Underwear

Do you ever have one of those days where you don't even bother to put on more than underwear and a t-shirt? Ever have a lazy Sunday where you just feel like letting it all hang out? So did architecture, except their lazy Sunday was more of a lazy 1980's, the period of "high-tech" architecture, a sort of bare-bones, architectural underwear phase. Architects like Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, and Renzo Piano were like the underwear models of the architecture world. They through the thick facades of the post-modernist movement to the winds, and strutted their internal structures down the architectural catwalks.
But the thing about underwear models is, they're usually sexy. Foster, Rogers, and Piano were able to strip away the outer layers of a building to reveal the (sometimes) beauty underneath. Like the earlier style of brutalism (that's another post), high-tech used the intricate beauty of a building's internal structure on the outside. When most people go out in public, they tend to cover up with layers of clothing. While these facades can be beautiful too, there are some who are just as, if not more beautiful when they show a little skin.
Take the Centre Georges Pompidou in Beaubourg, Paris. This, the most famous example houses a massive library and a center for musical studies. It was designed by the legendary Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers and is the epitome of architecture in its underwear. The Dynamic Duo of High-Tech super-stardom designed the building inside-out. All of the plumbing, cooling, heating, electrical, and escalator systems were placed on the outside of the building, surrounded by much of the exposed structure. In my opinion, it's beautiful, but the neighbors disagreed. It remains one of the most hated buildings in Paris, alongside L'Arc de la Defense and the Montparnasse Tower. It's easy to understand where they're comin from. When you see someone walking down the streets in their underwear, your first reaction is generally shock. It's very difficult to have a conversation with someone like that, so it must be difficult for the people of Paris to have to see it every day.

Sadly, though, for anyone who liked that picture of Mr. Beckham and his lady friend, this concept of inside out did not really come from an Armani catalog. It came from insects. You've probably heard of the term exoskeleton. Unlike our internal bone structure, insects' bones are on the outside. This acts as armor as well as serving various sensory and excretion purposes. For bugs, it's more efficient to have their structure on the outside, leaving more room in the already limited space for other important things. This is exactly the thinking behind High-Tech architecture.

I pass another Renzo Piano building every day. It's the new design building at the University of New Mexico. It's a bit less flashy than the Pompidou, but it follows the same concept. Rather than covering up the sandstone-colored concrete, he left it exposed, giving the building a more raw and industrial feel than if it had been painted or covered.
You may have heard of another High-Tech building and not even known it. The World Trade Center in New York had much of its load-bearing structure on the outside, but it did so in a way that made it generally unnoticeable.
Personally, I prefer more organic forms like those of Zaha Hadid or the timeless Frank Gehry. Perhaps the reason that High-Tech never really caught on is the fact that often, it's better to leave a little to the imagination, just like in fashion. So whether you're an architect or a teenage boy, think twice before you walk outside in your boxers.