Short Stories: London in Two-and-a-half Dimensions

Short Stories: London in Two-and-a-half Dimensions
CJ Lim and Ed Liu. Routledge, 2011 (240 pp., $35.95)

With the shockwaves of economic instability still rippling across the globe, architecture seems the least likely safe-haven for inspiring new futures in urbanism. While new and innovative buildings are certainly being proposed, their sociological relevance appears trapped in the conjecture of formal or material speculation, and holds almost no relevance to the societies from which they emerge. The space of globalized capital has rendered the operative functions of the city into a collection of networked environments in which the built environment is increasingly marginalized by technology. However, despite the dematerialization of shared cultural meaning in physical space, the residue of social narrative still clings to the architecture, both new and old, that make up the contemporary city. Bearing this in mind, Short Stories: London in Two-and-a-half Dimensions by CJ Lim and Ed Liu demonstrates nine possible strategies for the contemporary designer to use to fight the vacuum of today's purportedly soulless city, by employing fictional narrative and a delectable array of analytical drawing techniques as its sword.

While architecture's fascination with text and visual narrative are not new to the discipline, Lim and Liu develop a marvelous and articulate argument that will intrigue the casual reader and designer alike. Its obvious postmodern associations aside, Short Stories demonstrates that the monumentality of the city's collective memory endures and remains a relevant body to be catalytically exploited. The book combines verbally entertaining and visually rich fictions set in London's urban geography at various times during its evolution, and which are complimented with pictures of Lim and Liu's mesmerizing analytic maquettes that blur the boundaries between drawing and model.

These fictions include a parliamentary meetinghouse for pigs, a treasure trove for magpies, a baker's garden of scents and textures, all rendered in both stunningly austere line drawings, or intricate models, which themselves lie somewhere between two dimensional drawing and three dimensional physical construction. Lim uses these fictional narratives in order to convey both existing metropolitan ecosystems within London's historical geography, as well as novel ways to re-imagine the notion of a critical architecture in an age where the stability of the shared cultural narrative has been obscured by the heterogeneous chaos of postmodern urban space.

However, this richness of concept is unfortunately undermined by the book's visual flatness. Produced by Routledge in uninspiring black and white, the book is more down-at-heel zine than zippy CMYK studio companion in that it tantalizes the eyes, yet does not provide the visual acuity the mind desires. I expect the actual maquettes are incredible in their scale and attention to detail. Dreams however, are not frequently in black and white, and the projects Lim and Liu produce for Short Stories have a firm foothold in fantasy that begs to be reproduced in glossy CMYK. Perhaps Routledge will consider issuing a second edition which will have full color images to compliment the authors stimulating textual details and inspiring modeling techniques. I would hope so, for the stories they weave are too priceless to be left a shimmering mirage on the crummy boulevards or turgid waterways of London's metropolitan fabric.

The recent riots in London are a particularly relevant example of the prevalent challenges facing the architect's work in the contemporary city. While the city's boosters may try to erase London's industrialized working class past with acts of architectural acrobatics in preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games, CJ Lim and Ed Liu remind us in Short Stories that this dynamic urban organism, which has been home to so many writers, artists, and other creative minds, stands as a testament to the messy sediment of time and place; qualities that still may hold some relevant projective grist for the architect who wishes to make a lasting difference in the city of tomorrow, rather than a disposable sound-bite for the city of today.

John Southern is the principal of Urban Operations and is a Professor of Practice at Woodbury University in Los Angeles, Calif.