50 Examples Of Architecture Expectations vs. Disappointing Reality

At this point, the phenomenon in these pictures is virtually a trend. In one of his articles for The Guardian, British architecture and design critic Olly Wainwright explains how he tends to find himself observing thesis projects produced by the best and brightest students of the UK.

But what he is struck by the most isn't the technical skill or imagination, but rather the sheer lack of connection these projects have with actual, built, imperfect architecture: "Time and again, the projects seemed intent on fleeing the real world of people and places, scale and context; retreating instead into fantasy realms of convoluted forms with no seeming purpose."

"There [are] scaleless worlds of splintered shards and riverine landscapes, in which forlorn mechanisms had been implanted like post-apocalyptic ruins of a distant-future race," Wainwright explained.

"Clouds of lines and layers were regularly employed as a smokescreen to disguise the fact that there wasn't really an idea at all: visual complexity masking conceptual thinness."

Urbanist Vanessa Quirk agrees that it's a trap many architecture schools have fallen into, not just in the UK but around the world.

"It's not just a symptom of the misguided nature of architecture education. It's also symptomatic of architecture's obsession with the image of architecture, an image completely detached from reality," said Quirk, who is the interim president of the board at Urbanist Media, a non-profit trying to elevate underrepresented voices and preserve the places that matter to them.

Quirk believes the idea of the "perfect" architectural image is not only propagated by professors who prioritize the rendering over its practical implications (causing students to spend hours perfecting visuals instead of perfecting the design).

In her eyes, the architectural media shares the blame. "[It] presents a flood of glossy shots that 'sell' an idealized architecture to the public and, frankly, architects themselves." 

The danger of this is that the image exists independent of the concept, to be evaluated as a graphic, or as Quirk put it, "The architecture itself is erased, eclipsed by its image."

The proliferation of such pictures could lead clients and the public at large to expect from architecture and architects a degree of quality, perfection even, that is impossible to deliver in the real world, and thus, disappointment.

Slightly idealized renderings are often seen as necessary means to sell the idea of a design to a client, in which case a bit of artistic leeway becomes an unavoidable evil.

However, as Quirk asked, once that idea is sold, "what happens when a more realistic rendering, one which shows as truthfully as possible how the building will look (air conditioning units and all) is presented?"