ghost of an image, a
preview, a thumbnail, an errant idea, an itinerant image distributed for
free, squeezed through slow digital connections, compressed, reproduced,
ripped, remixed, as well as copied and pasted into other channels of
distribution.
Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image, 2009

32. IV. Fiction

33. We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and
less meaning... Information devours its own content. It devours
communication and the social.
Jean Baudrillard, The Implosion of the Meaning in Media, 1994

34. For all their differences, the architects mentioned here, Moore, Venturi,
Rossi, and Ungers, share a common goal. Not only do they want to present
symbolic and typological forms in the foreground purely as a way of
communicating content, they also want to use them as the material of
fiction, allowing a building to become a work of art once again, a fair
illusion... The motto of postmodernism, directed against the builders
functionalism... can be summarized thus: Not just function, but fiction.
Heinrich Klotz, The Revolution of the Modern, 1984.

43. V. Bullshit

46. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and
for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his
statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he
is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false… He does not
care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks
them out, or makes them up, so to suit his purpose.
Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit, 2005

53. The mode of creativity upon which bullshit relies is less analytical and less
deliberative than that which is mobilized in lying. It is more expansive and
independent, with more spacious opportunities for improvisation, color,
and imaginative play. This is less a matter of craft than of art.
Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit, 2005

57. Spiral shapes appear in nature as the inevitable result of dynamic
forces applied to matter. That’s why we find spirals all over the
universe, from the construction of galaxies to the threads of human
DNA. But it’s the spiral’s immaculate geometry, and the suggestion of
the infinite, that has mesmerized us in all cultures, across time and
place.
In 1916, in New York, another force, the voice of the people, was
being applied to the growing city. Their demand for daylight at street
level, was requiring the buildings to step back as they reached towards
the sky, and so the New York skyscraper was born.
On Manhattan's West Side, we bring together the spiral form, and the
New York skyscraper, to create The Spiral: a new tower that stands
out among its neighbours, yet feels completely at home.
The Spiral will punctuate the Northern end of the Highline, the linear
park will appear to carry through into the spiral of the tower, forming
an ascending ribbon of lively green spaces, extending the Highline,
into the skyline.
A building designed for the people who occupy it, the spiral ensures
that every floor of the tower opens up to the outdoors creating hanging
gardens and cascading atria, that connect the open floor plate of the
ground floor to the summit into a single, uninterrupted work space.
And of course… these majestic views of the surrounding city!

58. Spiral shapes appear in nature as the inevitable result of dynamic
forces applied to matter. That’s why we find spirals all over the
universe, from the construction of galaxies to the threads of human
DNA. But it’s the spiral’s immaculate geometry, and the suggestion of
the infinite, that has mesmerized us in all cultures, across time and
place.
In 1916, in New York, another force, the voice of the people, was
being applied to the growing city. Their demand for daylight at street
level, was requiring the buildings to step back as they reached towards
the sky, and so the New York skyscraper was born.
On Manhattan's West Side, we bring together the spiral form, and the
New York skyscraper, to create The Spiral: a new tower that stands
out among its neighbours, yet feels completely at home.
The Spiral will punctuate the Northern end of the Highline, the linear
park will appear to carry through into the spiral of the tower, forming
an ascending ribbon of lively green spaces, extending the Highline,
into the skyline.
A building designed for the people who occupy it, the spiral ensures
that every floor of the tower opens up to the outdoors creating hanging
gardens and cascading atria, that connect the open floor plate of the
ground floor to the summit into a single, uninterrupted work space.
And of course… these majestic views of the surrounding city!