Re-imaging Place: The Eidetic Image and Vancouver’s UrbanLandscape

By
Jay Gazley
BFA, Ontario College of Art and Design, 2005

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTERS OF APPLIED ART
in
Visual Arts

EMILY CARR INSTITUTE OF ART + DESIGN
2008

© Jay Gazley, 2008

Re-imaging place: The Eidetic Image and Vancouver’s Urban-Landscape

Abstract
In this paper I explore the eidetic image as it relates to the rethinking and imaging of
architectural and urban planning concerns. An eidetic image is produced through
drawing, painting, modeling, mapping, and/or computer animation from which artists,
designers and architects may conduct research into complex spatiality that challenges the
passive Cartesian mode of picturing prevalent in both architecture and painting
conventions. The term eidetic generally refers to mental imagery, “which are revived
versions of [ . . . ] impressions called up by the imagination in the absence of the objects
that originally stimulated them...” (Mitchell, Iconology 10). Which is not to say that all
eidetic imagery must be recalled from memory. Within the context of this paper, an
eidetic image is a visual model constructed by an artist, or designer. In his essay, “Eidetic
Operations and New Landscapes” landscape architect James Corner calls on researchers
to use this imaging methodology as a means of stimulating discourse, creative invention,
and actualizing emergent realities.

In his seminal work, “The Image of the City” Kevin Lynch categorizes the contents of the
imageable city into five types of architectural components: paths, edges, districts, nodes,
and landmarks (46). A summary of what those components are and how they function
within the urban-landscape will be provided. In addition to Lynch’s five categories, I
address the phenomena of pictorial architecture. Pictorial architecture refers to the

II

ubiquitous application of two-dimensional graphic imagery onto three-dimensional
architectural structures in the form of retail signage, large-format television screens, and
billboards. The thesis of my proposal is that, an artist, designer or architect may use the
operational language of Lynch’s five architectural components, and pictorial architecture,
within eidetic imagery, as a means of describing the contemporary urban-landscape.

To elaborate how architectural components may be deployed in eidetic imagery I will
review the works of contemporary artists such as Zaha Hadid, Benjamin Edwards, and
Julie Mehretu who specifically deal with the urban-landscape. In addition, I have
constructed my own eidetic image, Dream City: Vancouver (2008) and will describe my
methodological approach towards urban exploration and image building. In relation to the
exploration of cities, the works of The Situationist International and Franz Ackermann
will also be discussed.

III

Re-imaging place: The Eidetic Image and Vancouver’s Urban-Landscape

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………….….……… ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………….….….……iv
LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………..…..………vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………..….……...viii

1

CHAPTER 1: Introduction.………………...….…..…………………………….1
1.1 The Eidetic Image………………...…….………….………………………...6
1.2 The City as Image……….....……………………….……………………….10
1.3 Images in the City: Pictorial Architecture and the Spectacle……………….14
1.4 Imageability……………………...…….………….………………………...17
1.5 Historical Precedents: Suprematism, Constructivism, and Neoplasticism….22
1.6 Zaha Hadid………...……………...…….………….……………………......23
1.7 Benjamin Edwards….……………...…….……...…….…………………….27
1.8 Julie Mehretu………………...…….…………………………………..........31

2

CHAPTER 2.………………………..……………….……….………………….35
2.1 Reconfiguring Vancouver …………………..…….………………………….35
2.2 Urban Exploration…………….……………………………………………...36

IV

2.3 Painting Methodology……………………………….…….....…….....………42
2.4 Conclusion…………………………………………………..…...……...……44

WORK CITED
(MLA)………….……………………………………………………….………………..46
WORK CONSULTED
(MLA)…….…………………………………………………………….………………..48

V

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Jay Gazley, Dream City: Vancouver (in progress), 2008, ink, spray paint, and
acrylic on canvas, 72 x 56 inches…………………………………...………....…3
Figure 2 Jay Gazley, Vancouver, 2007-2008, digital photographs……………………......5
Figure 3 Zaha Hadid and Neutral, Video Painting Zaha Hadid, 1999, Computer
Animation, Courtesy Neutral…………………………………………………...…8
Figure 4 Times Square, New York City; Times Square, New York City; Osaka, Japan;
Tokyo, Japan; Welcome sign, Las Vegas; Las Vegas Strip…………..…………15
Figure 5 Zaha Hadid, Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati 1999-2003;
Will Alsop, Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto 2001-2004; Frank Gehry,
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao 1991-1997; Rem Koolhaas, Public Library, Seattle
2000-2004; Norman Foster, Swiss Re Headquarters, London 2000-2004; and
Daniel Libeskind, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto 2002-2007………………...20
Figure 6 Kasimir Malevich, Black Cross, 1923, oil on cavas, 106 x 106.5 cm, Image
public domain; El Lissitzky, Proun 99, 1924-5, water soluble and metallic paint
on wood, 129 x 99 cm, Courtesy Yale University Art Gallery; Piet Mondrian,
Trafalgar Square, 1939-43, oil on canvas, 145.2 x 120 cm, Courtesy MOMA,
New York………………………………………………………………………...22
Figure 7 Zaha Hadid, The World: 89 Degrees, 1983, acrylic on canvas, 184 x 213 cm;
Zaha Hadid, The Peak: Hong Kong, 1983, acrylic on canvas, 185 x 282 cm; Zaha
Hadid, Malevich’s Tektonik, 1976-1977, acrylic on canvas, Courtesy Zaha Hadid
Architects………………………………………………………………………..24

VI

Figure 8 Zaha Hadid, Aerial Perspective: Painting, 1993, acrylic on canvas, Courtesy
Zaha Hadid Architects……………….………………………………………….25
Figure 9 Zaha Hadid and Neutral, JVC Hotel, 2001, computer animation, Courtesy
Neutral………………………………………………………………….……….26
Figure 10 Benjamin Edwards, Convergence, 2000-2001, 2001, acrylic, texture media,
foam and spray paint on canvas, 97 x 145 inches, Courtesy Benjamin
Edwards……………………………………………………………………...…...28
Figure 11 Benjamin Edwards, New York Ramble, 2002, acrylic, texture media and foam
on canvas, 36 x 50 inches; Benjamin Edwards, The Monuments of Passaic, 2002,
acrylic, texture media and foam on canvas, 59 1/4 x 49 ½ inches, Courtesy
Benjamin Edwards……………………………………..………………………...30
Figure 12 Julie Mehretu, Congress, 2003, ink and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 96 inches; Julie
Mehretu, Looking Back to a Bright New Future, 2003, ink and acrylic on canvas,
95 x 119 inches, Courtesy Julie Mehretu………...………………………………31
Figure 13 Julie Mehretu, Stadia Series, 2004, ink and acrylic on canvas, 108 x 144 inches
(each), Courtesy Julie Mehretu……………………………..…………………....33
Figure 14 Jay Gazley, Dream City: Vancouver, detail (in progress), 2008, ink, spray
paint, and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 56 inches……………………………...……...36
Figure 15 Franz Ackermann, Helicopter xvi (On the balconey), 2001, oil on canvas, 287
x 278 cm; Franz Ackermann, Amaryllis, 2003, oil on canvas, 235 x 325 cm,
Courtesy Franz Ackermann……………………………………………………...39
Figure 16 Jay Gazley, Vancouver, 2007-2008, digital photographs……………………..41

