Breaking the

Myth

First of all we should explain this two concepts that seem to be opposed, as tradition is “a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, sill

maintained in the present, with origins in the past” and innovation, coming from the latin “innovare” meaning “to renew or change”.

So far, it is clear that the two terms are linked, but could they coexist together?

Tradition

Innovation

Breaking the Myth:Tradition & Innovation

1

�ere has been thousands of pieces of architecture �ltered through the media with di�erent purposes, but we will focus on this example.

At �rst sight we can just see two silhouettes, one car, and two buildings with no more meaning than the idea that each word represents.

On a second level we perceive that the car takes up less room in the ad than the silhouettes, and the buildings but still is the more de�ned and attracting element. Getting deeper on this level we can achieve the idea of quality vs. quantity, no necessarily the biggest has to be better and we

could even introduce the idea of Mies Van der Rohe of “Less is more”, the most appealing object in the image is the smallest one.

Silhouette 1

Silh

ouet

te 1

Seattle Library

Seat

tle L

ibra

ry

Silhouette 2

Silh

ouet

te 2

Building

Build

ing

Car

Car

Diagram of the Space taken in the Ad

2

Focusing the analysis on the building, we realise that it is not a common building like the one on the back, it is the Seattle Central Library by

OMA, the innovation of this building is absorbed by the car, but wait, is this really innovative? Breaking all the rules?

No, it is made by pure geometrical shapes (rectangles) joined together by the envelope that is just a line from corner to corner.

Why then choosing this building when we have much more innovative

designs like Frank Ghery with the Walt Disney Concert Hall for example?

3

�e answer is easy, because that it is not the image that they want to relate with this car that hasn’t changed almost for the past 10 years.

We need to dive deeper inside to �nd that there is something hidden behind, there is still the idea of less is more, having a “traditional” or let’s say, a not highly innovative façade doesn’t mean that it is not innovative,

because it doesn’t need to show it with aggressive exterior design, it is better than that.

�e architects conceived the new Central Library building as a celebra-tion of books, OMA wanted to let the building's functions dictate what

it should look like.

�e innovation in inside, or behind.

5

�e importance of the building is the function, OMA based the design on de�ning areas, how will they be connected, how everything work

together and when they reached a perfect system, they clad it in a subtle dress.

One step further than Mies with the Barcelona pavilion, he reached the perfect system but he innovated highlighting this system by cladding only with precious materials empowering the beauty of the system,

OMA believes even more in the beauty of their system, they based the innovation in no innovating, traditional geometries and shapes could

reach greater levels of complexity and innovation but we need to unmask it, if we look through the veil they put on their building we will

see that the real importance is not outside but inside, it is not on the façade but in the system, it is not in the universal but the particular, it is

not on the car but in the engine.