Esplanade--Duck on the Bay
"The shape of the external appearance of the building has 'submerged' and 'distorted' its internal structures and function." |
The Big Duck, Long Island. Photograph © Luke W. Cole
by Wong Kok Keong
The Esplanade--Theatres on the Bay opened to much fanfare on 12th October, 2002 in Singapore. As the city-state's S$600 million investment in the arts sector, the Esplanade drew both heavenly praises and heavy criticism from the public. Some, including the government, saw the Esplanade as Singapore's first milestone in the process of becoming a global arts hub, while others lamented that it is nothing but an expensive white elephant. In this paper, I will analyze the Esplanade through the concepts of "ducks" and "decorated sheds" as introduced by the great architects Robert Venturi, Steven Izenour and Denise Scott Brown, in their book Learning from Las Vegas, and show that both the Big Duck, the building analyzed by Venturi, and the Esplanade can be considered "ducks." However, the intrinsic, critical differences between the two buildings will eventually result in them being very different ducks--while the Big Duck capitalizes and focuses on developing and publicizing its form alone, the Esplanade strives to achieve a recognition for its function as much as its form.
Decorated sheds are where "systems of space and structure are directly at the service of the program, and ornament is applied independently of them" (Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour 89). This means that the architectural priority of a decorated shed is to serve the principal purpose of the building, while features that serve other, peripheral objectives are not integral in the structural design of the building. In other words, in this type of building, function precedes form. The shed is not bothered that it is, in Venturi's terms, "ugly and ordinary" (93), as long as it serves its purpose well. Decorations are attached to the building where needed, and they are explicit and separate from its architecture.
By contrast, the duck is a building that has morphed into an ornament, where the decoration is the building. The "architectural systems of space, structure and program are submerged and distorted by an overall symbolic form...building-becoming-sculpture we call the duck in honor of the duck-shaped drive-in, 'The Long Island Duckling'" (89). The duck no longer feels or looks like it is a building, because the key structural elements are concealed within its overall, ornamental form. The shape of the external appearance of the building has "submerged" and "distorted" its internal structures and function - the form has superseded the function.
It is interesting that Venturi chose the Long Island Duckling (or the Big Duck, as the locals call it) in New York as an example of a "building-becoming-sculpture." We are led to speculate: why this building in particular? I think that it is because the Big Duck is the purest form of a duck, and hence a rather obvious and accessible example of a "duck." If we look at the picture of the Big Duck, we see a duck rather than a building, and without any external information, we can never tell what is inside the duck, or what function it serves. The names of the building--whether you call it the Long Island Duckling or the Big Duck--also serve to diminish the importance of the duck's functional element (as it turns out, it is a shop), and instead play up its image. In the names alone, there is not the slightest hint that it is a building that houses a shop--nothing like perhaps "The Long Island Duckling Shop" or "The Big Duck Retails."
The example of the duck is perhaps even more apt than Venturi might have imagined if we take into account the history and development of the Big Duck. At the time the book was written, Venturi chose the Big Duck as an example of a "duck" based only on its architecture. However, if we follow the chronological development of the Big Duck, the example becomes more appropriate. According to the website Long Island Ducks & 'The Big Duck', the Big Duck was built in the 1930s by the Depression-struck farmer, Martin Maurer, to be a retail shop selling fresh ducks and duck eggs to motorists. In 1987, however, the Big Duck was taken over by Suffolk County, and it stopped selling duck produce. The Big Duck now houses a gift shop and a small museum complete with souvenirs with the Big Duck theme. We therefore see a shift in the function of the Big Duck. Its primary function (a building where duck produce is sold) was invaded and taken over by its image: a building shaped like a duck. As the image of the Big Duck flourishes and becomes better known--such as by touristic advertisement, word of mouth and even Venturi's book--the exterior continues to increase in importance. This is in contrast to its original function (duck shop), which remains low-key and largely unpublicized. The form has therefore totally submerged the original function to the point of even distorting it so as to suit the form. Instead of selling duck produce, the building now sells images of the Big Duck. Form has shifted from a secondary, peripheral role to a primary position. This is the extreme case of what Venturi calls a duck--that, in which the symbolic form submerges and distorts the primary architecture. In this case, the takeover is complete, both in terms of architecture and in function--the ultimate distortion.
In this complete supremacy of the image, the Big Duck bears an uncanny resemblance to "the [fictional] most photographed barn in America," as described in Don DeLillo's White Noise, whereby the barn has become a tourist attraction simply because it is the most photographed barn in America. The function is totally overshadowed by its symbolic form as the "most photographed barn in America." People either ignore or forget what the barn is, what it was like before, and how it is similar or different from other barns (13). Similarly, the functions of the Big Duck are shrouded by its external appearance, and people, likewise, forget its original function, and simply focus on its appearance.
next:"The Big Duck, in fact, became a touristy duck..."