99% Invisible - 402- Instant Gramification

Episode Date: June 17, 2020

If you’re on Instagram, there’s a decent chance you’ve seen a picture of one particular building called the Yardhouse. It was designed by the London-based architecture collective Assemble. The design of the building had a lot to say about creating spaces that were functional, collaborative, and inexpensive. But people on Instagram mainly saw a pretty wall to serve as the backdrop to their photos. Instagram and architecture have formed a symbiosis and the consequences of them interacting and feeding back on each other are still playing out. Instant Grammification

Hello beautiful nerds. There are a lot of intense actions and discussions going on in the world today, many long overdue, and much of it is happening on social media, for better or worse. The story we have here today is about how Instagram and architecture interact and feed back on each other. It was reported and produced before the COVID lockdown and before the protests over at police brutality have swept the country. So if it feels like it is from another era, it is. But as we witness social media platforms evolving to meet this moment,

I think it's worthwhile to report on how they evolved up to now. It's also just a delightful piece, and I think you'll like it. So here it is. This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Instagram has never really been my thing. I just don't tend to use a camera when I'm out in the world. I just like to use my eyeballs,

but I do like scrolling through Instagram occasionally. Mainly because there's a lot of good architecture on there. The app is a wash in pictures of brutalist towers, graffiti walls, and elaborate staircases. And if you're on Instagram, there's a decent chance you've seen a picture of one particular building. It's called the Yard House. The Yard House was designed by a London-based

architecture collective called a symbol. That's producer and that fits Gerald. A symbol is kind of a big deal. They won the Turner Prize for Visual Art in 2015 for their work reconstructing derelict buildings in Liverpool. But the Yard House was the first building that they ever built.

The designers had just moved into this new studio and stratford near where the 2012 Olympics were being held. It was on this street called Sugar House Lane and they wanted to build something on the empty yard out front, a collaborative workshop for designers and artists. There was the idea that this yard house could be a new model of affordable workspace. This is Joe Halligan, one of the architects in assemble. So the artist no longer have to live or work in cold warehouse spaces on the fringes, but they can be in these new warm insulated buildings.

The problem was that they only had a short term lease. The property, like a lot of properties in Stratford, was going to be redeveloped after the Olympics. And so they knew that they needed to build a cheap structure that could be easily disassembled. So knowing that we only had the lease for two years or something, it was like, how can you build a building as kind of affordably and efficiently as possible?

The designers focused on things that made the building functional and inexpensive. They used a simple timber frame structure and cheap mass produced components. Everything's bolted and screwed so that you can take it down again. The building was like an urban barn with high ceilings and lots of open workspace. But the reason you may have seen this building has nothing to do with any of that. The Yard House is an Instagram famous for its DIY design or it's off the shelf affordability. Now, it's famous for one design decision

that a very little to do with Assembles larger vision. The architects knew that they were gonna have to look at this very functional building all day long. And so they allowed themselves with seemed at the time like one small concession to beauty. functional building all day long. And so they allowed themselves with seemed at the time, like one small concession to beauty. So on the one facade that faced the yard, we knew we wanted to do something special

that would kind of elevate it in some way. One special wall. I guess it's a bit like an Italian church or something, you know, where the front facade is marble and it's got this kind of incredible market tree, but then the back is really just like bricks slapped together. They wanted to make their facade themselves, and so when they found a book on traditional hand-made shingle work lying around the office, they took it as a sign. They started pouring cement shingles in the studio and mixing each batch with a different colored pigment.

And after making thousands of these tiles, they ended up with this gradient of different colors. So together when you see them on the facade, it becomes a bit like a lizard's skin or something, but pastel. So quite surreal. To me, it looks like the side of like a whimsicle tropical fish.

Yeah, yeah, fish scales, but definitely a tropical fish. It's not something you would find in the channel, something round Britain. It's definitely like Bahamas or something, I think. A beautiful tropical fish of a building. Tucked away in a post-industrial hinterland, right next to a highway. Which isn't that friendly to kind of pedestrian, particularly tourists. But if Joe thought that tourists weren't going to find this hidden pastel wonder wall, he thought wrong.

