Architectural Smoke and Mirrors

A great magician never reveals their secrets, just as a mediocre architect sometime uses a slight of hand to cover pretty bad building. A young child often sits in the front row for a magic show and is amazed and asks themselves how did they do that? Recently I walked past a building in downtown in Salt Lake City, Utah and I too asked myself how did they do that? How did they use “smoke and mirrors” to make a terrible building look somewhat presentable?
At first I glanced at this building and thought it looked kind of nice. I quickly had a double take and realized it is not that great, in fact, it is really pretty bad. Mentally I stripped the granite stone base and the aluminum shading shelves from the façade, and all I had left was this turquoise box that really belongs nestled in some industrial park. I have shown a picture of the front side (the decorated side) and the back side, which would be if the magicians trick went bad and they could make the rabbit disappear.














I see this often in custom homes. As I walk through an open house I often times over hear how great and wonderful it is, sometimes I have to think to myself “am I in the same house as these people!” These people are like the audience in a magic act; they just see flashy/trendy materials, bright colors, or unique fixtures and furnishings. The things that are being overlooked (the slight of hand) are imbalanced forms, mismatched adjacencies of space, bad interaction with the site, poor use of texture, no visual depth, a confusing entry sequence, or terrible circulation.
Don’t get me wrong, materials and unique finishes are great as long as they correlate with the other elements of the building and they don’t try to cover up the bad things. Just like this public building, it has some great materials, but it can’t cover up the poor color selection, the terrible visual depth, or the bad use of windows on the South and West side. Great architecture involves many aspects and can’t be just some magic trick used to deceive.