VII

Figure 17 Jay Gazley, Dream City: Vancouver, detail (in progress), 2008, ink, spray
paint, and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 56 inches…………………………...………...43

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Diyan Achjadi, Patrik Andersson, Jordan Broadworth, Neil
Campbell, Patrick Chan, Benjamin Edwards, Anda Kubis, Keith Langergraber, Landon
Mackenzie,

and

Elizabeth

McIntosh

for

their

guidance

and

support.

VIII

Re-imaging place: The Eidetic Image and Vancouver’s Urban-Landscape

Chapter 1
Introduction
In my painting practice I explore the eidetic image as it relates to the rethinking and
imaging of architectural and urban planning concerns. An eidetic image is produced
through drawing, painting, modeling, mapping, and/or computer animation from which
artists, designers and architects may conduct research into complex spatiality that
challenges the passive Cartesian mode of picturing prevalent in both architecture and
painting conventions. In his essay, “Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes” landscape
architect James Corner describes the eidetic image and calls on designers to use this
imaging methodology as a means of stimulating discourse, creative invention, and
actualizing emergent realities.

I use the term eidetic here to refer to a mental conception that may be
picturable but may equally be acoustic, tactile, cognitive, or intuitive. Thus,
unlike the purely retinal impressions of pictures, eidetic images contain a broad
range of ideas that lie at the core of human creativity. Consequently, how one
“images” the world literally conditions how reality is both conceptualized and
shaped. That representation exercises such agency and effect is precisely why
images in design cannot properly be considered as mute or neutral depictions
of existing or projected conditions of secondary significance to their object; on

1

the contrary, eidetic images are much more active than this, engendering,
unfolding, and participating in emergent realities. (153)

The term eidetic generally refers to mental imagery or the “…sensible forms… which
(according to Aristotle) emanate from objects and imprint themselves on the wax-like
receptacles of our senses like a signet ring; the fantasmata, which are revived versions of
those impressions called up by the imagination in the absence of the objects that
originally stimulated them...” (Mitchell, Iconology 10). Which is not to say that all eidetic
imagery must be recalled from memory. Within the context of this paper, an eidetic
image is a visual model constructed by an artist, or designer. The resulting image is
similar to those recalled from memory in that it maintains a degree of semi-abstraction.
An eidetic image does not present a representational copy, as does a photograph or a
traditional landscape painting. An effective image maintains a balance between the
artistic and the technical, as well as the abstract and the representational (Corner 164).

According to Corner, eidetic images are intended to inspire ideation and provide new
models for understanding the urban-landscape as active potential, as opposed to
traditional Cartesian models of passive picturing. Distinctions between the eidetic method
of imaging, and the Cartesian mode of picturing will be made.

2

Figure 1 Jay Gazley, Dream City: Vancouver (in progress), 2008, ink, spray paint and acrylic on canvas, 72
x 56 inches.

In his seminal work, “The Image of the City” Kevin Lynch categorizes the contents of the
imageable city into five types of architectural components: paths, edges, districts, nodes,
and landmarks (46). A summary of what those components are and how they function
within the urban-landscape will be provided. In addition to Lynch’s five categories, I
address the phenomena of pictorial architecture. Pictorial architecture refers to the
ubiquitous application of two-dimensional graphic imagery onto three-dimensional
architectural structures in the form of retail signage, large-format television screens, and
billboards. By utilizing the descriptive capacity of Lynch’s five components, and pictorial

3

architecture, within eidetic imagery, researchers may develop an operational language
capable of describing the contemporary urban-landscape.

The effectiveness of architectural components to assist urban inhabitants in navigation,
and to create strong connections between different urban elements is related to the ability
of inhabitants to form strong mental images of structures (Corner 9). Examples of highly
imageable architectural components will be considered including those found at New
York’s Times Square, as well as iconic forms of architecture.

In the development of a visual language to be deployed by researchers, the geometric
languages of Suprematism, Constructivism, and Neoplasticism may be used in eidetic
imagery. To elaborate how the practice of painting can become eidetic I will review the
works of contemporary artists such as Zaha Hadid, Benjamin Edwards, and Julie Mehretu
who specifically deal with urbanism.

In addition, I have constructed my own eidetic image, Dream City: Vancouver, (2008).
An essential component of my research is the fieldwork phase in which I explore and
photograph a city’s architectural-landscape. Photographs taken at this time are later used
as resource material during the painting process. The departure point for the eidetic image
Dream City: Vancouver, as well as the subsequent series of paintings, is that each
painting will focus on the exploration of a particular urban-centre. The purpose of my
paintings is to create visual models for the rethinking and reconfiguration of specific
cities, based on a subjective logic derived from urban exploration.

4

Figure 2 Jay Gazley, Vancouver, 2007-2008, digital photographs.

From a performative perspective, the act of urban exploration relates to various other
forms of spatial movement. The physical acts of skateboarders, parkour acrobats,
rollerbladers, and bike couriers engage the urban-landscape physically, and
psychologically. In “Placing Words: Symbols, Space, and the City”, William J. Mitchell
states that:

Just as Baudelaire personified the flaneur as a self-effacing painter slipping in
and out of the Parisian crowds, then returning to his studio to jot down
sketches, so the Spiderman movies have provided the apotheosis of the
traceur. Spiderman is a kid from the suburbs, but he loves the close-packed
towers of Manhattan and the vertiginous perches they provide. Underneath his
spiffy spandex and mask, he is just a shy and insecure teenager who,

5

appealingly, yearns for the usual teenage things. But he can also become - like
the dandy Baudelaire putting on his pink gloves to strut the boulevards - a
confident urban performance artist who inhabits the city in a new way, and lets
the rest of us imagine that we might do so too. (Mitchell, Placing 157)

By physically testing the boundaries and conventional uses of an urban-landscape,
inhabitants may come to a more informed understanding of the adaptive potential of the
city and its structures. In relation to spatial exploration, the works of The Situationist
International and Franz Ackermann will be discussed.