You know, in the summertime we would eat our lunch outside, and what we started to notice would be groups of people kind of wandering in and then getting their photograph taken in front of the building. In front of the wall really. Soon photos of the wall started circulating on Instagram with the hashtag Sugar House Studios and a geotag of the exact location of the assemble offices. Which only drove more people to the wall. It was quite frequent. It's maybe like 20 people every day would turn up.

You kind of, they just become part of the furniture of what it is to work, It was quite frequent. It's maybe like 20 people every day would turn up. You kind of, they just become part of the furniture of what it is to work there. But really people were not interested in the work that we were doing. They weren't interested in affordable workspace for artists, or the fact that assemble had managed to build something so cheap and yet functional. They were only interested in that beautiful facade. Professional photo crews started calling the office to try and book the wall.

And people were showing up from all over the world. But definitely, like lots and lots of international guests. Here is an international community. Pffft. An international community of people coming together to take more or less the same photo over and over again. It's quite entertaining to watch them. People would always do this jump in the air so it kind of looks like they're floating within space against this backdrop.

People would take photos of couples kissing and babies crawling and kids doing handstands in front of the wall. Someone pulled their pug and they placed their kind of pug there and take photos of their pug in front of the wall. Someone pulled the pug and they placed their kind of pug there and take photos of their pug in front of this wall. What was happening with Assembles Mall was an extreme version of a pretty common phenomenon. People take a photo of something cool out in the world, like a waterfall or a piece of graffiti or sculpture. And other people see that photo and they say,

hey, I want my own version of that picture. I take photos, you know, it's like, if I went to the pyramids, I'd definitely take a photo. I'm not comparing our walks to the pyramids. Did you ever get an answer on kind of like how it went viral? Like was there an instigating event, or was it just the slow accretion of likes? I don't know, I can't pinpoint one particular blog or like this influencer took a photo of it or something.

Maybe it was the pug. Maybe it was the pug. Yeah, maybe it was the pug. Maybe it was the pug. The architects in assemble weren't trying to lure people to the backlands of East London, but they accidentally designed the perfect Instagram flytrap, a wall that met all the criteria of what stands out on the app. Because Instagram is creating new rules about what kind of design looks good and what deserves our attention. Visuals that look good on Instagram are actually very simple.

This is Alexandra Lang, architecture critic for Curved and Longtime Friend of the Show, and she says that for an image to look good on a tiny screen in the palm of your hand, it has to have certain characteristics. Bold colors and patterns are good. It can just be, you know, a colored wall or a patterned wall. Not too many fiddly details. It has to be like relatively few elements centering is good. A pop of color is good.

And the lighting has to be good enough so that the color stand out. And in general, flatter is better. The thing is a good Instagram photo is really a pretty shallow photo. So walls and floors and pretty simple geometric patterns really look best on Instagram. Like if you go through the feed and see kind of what pops, it's this kind of flat patterning. Alexander Lang is particularly interested in patterned floors. I feel like the first cool floor that I noticed getting Instagram'd all the time was the blue and white tile floor

in the Intelligencia coffee and silver lake, which is by best or architecture. This hip LA coffee shop had these amazing geometric tiles. They ran all the way across the floor and then up the front of the coffee bar and kind of over the lip. So it was basically almost like a carpet of tiles. A carpet of tiles that made the perfect background for an Instagram picture of a customer's desert

boots. And then suddenly it was like every new coffee bar had patterned tile. Just like assemble, the intelligentsia floor designer didn't set out to make something for Instagram. But in recent years designers have begun to intentionally design spaces that will look good on the app. Lang says that hotel and restaurant interiors, in particular, have been designed to lure customers with their Instagram ability. One architect told me that it's really important to have an Instagramable bathroom. So, like, good lighting, a cool feature wall behind the mirror. People want to pop into the bathroom and take their selfie and sort of say, like, I was here.

