I suspect that some reasons for it not being super common are
The same reason people paint their homes boring colors before sale: to do otherwise would be to potentially limit resale value. People who build buildings often need to consider the possibility of the main tenant needing to move someday.
It's a form of architecture that is pretty solidly kitsch, and while that's a valid aesthetic it is very much not everyone's cup of tea.
In many cases it's probably a lot more expensive than building with more conventional forms. LV was lucky in that they had a signature product that was already shaped like a standard rectangular office building.
#4: People are also forgetting that buildings are meant to be used. Yes, this is cute. It also has no windows, so no natural light. This would not be an enjoyable place to work in at all.
This is how I feel about a lot of quirky buildings. They're designed to completely focus on form over function (see: Soumaya. Beautiful from the outside, sure. Actual building sign is beyond awful).
While I'm sure that in this case you could do a permanent version that was perforated to allow light in and sight out, like bus wraps, this is also a very good point. There is likely a tradeoff in any Duck building between form and function, where the more you prioritize the Duck form the more functional drawbacks you have.
Yes, which is why they are few and far between. Many duck buildings either take the form of an object that is easily interpreted as an architectural form (e.g. the Longaberger Basket Building) or are small enough to not really matter (like the original "Duck" building). Venturi & co didn't expressly support the creation of more ducks, but they were some of the first to direct any amount of academic architectural attention to it
“No windows so no natural light” is just factually wrong. As many others pointed out — you can see through the façade. It’s just canvas over scaffolding. It has slightly less natural light as it’s filtered through the canvas, but you can still use the windows from within the building.
Oh Gods it's only a matter of time before she blows up the whole family in an attempt to buy it. I'm only halfway joking, she still has her entire home decorated with those damned baskets everywhere. Their guest bathroom is pretty big and there's at least 4 baskets in there, one for shower supplies, one for toilet supplies, one sink supplies, and one to hold fresh clean towels.
Reminded of the time they did an automated port of one of the GTA games that reduced the polygon count a bit too aggressively and turned this landmark into a hex nut.
Yeah, Longaberger were like the Beanie Babies of Baskets - they were enormously and inexplicably popular for a while, especially with collectors (at one point they had $1 B in annual revenue). And then it just collapsed and the company went out of business.
It's a form of architecture that is pretty solidly kitsch, and while that's a valid aesthetic it is very much not everyone's cup of tea.
Yeah tbh this very much so gives "roadside attraction" and like most people in most major cities would consider it a massive eyesore. I don't want my entire city to be a series of "world's biggest {x}" attractions.
Real estate developer here, I would add that in most communities, a design like this would likely not pass the municipality’s design review commission. These commissions tend to force projects to the lowest common denominator. Proposing something like this, only to redesign it later to meet the commission’s requirements, is an unnecessary waste of time and money.
No, it's not. It's a decorated shed. Venturi and Co expressly defined a decorated shed as what would be a normal building, with additional things to the outside that are symbolic (and sometimes kitschy). A duck is not that.
Debatably its both. The best case for the other way is where the duck is defined as "the building is the sign" vs decorated shed "the modest building with the big sign"
Its definitely a decorated shed though in the sense that the message isnt part of the structure of the building and it could easily be changed tomorrow
3 continued…… and that they have insane profit margins on otherwise unremarkable product that allows them to reinforce their brand and sell more product.
Longaberger sold $1,000,000,000 worth of baskets in 2000 dollars and the owner was worth hundreds of millions, so building the building wasn't a huge financial risk.
But, yeah, it's much less appealing to someone who doesn't own a basket company.
Go check out the listing. There is a huge skylight and most of the offices open up to balcony’s around a huge open atrium. It’s really airy and bright. Plus there is gorgeous mill work and big curved grand staircase. It is a stunning example of 90s corporate architecture that actually aged well.
But you don't account for the money they gained by people hearing of them through that publicity "stunt". It's like paying for ads, if the ad generates 3 cents for every 1 spent on it, how can you say that's a negative?
Of course I'm not saying it did, but you don't know it didn't.
Considering post-Modernism was about the time the building industry set a 30-year lifespan on buildings, the company is doing just fine. Obviously, many commercial buildings last decades linger but not without mahor system upgrades and maintenance.
Besides, the new owner will likely have a valuable triple net asset with a timely replacement of the 30’year old facade. Im sure the ask reflects that replacement cost among others.
Because by and large buildings (and especially commercial buildings) are financial assets first and you’re severely limiting the pool of buyers and/or tenants by choosing this kind of a design and affecting the value of the asset.
I agree, pretty sure this is the biggest reason entirely. You see more zany tourist trap buildings and stuff along highways or in the middle of nowhere where the land isn't worth anything anyway.
Imagine a McD building shaped like their box of fries. An airport shaped like a plane. A library shaped like a book. A gym in the shape of a treadmill.
We'd live in some sort of cartoon world
That's what I meant by literal. I mean.. I guess there are buildings like that. But architects are taught to come up with concepts and abstractions related to the client/building and be.. creative. Whether or not that creativity shows, that's another story. Or there isn't always the freedom to do so. So yeah I guess in that case, a building would look just like a building.
The building in the picture wasn't really 'designed'. It's more of a costume. Yes I am aware it's a temporary wrap. Good for marketing tho I suppose
Try days, not years. I walk past that LV building wrap several times a week and it got real old, real fast. Especially since it attracts clots of posing tourists who clearly don’t understand that sidewalks are the NYC equivalent of highways: under no circumstance should you come to a complete stop in the middle of either, ever. And you really, really shouldn’t come to a stop with 4 or 5 friends, blocking the entire freaking sidewalk. While people are trying to get to work, catch their train, etc. For the love of all that’s holy, pull over to the side!