The Eidetic Image
Within a contemporary context, the term landscape refers to more than Nature and is
inclusive of the urban realm. Landscapes are fields composed of constantly shifting
connections between temporal as well as spatial environments (Chan). In James Corner’s
essay, “Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes” he states:

Indeed, the development of landscape architecture as a modern profession
derives, in large measure, from an impulse to reshape large areas of land
according to prior imaging. Not only is a collective recognition of land as
landscape made possible through exposure to prior images (a phenomenon
central to both spectacle and tourist landscapes) but also the ability to
intentionally construe and construct designed landscapes is enabled through
various forms and activities of imaging. (153)

6

The process of architectural planning has historically taken many forms, including
isometric drawings, floor plans, and aerial-perspectives. Traditionally these renderings
conform to single point perspective, employ a pictorial vocabulary of representation, and
convey geographically and temporally static landscapes. Contemporary techniques for
landscape development may attempt to transcend pictorial representation and the
objectification of landscape as a passive ingredient.

In defining eidetic imagery, a distinction can be made between depictions that follow the
Cartesian mode of picturing and those of eidetic operations that focus on imaging. The
Cartesian model of representation presents the urban-landscape as a passive scenographic
object that may be easily deciphered and immediately intelligible (Corner 163). In
contrast, the eidetic image avoids immediacy, and reductionism, and does not suppose the
didactics of any definitive truth. An eidetic image presents the viewer with a complex
visual puzzle or composite montage containing multiple layers of information.

7

Figure 3 Zaha Hadid and Neutral, Video Painting Zaha Hadid, 1999, Computer Animation, Courtesy
Neutral.

The above computer animation was created by the London based digital media
collaboration Neutral, for architect Zaha Hadid. In Video Painting Zaha Hadid, Neutral
translates the two-dimensional space of Zaha Hadid’s paintings into an animated threedimensional spatial exploration.

It is essential that the process of translating imagery maintains a degree of openendedness and that it requires interactivity and engagement on behalf of the viewer. If the
image becomes too didactic or explicit in its meaning the potential for multiple
interpretations will be diminished. The viewer may engage equally with the criticism,

8

text, and discourse that surround eidetic imagery. The image therefore mediates the
process of engagement for the viewer, and functions as a catalyst for ideation. Through a
cyclical process of interactivity that involves: engagement with, and departure from the
image; and engagement with criticism, text, discourse, and the urban-landscape; as well
as a return to the image; the viewer’s understanding of the image and the urban-landscape
evolves over time.

An eidetic image may function to convey the urban-landscape as a complex and dynamic
system that is in constant flux. In my eidetic painting Dream City: Vancouver, I have
reconfigured divergent spatio-temporal architectural components from Vancouver’s
urban-landscape. The city can thus be viewed in terms of active potential, and this
potential is expressed through the open-ended vocabulary of the image (Corner 164). In
“Learning from Las Vegas”, authors Venturi, Brown, and Izenour state that:

An image employed by a designer should be something very evocative,
something that does not limit by being too defined and too concrete, yet helps
the designer think of the city in physical terms. (82)

The creator of an eidetic image draws upon language, meaning, and interpretation as a
catalyst for ideation relating to architectural and urban-planning concerns. To facilitate
the process of imaging a city, its parts may be geometrically reduced to a series of
symbols or categories of architectural components that can, in-turn, be imbued with
meaning by artists, designers, and architects, as well as viewers. The stripping-down of

9

components into abstract notations limits the possibility of creating an over determined
image of the Cartesian variety. The process of abstracting architectural components may
be assisted through the use of vocabularies derived from Suprematism, Constructivism,
and Neoplasticism.

The City as Image
When depicting cities, conventional rendering methods primarily focus on the exteriors
and interiors of architectural components as dichotomized aspects. An eidetic image can
function to visualize relationships between exteriors and interiors, as well as non-material
aspects such as program, atmospheric changes, and humanly traffic. Researchers may
challenge Cartesian picturing conventions by simultaneously engaging with architectural
exteriors and interiors, hence disrupting the harmony of the picturesque view composed
of groomed exteriors (Chan).

It is important to recognize that the city is not only composed of architectural structures,
but also inhabited by organic life forms such as vegetation, domestic pets, wildlife, and of
course humans. Since my work is primarily concerned with the exploration of human
architectural constructs, humans will be discussed as viewers, rather than objects to be
viewed. The imageable urban-landscape, as it relates to this paper, is therefore limited to
architectural components.

The urban-landscape may be viewed as a grouping of images that collectively constitutes
our understanding of the city. What then are the various architectural components that

10

form the urban-landscape? In Kevin Lynch’s, “The Image of the City” he differentiates
the elements of the imageable city into five types: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and
landmarks (46). The following is a definition of these five components:

1. Paths. Paths are streets, pedestrian walkways, cycling lanes, streetcar routes, subway
lines, railway lines, canals, and bridges. These pathways create the dominant trajectory
that we most often travel on in the city (47). Paths are instrumental in facilitating the
unfolding of the urban-landscape. Ones’ choice of path and mode of transportation will
be an essential factor in determining the imageability of other architectural components.
For example, an inhabitants’ choice of path and mode of transport will not only
determine their trajectory, but also the speed in which they travel. Ones’ rate of speed
consequently alters the cadence in which architectural structures pass by the viewer.
Speed is therefore a determining factor in the rhythmic unfolding of imagery, in turn
effecting imageability. In suburbia, for instance, the landscape is divided into functionally
homogeneous zones and the distance between regions is such that an automobile is
required. However, in mixed-use, high-density urban regions, pedestrian or bicycle
pathways may be preferred due to the relatively short distances between destinations.

2. Edges. “Edges are the linear elements not used or considered as paths by the observer”
(47). Edges mark the borderline between two different fields of urban construct, or
function. An edge demarcates the boundary between two zones, such as a set of railway
tracks that divide an industrial park from a residential neighborhood. Edges can act to

11

isolate and dichotomize regions or conversely create a seam of connectivity that joins two
areas. Edges may then be agents of connective as well as disconnective potential (47).

An example of a highly imageable edge is the immense grey wall of buildings that rises
up along the green of Central Park on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The close juxtaposition
between the verticality of the buildings, and the horizontal expanse of the park creates a
highly imageable, and memorable experience (100).

