New Manifesto

We condemn the ICON;

We condemn ALL ICONIC ARCHITECTURE;

And cannot be silent anymore!

We have no other choice then to finally stop the frivolous use of the icon.

Iconic brands, iconic images, iconic objects, iconic people, iconic events, iconic buildings, iconic cities, iconic everything.

To forever stop this misuse of the Icon and define what actually IS A TRUTH ICON and what IS NOT there is no other way then to go back to its origin.

An EIKON is the visual manifestation of what is not there anymore.

Its presence is a medium that enables the veneration towards the absent, not towards the object itself.

It is referential towards a belief, towards ideas, feelings, memories which it evokes in us.

It is relational and permanent and rewards its veneration.

Our contemporary, commercially infested ICON completely turns its meaning around:

An ICON is the visual manifestation of what is there.

Its presence enables the veneration of itself; it is the pure manifestation of commercial desire towards the object.

It only refers to itself and has no meaning beyond itself.

It is the product of consumer society and therefore non relational, always a passing fad, a new object will replace the prior one as if the former never existed.

We condemn the ICON;

We condemn ALL ICONIC ARCHITECTURE;

We condemn the meaningless object pointing to itself.

We condemn the veneration of the meaningless object.

The Eikon is our new dogma;

And therefore the architectural Eikon is what we want.

To enable the possibility of architecture to become an Eikon it firstly has to move from the state of being solely a building to being an IDOL.

An Idol is the pre stage of an Eikon.

To become an idol the architecture has to be a spectacular event.

A spectacular event that induces a heightened state that can only be experienced in the flesh.

That makes you become part of a unique collective experience.

An event that engenders an altered state, the unfamiliar, the unexpected, the extraordinary, the impressive in scale, the visually exuberant.

An Idol will face a moment of decision weather to become an Icon or an Eikon.

Since we experience architecture through form and event, form is the visual manifestation of the event itself.

Therefore once the event becomes obsolete, through the creation of Icons of the Idol or by preventing the Idol to change itself into an Icon, the form is its representation and opens the possibility for the Idol to cross over to the state of an Eikon.

The form will enable the veneration of the event that is no longer there.

The Eikon will refer and evoke the spectacular event and reward you for your veneration.

We condemn the Icon;

We condemn ALL ICONIC ARCHITECTURE;

We praise the spectacular event.

We praise the ephemeral pleasures.

We praise the Idols decision to become an Eikon.

We praise obsoleteness.

We praise absence.

We praise form as representation of the event.

We praise the arrival of the Eikon.