Negroni Talks #48 Pressing Problems

The Negroni Talks – hosted by architects Fourthspace and sponsored by Campari – were set up to capture the lively and provocative debates that took place in the European café culture of the early twentieth century - .

Architects don’t just design buildings, they also ‘craft narratives’ to help explain them. Storytelling and the art of telling a good story plays an important role in successfully getting permissions and selling ideas to clients.

This frequently involves some weird and wonderful language that pushes the boundaries of believability and comprehension, in both fellow professionals and the wider public. An eagerness to describe projects as a great thing for everyone can often make claims that buildings are reinventing typologies and reshaping human behaviour. Add the fairy dust of PR spin into the mix and you have a perfect storm of bold claims and obfuscation.

But what of the media? Are they immune from the puff and self-promotion, or are they complicit in a world of transactional communications? It seems that the answer is a little of both, as resources are stretched and journalist numbers dwindle in an ever-encroaching world of automation and low fees. Can the critic truly criticise without the proper backing of their media-empire owners? Should we critique the level of criticism? How investigative is journalism? Who and what gets promoted and why?

Architects expend huge amounts of energy on their projects and naturally seek to gain as much coverage as possible to help bolster their reputation and secure new business. However, not everything can get published and practices are often met by a wall of resounding silence when pushing their work out there. In a visual and aesthetically driven world, it can seem that striking shapes and colours will pretty much guarantee exposure over social purpose, spatial subtlety and less obvious agendas.

Questions remain about how successfully the architectural press furthers the understanding of building design and elicits emotional connections with its audience. Furthermore, who is that audience and how much of an attempt is there to connect with those outside the architectural community in the arena of our broader cultural landscape?

Architecture and the media co-exist in a dysfunctional relationship. Should we forget traditional modes of publication and look toward more immediate and engaging platforms such as TikTok or Instagram? What happens when the only reporting on buildings comes from the makers and not those trained to see through the bullshit?

Speakers:

Oliver Wainwright, Guardian

Carolyn Larkin, Caro Communications

Nyima Murry, writer and filmmaker

Patrick Lynch, Lynch Architects

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

FORNO, 322 Andrews Road, London, United Kingdom