3. Districts. Districts are established when medium-to-large-scale regions of the city
share recognizably common visual characteristics, such as, architectural types, and
various symbolic indicators in billboards, and storefronts (47). Architectural distinctions
in style, colour, and material may create visibly unique districts. In addition to
architectural indicators, cultural characteristics such as language-use may signify
functional or thematic continuity and homogeneity in socio-political aspects including
ethnicity, sexual orientation, and class. Common forms of urban districts include
financial centres, consumer districts, industrial parks, and diaspora communities (67).

4. Nodes. Nodes are focal points which inhabitants may enter spatially as well as
psychologically. Entrance into a node signifies a heightened sense of clarity and arrival
for the urban inhabitant (47). Nodes are destinations that constitute the nexus of urban
cohesion. They are the points of gravity to which paths facilitate movement to and fro.
Nodes may range in scale from a street corner, square, building, to a district, or from a

12

provincial or national perspective, they may be an entire city (72). A highly connected
city relies on the effective weaving of connective nodes throughout the urban-landscape.

5. Landmarks. “Landmarks are another type of point-reference, but in this case the
observer does not enter within them, they are external” (48). Inhabitants, therefore
predominantly identify with the exteriors of landmarks. The defining physical
characteristic of a landmark is that of singularity. A landmark must be distinguishable
from other elements, in that it is unique and memorable (78). Examples of landmarks
include iconic forms of architecture such as domes, towers, and tall buildings.

Landmarks can serve to assist in spatial navigation, as they are often visible from great
distances. When this is the case, inhabitants refer to landmarks as possessing “a peculiar
floating quality”. They tend to identify almost exclusively with the tops of landmarks
rather than their bottoms (81). Landmarks need not be large; they can be smaller more
intimate elements within a region of homogeneously large structures. The key factor in
recognizing an architectural component as a landmark is visual differentiation.

It is essential to note that the classification of architectural components may be
ambiguous and in flux, as many components operate on multiple levels. The status of an
architectural component as a path, edge, district, node, or landmark may be
interchangeable. Images may simultaneously function as more than one type of
component. Taking the example of Central Park, Fifth Avenue is a path that contains

13

nodes, as well as an edge that demarcates the boundary between two districts (Lynch 48).
Classification is also dependant on interpretation and may vary from person-to-person.

The creator of an eidetic image can further challenge the Cartesian mode of picturing by
intentionally confusing relationships between Lynch’s five architectural components. In
doing so, the imageable city is spurred towards a rethinking instead of a reiteration of the
perfect skyline (Chan).

Images in the City: Pictorial Architecture and the Spectacle
In addition to Lynch’s five categories of architectural components, the urban-landscape is
increasingly becoming a context for the display of pictorial imagery. While architecture
has been identified as imagery, it has also become a foundation for the application of
additional pictorial imagery in the form of signage, large-format television screens, and
billboards. In W.J.T. Macarthur’s essay, “The Image as an Architectural Material” he
states that architecture “exists in the medium of space; painting, printing, photography,
and film exist in the medium of images [ . . . ] We identify an image as such when we
recognize that it supposes (but does not possess) a spatial depth” (Macarthur 676).
Pictorial architecture brings attention to the spatial ambiguity that exists between threedimensional architecture, and two-dimensional graphic imagery. From a modernist
perspective, this ambiguity threatens the materiality of buildings, since architecture is
considered to be a purely spatial art form. That said, my interest is not to debate the
boundaries of architecture as a purely spatial art form or the legitimacy of imagery as an

14

architectural material. The intention is to note the increasing presence of pictorial
architecture within the urban-landscape.

Of course, historically speaking, commercial buildings have always displayed some form
of signage. The thesis of Macarthur’s argument is that traditionally “the image has been a
technique or tool of architecture, whereas now it has become a material’’(Macarthur 674).
This shift has occurred primarily as a result of the mercantile imperatives of contemporary
consumer culture. The image dense landscapes of New York’s Times Square, Shanghai’s
Nanjing Road, Tokyo’s Akihabara Electric Town, and the Las Vegas strip are the
apotheosis of this phenomena. In each case it is the competing ambitions of capitalist
agenda’s that fuel this development, turning segments of the city into multi-media vistas
and consumer culture theme parks. These landscapes are collaged with a complex barrage
of floating graphics, neon logos, electric emblems shouting with decadent vitality – the
harbingers of a bloated consumer utopia.

15

Figure 4 Times Square, New York City; Times Square, New York City; Osaka, Japan; Tokyo, Japan;
Welcome sign, Las Vegas; Las Vegas Strip.

The consumer billboard no longer indicates the availability of a particular product within
a particular store. The ubiquitous placement of billboards signifies the dislocation of
signage from storefronts or specific geographical loci. The commercial sign has become
an a-geographical indicator as it reflects the nature of consumer culture. That is to say the
products these images represent have become ever-present and readily available,
resulting in a heavily saturated geography of consumerability.

The torrent of imagery currently cascading over the buildings of Times Square brings the
world of the fashion magazine, the Internet, and the music video into the public
architectural realm. These images do not merely signal the potential to consume a
product; they are, themselves, a product for consumption. Guy Debord refers to this
culture of image consumption as “the society of the spectacle.”

Debord’s analysis is based on the everyday experience of the impoverishment
of life, its fragmentation into more separate spheres, and the disappearance of
any unitary aspects from society. The spectacle consists in the reunification of
separate aspects at the level of the image. Everything life lacks is to be found
within the spectacle, conceived of as an ensemble of independent
representations. (Jappo 6)

16

The imagery of the spectacle does not, however, satisfy the viewer’s appetite for the
existential amalgamation of disparate experiences. Instead, the spectacle offers a mere
vicarious unification of life’s segregated aspects that is insubstantial and fleeting.

Contemporary signage no longer just posses representations of something else; in other
words, they do not just sell products. Electronic signage becomes part of the
architectonics of the city; they affect the city not only spatially and commercially but also
psychologically. Upon interacting with signage, urban inhabitants may alter the way they
think of their lives and thus indirectly affect the way they live in the city. Signage has an
effect on the way urban inhabitants construct their lives (Chan).