These days, clients often ask designers to create Instagram moments, which basically means some feature in the space that is just there so that people can take a photo with it. Every time we're asked to do it, we're like, oh, not another Instagram wall or whatever. Verna Alexander is the co-founder of O plus A, an interior design firm in San Francisco that primarily works on office spaces for tech companies. And she says that even when clients aren't demanding a designated selfie spot, platforms like Instagram are still impacting how designers do their work. So we know that when we photograph projects, we need to have that first image, that first shot

that is going to draw people in, that's going to get people excited, that's going to want people to pin it or look at it twice, right? And so, whether we do it consciously or subconsciously, we're always designing for that Instagram moment. An Instagram isn't the only app that's impacted the architecture and design world. Verda Alexander was a judge this past year at a few design competitions, and she says

it felt like everyone was just copying what was cool on Pinterest. Which of the time was this very particular style of Italian postmodern design associated with a 1980s architecture firm called the Memphis Group. So I would be looking at these projects. It all had pastel pink or round mirrors or narrow arched doorways. Like they were all the same details. She says that when designers rely too heavily on platforms like Pinterest for inspiration,

they can get stuck in this derivative loop. Snake eating its tail, right? They stay within this circle and don't expand beyond. That, I guess that's my fear. That by focusing on digital trends, designers lose track of livability, workability, climate, all things that you can't really capture in a photograph. Joe Halligan from Assemble says that as a designer, it's impossible not to think

about how something you make will be photographed later on. I think you have to be aware slightly of that, that when you finish this building that you spent five years on, the way most people will view it will be through the image. Which raises tough questions. Do you then pander to that or do you still ensure that the kind of main focus is on the person who visits the building and experiences it? It's not hard to imagine what the world would look like if everyone just went full

on with Instagram pandering. In some ways that world already exists. Just look at so-called Instagram playgrounds. Which are essentially stage sets made for taking the greatest concentration of amazing selfies in the shortest amount of time. The Museum of Ice Cream and the Color Factory aren't really museums or factories. Their spaces filled with colorful rooms

and sculptures and ball pits, all of which are designed for the sole purpose of being the backdrop of an iPhone picture. Then I've written about those as kind of like the least fun playgrounds for grownups that you could possibly make. You aren't really supposed to play in them at all. Just take a few pictures and move on to the next room. Yeah, it reduces architecture to a photo op. It turns architecture into basically a flat experience. Right now this flat photo op architecture feels pretty contained to the cafes and boutique hotels

and the Instagram playgrounds, although it is not hard to imagine it escaping from the color factory and slipping out into the broader city. On the other hand, maybe our collective Instagram moment won't last all that long. The kids these days are on TikTok or using Instagram more for its story function.

And we're seeing less of those carefully composed selfies against the perfect backdrop and more short videos with a lot of jump cuts. Get ready for TikTok architecture. Which actually sounds pretty delightful. Yeah, I honestly don't even know what that would look like. But regardless of what happens next, Alexander Lang doesn't want us to get carried away with this narrative that Instagram has been bad for design.

I feel like people keep trying to goad me into saying, like Instagram is ruining architecture. I would never do that. Okay, maybe I did that. And I just, I don't want to say that because I can still feel that joy that I felt that day in Melbourne. Lang was in Melbourne, Australia, about 10 years ago,

when Instagram was just getting going. And it turns out that Melbourne is an underappreciated mecca for bizarre post-modern architecture. And I'm just completely wowed by these buildings because they're spiky, they're covered in neon, they're just, they're really kind of crazy. And they're like nothing I've ever seen before. And I suddenly have this overwhelming desire to share.

And so she posted picture after picture on Twitter until someone was like, Alexandra, this is very terrible. Twitter etiquette, like take it to Instagram. Lang had an Instagram account that she barely used and so she started using it and posting all these pictures of buildings. The Australians were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know.

And I also was like, wow, we don't know what this is. What is this magical place, Melbourne? Exactly. And so I just realized that there was a super direct way for me to share my architectural experience, which is mostly joy because I just love looking at new buildings. And Instagram was the perfect platform for that. my architectural experience, which is mostly joy because I just love looking at new buildings. And Instagram was the perfect platform for that. And it turns out a lot of people love joyful pictures of buildings. My son, who's 12, told me the only time he ever mentions me is when he wants to flex to his friends and his mother has 42,000 Instagram followers.