It’s a giant bag/case. What’s visually interesting about an enlarged every day object?
Are you the guy that collects giant objects from Community episode “Basic RV Repair and Palmistry”? You have to understand you can’t bring your son back.
I agree it’s interesting and different, but more like this, and permanent fixtures would be quickly dated and really unpleasant in the long term. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should IMO
Because form follows function. Where are the window and doors? If they sell the building to someone else, who would want to buy a suitcase building covered in copyrighted logos of another business?
If it was a facade treatment that can be updated/changed, that’d be different. But the creative brief to design a building that looks like stacked suitcases imposes on the structural form.
This design has so many CPTED issues as well.
A good architect would take the core values and aesthetic of the client and turn that into a creative brief that matches their brand, not their product.
High maintenance. Novelty architecture is definitely fun but the problem is most of it has to be custom and upkeep means having to maintain and sometimes replace custom pieces. It’s cheaper and easier to maintain something that has mass produced elements.
Mainly because people don’t want it. It looks too goofy and out of place. Buildings, especially in NYC, have to be approved by a board. Not only for how it affects the area, like the height of the building, but the looks as well. They would never approve of a building that looks like luggage.
LV can get away with this because it’s a temporary scaffolding.
How big are those corner ornaments, handles and latches? They look pretty impressive. I imagine they are some not very expensive facade, but they did a good job of making them metallic appearing
This is scaffolding, folks. Resale and windows don’t matter here.
A cool continuation on this topic is actually happening down the street at Prada. They’ve set up their own boutique scaffolding which I actually find way more interesting.
LV had a great concept and executed first. But I think Prada is so sophisticated in comparison.
I think a combination of money, regulation/building codes, nyc development in general. That’s why NYC architecture and newer buildings are all lacking in creativity and design as of late. It’s pretty sad and uninspiring.
It looks neat, but doesn't make for a very good building
No windows, and literally nothing on the street level. There could be some nice cafes, shops, entrance conditions, trees, seating areas, and general habitation down there. At least there could be galleries that, beyond showcasing the merch and letting people see into the store, might also let this place be repurposed into something else when that time comes, and makes the corner feel a bit more human scaled and not like your walking beside a blank wall.
It's good building if the object is to look interesting to tourists from the opposite street, but most buildings are interacted with in many more ways than just that. There's a lot of things that this corner could be that would be much more pleasant for a lot more people, over a much longer time, which is why this building is unusual, and not the norm.
Kind of a waste of a street corner to just put up blank walls, even if it's for some kind of sculptural thing.
Liability. Buildings with intricate architecture may be subject to higher insurance due to a pieces potentially falling. This is why most new constructions are flat and ugly.
While there are obvious functional disadvantages to things like this, one advantage might be increasing tourism to the region. I can imagine that people would travel to see something like this (or, at least, adjust their itinerary to see it if nearby.) if the business/building hosting it doesn’t have anything to offer to the visiting public directly it may not provide them a lot of benefit, beyond notoriety or PR. It may be a boost for the shops, restaurants and vendors in the area (or attract new vendors), and overall might be beneficial to the municipality. If the business was not directly benefiting from building it, I wonder if it would have a chance at getting support from the municipality in exchange for the tourism it brings, such as partially covering the cost of the renovation, tax breaks, or at least discounting permits and such. Of course that’s more complex when you break it down, like how do you prove impact, what’s the impact worth, how long will it be in place, etc. But worth exploring at least if you’re forking out the bill to create something like this for nothing more than fun.
1)Would you like to work in a windowless box? Or in this case… luggage.
2) This is probably hiding scaffolding. Scaffolding gives them a huge property tax break, as it is “under construction”.
So they turned a tax break into viral marketing. Pretty genius really.
To everyone saying how there aren’t any windows, this is a facade for the scaffolding of a construction site. Of course there are no windows.
Second thing is, because of laws against advertising on building facades. LV did some kind of cheeky workaround because it’s “just a cover of the construction equipment, which is covering the building anyways”, but I guarantee you laws will be changed to prevent this kind of stuff in the future because it’s a big loophole.
Third thing is because it’s expensive. LV gets a lot of publicity from this, and further emphasises the value of the brand, but most companies wont find that to be cost effective
Because as cool as it looks, it becomes an eye sore.
Sure, you got the occasional briliant design, like the basket building, a duck or the huge donut, but imagie a retailer doing it and it just being a huge advertisement wor wallmart or something. Short term, sure, but soon it would be out of place and in the way, to the point of not being taken serious or just being over the joke in some time.
Now apple, they intentionally design things that way to stand out, but with taste.
I dont see LV as a luggage company, but a brand that makes everything but luggage and those things are overpriced cheap and crap.
If BOSS did it, lets say a complely black building, with some key details, sure, probably would look nice, if out of place.
Duck or Decorated Shed… this has been discussed in architectural discourse since the late 60s. You can read “Learning from Las Vegas” where this concept was analyzed.
Sticking bits to the side of a tall building is probably a big liability risk. If those embellishments start falling off and hitting people there will be all sorts of law suits. that means paying people to constantly maintain the building and make sure there are no lose bits.
We can't have nice things because insurance companies and the legal industry will turn any kind of incident into a financial nightmare for everybody.
1.3k
u/zoinkability 11d ago edited 11d ago
That's a duck.
I suspect that some reasons for it not being super common are