Imageability
Through the pairing of Lynch’s five components, and pictorial architecture, an artist,
designer or architect may develop an operational language, within eidetic imagery,
capable of describing the contemporary urban-landscape. According to Lynch,
architectural components function with varying degrees of success in their ability to form
memorable mental images in the minds of urban inhabitants. Lynch terms the process of
image recognition as imageability:

…that quality in a physical object which gives it a high probability of evoking
a strong image in any given observer. It is that shape, color, or arrangement
which facilitates the making of vividly identified, powerfully structured, highly
useful mental images of the environment. It might also be called legibility, or

17

perhaps visibility in a heightened sense, where objects are not only able to be
seen, but are presented sharply and intensely to the senses. (9)

Imageability is dependant on the clarity of an image and its effectiveness in being
recognized as distinct from other images. A strong image is visually unique and
articulates its own individuality. Urban inhabitants should be able to recognize what type
of architectural component they are observing (Lynch 8).

Once an inhabitant is able to form strong mental images of individual architectural
components, they may begin to construct a mental map of portions of the city, and over
time establish a subjectively intelligible mental map of the city at large. A city composed
of legible imagery will enable its inhabitants to psychologically weave the urban fabric
and its parts into a coherent spatial pattern. A healthy mental image of the city will
eliminate geographical uncertainty and assist inhabitants in spatial navigation, as well as
provide “an important sense of emotional security… establish(ing) a harmonious
relationship between himself and the outside world” (Lynch, 4).

Of course most of us do not possess a complete mental map of any city; rather our
understanding of cityscapes are always fragmented and incomplete. A complete or static
mental map is perhaps impossible and even undesirable, as cities are dynamic systems
that are always in flux, just as our mental conceptions of them are.

18

The image should preferably be open-ended, adaptable to change, allowing the
individual to continue to investigate and organize reality: there should be blank
spaces where he can extend the drawing for himself. (Lynch, 9)

Locations such as New York’s Times Square, the Las Vegas strip, Tokyo’s Akihabara
Electric Town, and Shanghai’s Nanjing Road, are examples of urban hubs that resonate
en masse. These image-dense landscapes have become the destination for vast numbers
of global tourists who embark on consumer pilgrimages. What is the defining
characteristic that makes these urban hubs so compelling? Prior to geographical arrival
most tourists have been inundated with various forms of imagery depicting these
locations. The spectacle facilitates visual inundation via mediums such as television,
cinema, the Internet, travel books, and post-cards. It’s not just that migratory tourists
intend to consume the products and services found at these locations, but also the
unmediated imagery of the urban spectacle.

The phenomena of architourism is also indicative of the success of highly imageable
architectural components. Here again great numbers of global pilgrims flock to visually
iconic landmarks. Historical examples include, the Taj Mahal, the Egyptian Pyramids,
and China’s Great Wall. The consistent and defining characteristic that these structures
articulate is their individuality and iconoclastic form.

Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (1991-1997) is the contemporary
exemplification of architourism. The spectacular image of Frank Gehry’s museum has

19

captivated popular imagination and revitalized an entire city. Previous to the construction
of the museum, Bilbao was primarily an industrial city known for its shipyards and steel
mills. Now due to the intense imageability of a single building Bilbao has experienced
extraordinary economic renewal (Jencks 7). Additional contemporary examples of iconic
architecture include: Will Alsop, Ontario College of Art and Design, (Toronto 20012004); Norman Foster, Swiss Re Headquarters, (London 2000-2004); Zaha Hadid,
Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, (Cincinnati 1999-2003); Rem Koolhaas, Public
Library, (Seattle 2000-2004); and Daniel Libeskind, Royal Ontario Museum, (Toronto
2002-2007).

Figure 5 Zaha Hadid, Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati 1999-2003; Will Alsop, Ontario
College of Art and Design, Toronto 2001-2004; Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao 1991-1997;

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Rem Koolhaas, Public Library, Seattle 2000-2004; Norman Foster, Swiss Re Headquarters, London 20002004; and Daniel Libeskind, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto 2002-2007.

As a consequence of the “Bilbao effect” the global architectural community has engaged
in a debate regarding the ethical outcomes of such rapid transformations and the global
exportation of non-indigenous forms of architectural iconography (Jencks 7). While I
acknowledge the importance of this debate, for the purpose of this paper I am primarily
concerned with the identification of such global landmarks as highly imageable
architectural components.

The discussion thus far has focused on architecture that demonstrates the concept of
imageability in a pronounced manner. It is important, however, to note that imageability
is also dependant on the inter-relationships between architectural components. A largescale urban-landscape composed exclusively of pictorial architecture or iconic forms of
architecture may become visually exhausting. The effectiveness of highly imageable
components relies on the spatial sequencing of components. Iconoclastic forms of
architecture may be positioned within the urban-landscape at moderate intervals, amongst
more subtle forms of vernacular architecture to create focal points through contrast. One
may think of music as a metaphor in which tempo is established and defined through a
range of sounds including pauses, and silence.

In the construction of the painting Dream City: Vancouver, I drew upon concepts of
imageability as they relate to the sequencing of iconic forms of architecture. Accordingly,
geometric notations derived from iconic architecture have been collaged over imagery
taken from homogenous regions of Vancouver’s vernacular architecture, such as the
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condominiums at Concorde Pacific Place. The resulting image offers the viewer a new
potential for Vancouver’s architectural configuration that breaks the monotony of
homogenous regions through the use of highly imageable focal points.

Historical Precedents: Suprematism, Constructivism, and Neoplasticism
As stated, an eidetic image does not conform solely to representational modes of
picturing, rather, the vocabulary of imaging systems maintains a degree of abstraction.
Associations may be drawn between the works of contemporary artists who employ
eidetic imagery: Zaha Hadid, Benjamin Edwards, and Julie Mehretu, and the works of
early twentieth century artists such as Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935), El Lissitzky (18901941), and Piet Mondrian (1872-1944). While the works of Suprematism,
Constructivism, and Neoplasticism may not adhere to all the necessary characteristics of
eidetic imagery, the visual language that they invented has been instrumental to
contemporary practitioners.

Figure 6 Kasimir Malevich, Black Cross, 1923, oil on cavas, 106 x 106.5 cm, Image public domain; El
Lissitzky, Proun 99, 1924-5, water soluble and metallic paint on wood, 129 x 99 cm, Courtesy Yale

22

University Art Gallery; Piet Mondrian, Trafalgar Square, 1939-43, oil on canvas, 145.2 x 120 cm, Courtesy
MOMA, New York.

Zaha Hadid
Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid employs an interdisciplinary approach to architectural design
including the use of eidetic imagery. Hadid attended the Architectural Association of
London where she participated in the task of theoretically reformulating, and
deconstructing the modernist landscape that characterized the first half of the twentiethcentury (Celant, Germano and Ramirez-Montagut 9).

