About the Storytelling of Project

Every time I watch the talks from Bjarke Ingels, I could not help saying " Ah, that's so cool! ".  It is true that he is the kind of architect who knows how to promote and advertise himself/his projects.  He always tell a good story about his project, and the way he present his projects, which is usually starting with simple shape or iconic element, then using several way like twisting, pushing, elevating, etc. has been learned and imitated by many young architecture students (Just search BIG style architectural diagram on youtube). 

Diagram In Progress Mountain Dwellings @ BIG

The way he present his project is more accessible to those who have limited knowledge of architecture or even those who never study architecture (they definitely have less patience to learn the theory of deconstruction). In one of his TED talk （Bjarke Ingels: 3 warp-speed architecture tales ）mentioned one of his unbuilt project called "Ren building" which took the shape of Chinese character "人" which means "person" during the design process. However, the form of this builidng is actually designed for another failed project in swedish at first, but he learned it from another one that the shape of this design looked like chinese character "person " accidentally, and then when he presented to Chinese people(from citizen to leadership, he received a lot of applause . The talk from Bjarke Ingels reminds me of a reading called "On bullshit" by Harry Frankfurtfrom the history class in last semester. Now,  his good storytelling sometimes makes me highly doubt if that is his real design concept or he just bullshit to audience.

BIG | Bjarke Ingels Group. The peoples building, Shanghai, Ren

Chinese Character: Ren, which means person

Unlike Bjarke, Peter Eisenman is the typical architectural theorist who regarded architectural practice out of the consideration of his research (and his research is not focusing on users' experience), instead of how to satisfy the users as other architects did. Compared with Peter Eisenman (he is also the architect that I admire) Bjarke has good sense of capturing users' demand, aesthetic preference, and human experience from the design sketch to the presentation stage.  The iconic form he frequently used meet the tastes of current public, which makes him a star architect who received more attractions in social media, and this method always reached his expected effect: it brings constant commercial benefits for his office.

Peter Eisenman , House IV, Falls Village, Connecticut, 1971