Alexander Lang's time using Instagram, let her to believe that the app can have a positive effect on architecture. Sure, you might get a few too many selfie walls, but the app can offer a window into the built world and encourage people to notice overlooked buildings. I feel like for a long time, architecture was really associated with specific capital cities. And so most people were only seeing a really limited slice of architecture. And I think something that I do and a lot of other people do is show that kind of architecture is everywhere. And even on the design end, Alexandra Lang doesn't necessarily think that Instagram moments

get in the way of good architecture. The truth is you can simultaneously, you know, design a good building and make sure that it has a good Instagram moment in it. And those things are not mutually exclusive and they don't, like, one doesn't undermine the other. But there's another reason why it probably isn't accurate to say that Instagram is ruining architecture because Designing for the camera is really nothing new certainly in the 20th century from the 1920s and 30s onward any ambitious architect has been conscious of and very attentive to the role of photography in conveying his or her work to a broader public. This is architectural historian Keith Agner from the University of Oregon.

Architects like Neutro, like Liquid Bucie, like Luis Baragon in Mexico, begin to use photography to convey certain things about their architecture that they wanted the larger public to see. Luis Baragon worked closely with one photographer in particular, a man named Armando Salas Portugal. You know, I would go so far as to say there are very few major architects.

In fact, I can't really even think of another major architect whose reputation is so tightly bound up with the photographs of a single photographer. The most famous photos of Baragon's work are really a collaboration between two visual artists. Egnor doesn't think that Baragon designed his buildings for the photographs, but he was an architect who was supremely interested in the way things looked, not just in fully-dimensional, lived experience, but also on a two-dimensional photographic surface. When Beragon won the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 1980, he wasn't very well-known outside of

Mexico, and many of his best buildings had fallen into this repair. But there were still beautiful photographs of them. Keith Higner actually wrote to the members of the Pritzker jury to ask how they had picked Baragon. And most people politely wrote back and said, well, we can't really talk about those deliberations. But one member of the jury did write back and said, well, in fact, most of us had never actually seen any of Baragonons' buildings, except in photographs. Not surprisingly, Louise Barragons' buildings are now really popular on Instagram. In fact, Casa Barragon in Mexico City charges extra if you want to take photos on your tour,

and people gladly pay the fee to get onto the roof. Which has the really famous pink walls that people tend to want to photograph themselves with. The truth is that most people aren't taking Alexandra Lang style pictures that make you think about Paragon's architecture in new ways. They want a selfie against one of those beautiful bright pink walls that really make a perfect selfie background, it's understandable. And those selfies are consumed by thousands of people on an app, who may or may not have any idea about the real world context.

That picture of your friend in front of a pink wall could be at the Baragon House in Mexico City, or it could be in front of the bright pink wall at the Palsmiss store in Los Angeles. You can get almost the same photo, and you know, Palsmiss has said he was thinking of Baragon pink when he painted that wall. People aren't always posting a photo on Instagram because they're interested in telling the

world about some cool building. Sometimes they're just using some building as a tool to create a cool image. It doesn't necessarily even matter which building they use to do it. And as the number of images grows, they start to lose their connection with the physical world. Just look at what happened to the assemble wall. As more and more people came to the offices, thousands of images of their colorful wall

started to circulate online. And then the architects started noticing the cement tiles appearing as a stock photo, like a generic wallpaper you might use for your desktop or a zoom background. So, well, you can't see the building itself, but you just see a crop of these kind of colorful tiles. And then they noticed that stock photo was actually being printed onto stuff,

laptop cases, and rugs, and picture frames. So I remember being in Copenhagen and seeing someone sitting on the bus there with a phone cover with this building that, you know, we'd built in East London and they have no idea, well, I don't think they would have any idea of the context of where that image has come from. And that's super weird, I think. That's like super weird. And then to make matters weirder, the wall that became a photo became a wall again.

So what we saw then was a request from a, I think it was in a shopping mall in China, and it was the quest to kind of rebuild a part of the wall so that people within this shopping mall could get their photograph taken against this kind of image. So it's almost like they've seen the stock photo and they want to get their photo taken against the stock photo. Wait, so did they build it? Yeah, they built it. Yeah, it was built. And I think if you look on Instagram, you can then see photos of people against that pool. I've seen these photos, and it's just so strange to imagine this journey from architecture to image, to architecture to image. As for the real wall, the yardhouse eventually had to come down when the lease ran out. But it had always been the plan.

They unscrewed the screws, unbolted the bolts, and packed up their building. Assemble, solve the structure. The your house is currently sitting in pieces in storage somewhere in London. So it still exists, but just in just in parts. I asked Joe who they sold it to, but he said it was a secret. I don't think I could tell him anyway. I don't think I can say that.