Hadid established her own practice, Zaha Hadid Architects, in 1979, however her first
major project, the Vita Fire Station in Weil am Rhein, was not built until 1994. During
this fifteen-year span Hadid engaged in an experimental, interdisciplinary practice that
was dominated by the creation of imagery in the form of drawings and large-format
paintings (Celant, Germano and Ramirez-Montagut 9).

As early as 1976 Hadid began to use the geometric vocabulary and conceptual framework
of Suprematism as a departure point for her experimentations. In Malevich’s Tektonik
London, (1976-77), Hadid appropriates designs from Malevich’s, plaster model Alpha
Architekton, (1920). In this painting Hadid hypothesizes the construction of a bridge over
the Thames in the form of Malevich’s Alpha Architekton. In turn Hadid attempts to
transform the abstract tectonics of Suprematism into a concrete and utilitarian structure
(Celant, Germano and Ramirez-Montagut 18).

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Figure 7 Zaha Hadid, The World: 89 Degrees, 1983, acrylic on canvas, 184 x 213 cm; Zaha Hadid, The
Peak: Hong Kong, 1983, acrylic on canvas, 185 x 282 cm; Zaha Hadid, Malevich’s Tektonik, 1976-1977,
acrylic on canvas, Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects.

In a 1987 interview with Alvin Boyarsky, Hadid discusses her use of experimental
imagery:

The question was how to free the architectural plan in a different way than had
been done in the past, how to free it to allow certain elements to operate
independently, so that these elements could impose themselves more
assertively on the urban condition. What may seem to be frivolous graphics has
a special logic of its own. It may not be rational in the European sense, but it is
logical in the way it moves people, in the way the building is used. (Celant,
Germano and Ramirez-Montagut 45)

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Hadid’s imagery breaks free from the conventional architectural plan and offers the
viewer spherical visions that both utilizes and deconstructs the elemental rectilinear
vocabulary of modernist architecture. In her plans for the Vita Fire Station, (1990-94),
Hadid fractures the rectangle, sending floating shards and shifting angles at the viewer.
Hadid’s explosive geometry reconfigures the modernist paradigm and expresses the highspeed dynamics of contemporary global culture (Celant, Germano and Ramirez-Montagut
19).

Figure 8 Zaha Hadid, Aerial Perspective: Painting, 1993, acrylic on canvas, Courtesy Zaha Hadid
Architects.

During the development of Zollhof 3 Media Park Düsseldorf, (1989-93), Hadid
composed several paintings including Aerial Perspective, (1993). In this work the viewer
must wrestle with a vast tilting montage of transparent and opaque architectural structures
seen via a multiplicity of perspectives and orientations (Celant, Germano and RamirezMontagut 24). Many of Hadid’s large-format paintings encompass an expanse of the

25

urban-landscape, far beyond the local of her buildings. In turn, Hadid factors into her
designs an array of architectural components that through context enforce affectivity.

The following computer animation provides the viewer with a visual simulation of the
self-generative cellular growth or organic accumulation of repetitive forms. The
animation was created by Neutral for Zaha Hadid and refers to her designs for the JVC
hotel in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Figure 9 Zaha Hadid and Neutral, JVC Hotel, 2001, computer animation, Courtesy Neutral.

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Through Hadid’s nontraditional floor plans, spatial configurations open themselves up to
the viewer inviting interactivity and open-ended interpretation. Hadid’s eidetic imagery
effectively balances the dichotomous languages of abstraction and representation through
the combination of established, and unconventional techniques together with the
realignment of the codes and conventions of different disciplines (Corner 164).

Benjamin Edwards
Contemporary artist Benjamin Edwards utilizes forms of eidetic imagery in his prints and
large-scale paintings. Unlike Hadid, however, Edwards’ work does not overtly theorize
about future urban-planning developments or specific architectural projects. Edwards’
paintings offer a commentary on the American consumer landscape and the many
apparitions of roadside, and suburban spectacle. His vision presents a science-fiction
portrayal of what unbridled consumer culture might look like in the twenty-third-century,
a consumer utopia, or urban-planning and environmental dystopia, dependant on your
view (Saltz).

The space that Edwards’ paintings depict is essentially an a-geographical location in
which the generic constructs of consumer culture – strip malls, fast-food franchises, gas
stations, office buildings, and big-box stores – may be endlessly transplanted and
replicated (Edwards). This form of development is indicative of a strain of architectural
planning that is not concerned with context or specificity of site. From Starbucks,
McDonalds, Texaco, to Wal-Mart, these are the American citadels of globalization,

27

specific or unique to nowhere, yet via globalization becoming everywhere, landscapes
that to be poignantly traversed require an SUV.

In Edwards’ painting Convergence, (2000-01) he depicts a phantasmagorical
conglomerate of architectural types piled upon one another as though the horizontal of
the suburban sprawl had been swept up into a vertical vortex of consumer mutation. The
viewer is led to this mega-structure by an expansive boulevard that is layered with a
complexity of geometric shapes reminiscent of Mondrian’s, Broadway Boogie Woogie
(Saltz). Edwards’ paintings occupy a hyperspace in which the geometric language of
Suprematism is pushed to new limits through the inclusion of perspectival-space, and
expansions in colour, and form.

Figure 10 Benjamin Edwards, Convergence, 2000-2001, 2001, acrylic, texture media, foam and spray paint
on canvas, 97 x 145 inches, Courtesy Benjamin Edwards.

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“Ether matter” is the term that Edwards uses to describe the atmospheric geometric
material that floats in many of his paintings and prints. These abstract logos are
representative of pictorial architecture and the various forms of the contemporary
American consumer spectacle that manifest themselves in urban hubs, and along the
American roadway (Edwards). This is the stuff of Times Square and Route 66.

Edwards employs a multifaceted approach to the development of his imagery that begins
with fieldwork and online research. Images that refer to architecture and consumer
culture are gathered via digital camera stills, magazines, newspapers, video games,
blueprints, and online sources. These images are then transferred into computer programs
such as Illustrator, PhotoShop, Sketch-Up, Flash, True Space, and 3D Studio Max. Once
the geometry of the imagery has been simplified in these programs the various shapes are
separated and categorized according to content, colour, and size. These shapes are then
filtered through what Edwards refers to as “machines”. A “machine” is a program that
uses Flash Animation to draw from the studio’s databank of architectural components to
generate random sequences of shapes that may be used as compositional layers in his
paintings (Edwards).

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Figure 11 Benjamin Edwards, New York Ramble, 2002, acrylic, texture media and foam on canvas, 36 x
50 inches; Benjamin Edwards, The Monuments of Passaic, 2002, acrylic, texture media and foam on
canvas, 59 1/4 x 49 ½ inches, Courtesy Benjamin Edwards.

