Intervisual Cues: Visual Architectural Discourse in Images by Caruso St John Architects

Abstract

The contemporary cultural sphere of architecture is saturated with images in constant competition. While these visual documents are often cast aside as representations of external designs,

it is also possible to take them serious as images, first and foremost presenting themselves. Through images of Caruso St John Architects, the potential of a visual architectural discourse is provoked in three interlinked dimensions. The three dimensions represent ways in which the interpretation of the images is anticipated and discursive positions are expressed. First, the image is considered a meaningful whole that asserts ideological and architectural positions through its relations to a broader visual culture. Second, the image is considered to be disciplinary specific, and involved in a transhistorical dialogue with architectural drawing types. Third, the image is put in an intermedial relation to other visuals, textual information and objects, in an actual space such as an exhibition. In each of these dimensions, the image is directed and staged. The contention of this article is that the discursive formations are taking place precisely in these directional cues. It is in there that traces of an anticipated interpretation can be found, that represent core values and meanings of the architecture that is at stake.

Image : The Façade is the Window to the Soul of Architecture, Venice, 2018, Caruso St-John Architects. Installation photographs of their main exhibition in the 2018 Venice Biennial “Freespace” © Photo: Louis Demey, 2018.