Yeah. We didn't sell it to Instagram. We didn't sell it to Instagram, We didn't sell it to Instagram. We should have made that offer, I think. Today, Joe and the rest of his colleagues work out of a new office in South London. Although they kept their name, sugar house studios. Which may have been a mistake,

because to this day, people continue to show up unannounced. And it's really, you know, it's quite sad in a way. When someone comes all the way and then they ring the doorbell and they say, like, I'm outside, there's three of us. And, you know, I'm in a wedding dress. And like, we've got our photographer here. It's like, we just want to know where the wall is. And you have to say, oh, unfortunately,

like, we took that down two years ago. As for the old Locke and East London, it looks very different now. Stratford was completely transformed by the Olympics. It's a fancy neighborhood now with boutiques and wine bars. But the old photos are still tagged to the old location. So if you ever see someone wandering around Stratford carrying a pug and looking confused at their phone, don't worry. They're probably just chasing a ghost geotag on the hunt for the most The wall that became a photo, that became a wall, that became a photo, became a blanket. That story.

After this. Okay, so I'm in this video with Emmett Fitzgerald, who reported that story. How you doing? Good. Good. Good. So we, this is where we often have these like little tangents and the story that don't always make it into the story and the code is a good place to do them. So what do you have for us? You know, a funny thing I think about this story for me in general is that this is such a side story for assemble. There's really kind of impressive and cool group of architects, and as I was reading more about them and learning about them, I could have done a bunch of stories about them.

And this felt a funny disservice to them as an organization to do this thing about Instagram. But, you know, but it also is funny, I think, for them that, you know, no matter how many cool projects they do, it's like, it's hard to imagine that they're ever going to design something that gets seen by more people and appreciated in a lot of ways, by more people, at least photographically. Right. Then that wall. And I think that for the most part, Joe Halligan is okay with that. I wonder how many people know it's a building though, or what the building is. I guess that's what's a bit funny about it, isn't it?

It normally gets described as a wall, and I don't think people know that it's like affordable workspace, which is a kind of pilot project for what could happen of the legacy of the Olympics. It could be deployed to allow artists to continue to work in the city. I think it's kind of a shame that all of that stuff gets lost. It just becomes this kind of pretty candy thing. I guess it's nice that people like it I like his attitude about that. I know in general I was just like I was very impressed with Joe's attitude about this whole thing

towards the end of our interview Joe just kind of in the studio in London like I could tell he had pulled out his phone and was scrolling through and looking at some of these pictures. And it's interesting because people, you know, the way Instagram works like a lot of old things will get kind of resurfaced and reposted. So even though the wall in London doesn't is not up anywhere, but the photos of it still kind of tend to resurface on Instagram as if it still was. Right. Um, so as we're scrolling through, he was, you know, coming across all these different photos. Yeah, they're still posting about it, aren't they? Mad, completely mad. There's a wedding here.

Look at that. Unbelievable. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing to see. It brings back memories. Oh memories. And you know most of these photos are kind of what we describe in the piece. It's like either someone standing in front of the wall or jumping or holding a dog or

the baby or just a lot of shots of the wall itself. But as Joe was scrolling through, we came across one that was kind of special. See, look, there it is on a bed sheet. Oh my God, look, that's so cool. So that is the coolest one yet. You've got a feature that this blanket was inspired by the much photographed Tiled Wall at Sugar House Studios. Someone made a quilt of it.

So it's not that it's a print. Someone's actually bought different fabrics and kind of crocheted them together. And what I love, I mean, I just love, you can tell it's just like a little bit enchanted by this. Yeah, totally. It's not the best merch that we would ever be able to make. That's so cool. What is it? Could you show me a picture of it? Yeah, here. Take a look. Oh, it's so cool. What is it? Could you show me a picture of it?

Yeah, here. Take a look. Oh, it's really nice. It's not really a quilt. It's like a crochet blanket. Yeah, I think it's more like a throw blanket on top of your bed. But it's really beautiful. And you can just tell how much work went into making this. Totally. So who made this? So this is someone named Jillian Row

who has the Instagram handle, Tails from a happy house. Tails from a happy house. She's based in Hampshire and it looks like she finished the quilt in September this year. Maybe we'll message her and say that it looks fantastic. In September this year, maybe we'll message her.