Edwards has also developed “machines” that deconstruct and reassemble the architectural
ingredients of ubiquitous fast-food franchises, gas stations, office buildings, big-box
stores, and condominiums (Edwards). The by-product of this re-imaging process is the
random mutation of architectures’ “B-side”, the architectural equivalent of the X-Men.
Through the use of his “machines” Edwards offers a rethinking of the contemporary
urban-landscape and design methods. As Hadid fractured the rectilinear format of
modernism, Edwards ‘slices and dices’, then reconstructs the vocabulary of big-box
stores, and other forms of consumer architecture. Through the use of his “machines”
Edwards re-images the generic structures of the American consumer landscape into,
however mutant, unique, and hybrid forms.

30

Julie Mehretu
Julie Mehretu is a contemporary artist and colleague of Benjamin Edwards. Mehretu’s
large-scale paintings contain elements of architectural and gestural drawing. The
architectural details in her paintings refer to blue prints, perspectival drawings, and
master plans, while the gestural marks allude to organic processes such as wildfires, and
human migration. Through a cyclical activity of layering, Mehretu builds up a complexity
of drawing elements and then uses an over-head projector to outline, and paint geometric
forms created by the artist in Adobe Illustrator (Mehretu). Some of these painted
geometric shapes speak directly to Suprematism, and the abstract language of Malevich.
In both, Congress, (2003), and Looking Back to a Bright New Future, (2003), Mehretu
has painted Malevich’s white, and black squares floating into a whirlwind of dynamic
geometric activity (Mehretu).

Figure 12 Julie Mehretu, Congress, 2003, ink and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 96 inches; Julie Mehretu,
Looking Back to a Bright New Future, 2003, ink and acrylic on canvas, 95 x 119 inches, Courtesy Julie
Mehretu.

31

Architecture for Mehretu is an environment for social activity, upheaval, and migration
(Mehretu). As eidetic imagery, Mehretu’s work asks the architect to consider the
subsequent uses of their structures, not only conventional issues such as navigation, and
circulation, but also society’s unexpected appropriations. Mehretu’s is a land of quantum
events, filled with spontaneous uprisings, natural disasters, and explosions (Chau,
Rabinowitz, et al. 33). For Mehretu a stadium is not only a place for sporting, or musical
events but also a venue for political rallies, and potential refugee, or prison camp. In an
interview, Mehretu stated:

The visionary cosmology in my work stems from a desire to put things in
context. I want that to be the way people look at the painting. I’m not
necessarily making them to be epic, but the scales are big and there are many
things going on. You can go from one point to the other and each point has a
stage of importance. It mimics the way we operate in the bigger organism of
our families, our villages, our cities, our time, our history. It’s about putting
things in their context. (Chau, Rabinowitz, et al. 37)

Mehretu’s paintings juxtapose the calculated ordering of architectural structures, and
master plans, with the chaos of social use. Architecture here is an arena or theatre for
social and historical events (Mehretu). Mehretu’s work does not demonstrate how to
make better architecture, as does Hadid’s’, rather she is focused on everything that
happens within the context of architecture after it has been built.

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Mehretu’s paintings function as visual maps that reconstruct spatio-temporal histories,
offering the viewer a kaleidoscopic vision of socio-political power dynamics. Rather than
a traditional linear timeline, space and time merge in Mehretu’s work to form a nonlinear field of Spatio-temporal activity (Chau, Rabinowitz, et al. 23). Mehretu offers the
viewer a glimpse of the surface of this spatio-temporal plane in which the entirety of a
civilizations’ history may be seen unfolding all at once. The effect is the imaging of a
complex vortex of socio-political narratives, played-out within the context of
architectural structures, as seen through the eye of the hurricane (Chau, Rabinowitz, et al.
33).

In Mehretu’s Stadia Series, (2004) architectural and graphic imagery relating to sporting
events are appropriated to explore issues of nationalism, and global conventions in
violence control. Mehretu’s use of the stadium refers not only to contemporary sporting
events including the Olympics, but also reaches back historically to the Roman Coliseum.
In the Roman Coliseum society’s repressed fantasies of violence were enacted by
athletes, and gladiators, enabling citizens to live vicariously through the competitor’s
actions. Such events are precursors to the contemporary spectacle. A Sporting event may
act as a measure of control for defining the parameters in which a civil society and its
obedient subjects may participate in, and witness, violence (Chau, Rabinowitz, et al. 12).

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Figure 13 Julie Mehretu, Stadia Series, 2004, ink and acrylic on canvas, 108 x 144 inches (each), Courtesy
Julie Mehretu.

Mehretu’s paintings function as eidetic imagery by commanding the viewer to look at
these environments in a new way – they are open-ended. Mehretu’s drawings, and
paintings are didactic, not in the sense that they attempt to catalyze a definitive outcome,
but by forcing the viewer to relearn how to view, and conceptualize their landscape. The
process of viewing or visually navigating oneself through the complexity of information
in Mehretu’s imagery is much closer to the physical experience of real-world spatial
navigation than traditional forms of picturing. One might find oneself looking for a
legend in one of Mehretu’s paintings, but no such tool exists. Alternatively, viewers must
create their own meaning through subjective interpretation. As with Hadid, and Edwards,
Mehretu presents the viewer with a disorienting array of multiple perspectives, which in
turn expands the images’ number of potential interpretations.

It is essential to note that relative to historical urban and architectural renderings, Zaha
Hadid, Benjamin Edwards, and Julie Mehretu have been developing increasingly
complex imagery. This expansion in complexity may be seen through the use of multitemporal spaces, multiple-perspectives, transparencies, and formal characteristics such as
quantity and diversity of forms. By including a complex range of urban factors in their
imagery, these artists have avoided contextual reductionism. This magnification of
complexity is appropriate since cities are evolving away from being relatively simple
arrangements, into increasingly complex systems.

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Chapter 2
Reconfiguring Vancouver
The premise for the eidetic image Dream City: Vancouver, as well as the subsequent
series of paintings, is that each painting will focus on the exploration of a particular
urban-centre. As Zaha Hadid, Benjamin Edwards, and Julie Mehretu have established
specific areas of conceptual interest (fracturing the rectilinear vocabulary of modernist
architecture; visualizing the American consumer landscape; and mapping global sociopolitical dynamics, respectively), the purpose of my paintings is to create visual models
for the rethinking and reconfiguration of specific cities, based on my own subjective
organizational logic derived from urban exploration. The resulting imagery deals with the
discrete nuances, and architectural vernacular of each city.

