Proto-fotografie dei progetti d’architettura come immagini iconiche del futuro

To photograph the space and how it is articulated into the architecture, this is, without doubt, one of the main problems that architects meet when presenting their projects, especially on websites. In order to prefigure a building or an architectural or urban complex, it is common practice to use proto-photographical images that allow a layman’s, not necessarily technical, understanding of the previewed architecture. Replacing, in several respects, the role of technical drawings or graphic interpretations, these images, called renders, are computer-graphic modelling images that simulate a pseudo-documentary reproduction of the future realisation. These images create expectations in the mind of individuals’ ideas of what the future of architecture projects should look like. They exploit plausible effects to create these expectations in the client and the public and build a visual imagery of the project. Without pretending to be neither true nor hiding the obvious manipulation of the real in the representation, these images play in a deviant manner in regard to the iconic question. In a tricky semiotic position, they operate as icons of the future.