And say that it looks fantastic. So I'm not sure if you'll message her, but I did. Oh, that's good. So I DMed her on Instagram and she agreed to chat on the phone. And I called her up. I didn't have a whole lot of questions, but I just wanted to let her know that the people who designed the wall really thought her blanket was really cool. I was talking with one of the designers of the wall and we were scrolling through Instagram. The reason that I found you is that we were scrolling through Instagram together.

We came across your blanket and he was genuinely moved by how beautiful your blanket was. Oh, that's so nice. Oh, I's so nice. Oh, I really tried to tell me that. That's lovely. Yeah. Oh, that's sweet. Oh, I love that.

Yeah, she just seems like a really sweet person. And one thing that I figured out and talking to her was that she had never actually visited the wall. Like her experience of this wall was entirely. So that's a really good screen. Oh, it was only on Instagram. Yeah, no, I've never been there. I'd like to go but I spend time as limited and if I was going to face London for today, there are probably if I'm really honest, other things I'd probably go there to meet a friend or maybe have a day out with my family and if I'm going with my family then I'm not dragging them all to a wall. I'm gonna to go to the Natural History Museum or something, aren't we?

That makes sense. I mean, this one thing is kind of amazing about this. I mean, you could view this, the de-contextualization of the imagery of a piece of architecture in lots of different ways. And I think you could have a kind of a cynical view of it that, like, you know, erasing the meaning of a wall or a building has some negative side effects. But in this case, and probably lots of cases, I mean, this is a pattern that people experienced just through Instagram and gave them joy.

And in this case, you know, another piece of beautiful art was created. And so, you know, it's not like this is negative. This is just what it is. Yeah, and that was like, I think that was like the entire experience of reporting this piece was kind of like being like, is this bad? Is this good?

Is this dystopian? Is it a utopia? You know, like I just like kind of kept going back and forth on that and, you know, in the end, I think it's just like a mixed bag. It's like, there are, there are weird, it's just weird, like's just living in the internet age and trying to interact in the digital and physical world at the same time is just a weird messy thing.

But yeah, I think that this example was for me, a really nice one, whereas here's someone that found something online and made something real in the world out of it. She didn't even have a relationship at the physical place. And Joe and the assemble team could feel mixed about some of the uses, but there's really truly nothing more amazing than being an artist who makes art to inspire other artists to create beautiful things. Totally.

That's the greatest gift in the world. Right, totally. I think that there's nothing negative you could think about this blanket. That's so good. Well, thanks for this little adendum to the story. That's awesome. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

99% Invisible was produced this week by Emmett Fitzgerald, Mix and Tech Production by Shereef Yusuf, Music by Sean Raal. Katie Mingle is our senior producer Kurt Colstad is the digital director, the rest of the team is senior editor Delaney Hall, Vivian Le, Joe Rosenberg, Chris Barouba, Sophia Klatsker, and me, Roman Mars. A stuut listener will notice that for the first time in nearly seven years, Avery Trophiman is missing from this list. If you didn't catch the announcement at the end of her brilliant Articles of Interest series, you should go listen to it, but just know that she is moving on to do some new things, and I'm confident that those projects will be as inspiring and beautiful

and as interesting as all her work has been here at NINI-PI. She brought so much to the show and shaped who we are today in inculcable ways. I know you will miss hearing her stories on the air and just know that we're gonna miss her a thousand times more. Godspeed, Aves. In regard to this episode, special thanks to Diana Buds from Curved and Cooper Rogers. We have a handful of thank yous from the thousands of people who support radiootopia, including Paul Thomas, Ellie Paul, Selena Dixon, Dio Augustus Prime, and Corina Mikutska. We are a project of 91.7K ALW in San Francisco and produced on Radio Row, which is now distributed in multiple

locations around the East Bay, but in our hearts, it will always be. In beautiful. Downtown. Oakland, California. We are a proud member of Radio Topia from PRX, a fiercely independent collective of the most innovative, listener-supported podcasts in the world. Find them all at radiotopia.fm. You can tweet me at Roman Mars in the show at 9.9.pi.org,

or on Instagram and read it too. But if you want old fashioned words to go with your pictures, we got it all at 9.9.pi.org. Radio Tepio from PRX.