Competing Visualizations: How Architecture becomes its Image

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the present meaning of the architectural rendering through an analysis of its different constellations and aspects. In the last two decades, imagery production for architecture had become a phenomenon to such an extent that the processes of designing, depicting and commercializing architecture have undergone deep changes. Despite the image of architecture being produced principally for communication and information purposes, it is nowadays able to generate superior or independent visions detached from built reality. Virtuality does not necessarily remain subordinated to the role of previewing built architecture but can create alternative utopian and ideological narrations. The Norwegian office MIR, founded at the dawn of the visualization-technology revolution in the 2000s, produced hyper-realistic images that became international renown. Viewing these images, the question arises: what makes architectural rendering different from architecture photography? The main characteristic of the rendering is its attempt at plausibility by means of supposed photorealism. However according to a functional perspective, the render is the alter ego of photography. In fact, architecture photography developed as means of representation and communicating built architecture. The rendering belongs to the unbuilt. By narrating three different plots, this paper aims to explore the temporal, the intrinsic, and the cultural role of the architectural rendering in the work of MIR.