Urban Exploration
Each project begins with preparatory visual, and literary research. In addition, Google
Image Search is used to develop a comprehensive image-library of architectural
components (paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks) for each city. To date, most of
the imagery gathered via Google originates from websites and blog postings by tourists,
tourism interest groups, and architectural enthusiasts.

35

Figure 14 Jay Gazley, Dream City: Vancouver, detail (in progress), 2008, ink, spray paint and acrylic on
canvas, 72 x 56 inches.

During the 1950’s Guy Debord and The Situationist International advocated drifting, or
roaming (derive is the French word used) through the streets of urban centres.

In a derive one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual
motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure
activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and
encounters they find there. The element of chance is less determinant than one
might think: from the derive point of view cities have a psychogeographical
relief, with constant currents, fixed points and vortices which strongly
discourage entry into or exit from certain zones. (Knabb 50)

Following their excursions Debord and the Situationists would create psychogeographic
maps, and regroup areas of the city based on their experiences, in an attempt “to put the

36

spectator at ease with a city of apparent disorder, exposing the strange logic that lay
beneath the surface” (Sadler 82). Psychogeographic maps break from the Cartesian mode
of picturing by reconfiguring parts of the city according to a subjective logic derived
from personal experience.

…Situationist cartography admitted that its overview of the city was
reconstructed in the imagination, piecing together an experience of space that
was actually terrestrial, fragmented, subjective, temporal, and cultural. (Sadler
82)

The Situationists developed a technique called detournement that describes the act of
appropriating, transforming, and reconfiguring parts of the spectacle or the city (Sadler
44). Some contemporary activists have embraced detournement strategies of intervention,
and modification in the form of billboard graffiti, ad-busting and online hacking.

…tourism in general and the vacation in particular would come to stand in for
all of the ills of a materialist consumer culture that Guy Debord would anoint
the society of the spectacle. (Fogle 20)

Franz Ackermann is a contemporary artist who uses urban-tourism as both a subject
matter, and a methodology (Fogle 20). While on the road, Ackermann produces what he
refers to as mental maps, which are small works rendered in pencil, ink, watercolour, and
gouache on paper. These pictorial travelogues are produced in hotel rooms, and trace the
trajectory of his walks throughout the cities that he traverses (Fogle 23). Ackermann’s

37

mental maps contain colourful clusters of cellular-like nodes, or chasms, crammed full of
disparate architectural geographies. They are non-rational cartographic renderings of
vernacular architecture that depict a vertiginous sense of location, time, space, and
subjective experience (Decter 35).

Since making his first international trip to Asia in 1991 on a DAAD grant,
during which he spent a year living in Hong Kong, Ackermann has evolved a
"psychogeographical" aspects of travel as embodied in the figure of the tourist.
(Fogle 20)

As a tourist, Ackermann explores the middle class experience of all-inclusive Club Med
vacations, and contemporary forms of global leisure such as, eco-tourism, adventuretourism and architourism (Fogle 20). The tourists reading of the city is a cursory browse
that skims the mere surface of the urban-landscape – momentarily consuming a sight,
then pressing on to the next guided tour, or landmark – the tourist reduces the city to a
viewpoint, racing from one vista to the next, like competitors on the CBS series The
Amazing Race. Out of this mobility, Ackermann assembles a psychedelic landscape that
reflects the utopian mind-set of the tourist. Ackermann’s paintings conjure an experience
akin to watching episodes of Lonely Planet, or Pilot Guides on acid.

38

Figure 15 Franz Ackermann, Helicopter xvi (On the balconey), 2001, oil on canvas, 287 x 278 cm; Franz
Ackermann, Amaryllis, 2003, oil on canvas, 235 x 325 cm, Courtesy Franz Ackermann.

A fundamental aspect of my work is the fieldwork phase in which I explore and
photograph a city’s architectural-landscape. This segment is significant as it allows me to
experience the urban-landscape first-hand, and develop a personal relationship with the
city based on psychological and physical interactivity. Cycling and walking are my
preferred modes of spatial exploration as they are the most physical and have a low
environmental impact. That said, a more comprehensive experience might be obtained if
the entire transportation palimpsest is explored. In “The Practice of Everyday Life”,
Michel de Certeau describes the operations of urban walking:

…the walker transforms each spatial signifier into something else. And if on
the one hand he actualizes only a few of the possibilities fixed by the
constructed order (he goes only here and not there), on the other he increases
the number of possibilities (for example, by creating shortcuts and detours)

39

and prohibitions (for example, he forbids himself to take paths generally
considered accessible or even obligatory). He thus makes a selection. (98)

Through the intuitive process of path selection I may negotiate an urban trajectory that
engenders a subjective organizational logic of the city. The performative acts of
skateboarders, parkour acrobats, rollerbladers, and bike couriers also engage the urbanlandscape physically, and psychologically (Mitchell, Placing 157). As with the walker,
these urban performers create mental maps of preferred routes throughout the city. In
doing so, they generate a psychogeographical conception of the city that is composed of a
selection of disparate parts, reassembled in the mind to form an evolving imaginarygeography. During the construction of my paintings, I draw upon my own
psychogeographical perception of the city.

The following images were photographed during urban excursions in Vancouver, or
gathered online via Google Image Search. In total over 300 photographs were taken of
Vancouver.

40

Figure 16 Jay Gazley, Vancouver, 2007-2008, digital photographs.

41

Painting Methodology
In the construction of Dream City: Vancouver, displaced urban vignettes were collaged
together through a process that calls upon my photo journals, memory and imagination.
A digital projector was used to draw and paint geometric notations that refer to buildings,
floor plans, master plans, models, maps, transit routes, and transportation networks.
These geometric shapes parallel the descriptive language of Lynch’s five architectural
components (paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks), and pictorial architecture.

My approach to image building involves a process of layering successive generations of
architectural components. In the case of Dream City: Vancouver, the driving impulse was
to depict a complexity of Vancouver’s architectural components with a focus on imagery
taken from large-scale architectural projects such as Concorde Pacific Place, Coal
Harbour, Portside, Bayshore Gardens, International Village, City Gate, and the SouthEast False Creek site of the 2010 Olympic Village (Berelowitz 101). Imagery from these
projects has been depicted on the base layer of the painting, over which I have collaged
potential generations of architectural components. The painting is, therefore, an atemporal depiction that suggests possibilities for future layers of urban development.

42

Figure 17 Jay Gazley, Dream City: Vancouver, detail (in progress), 2008, ink, spray paint and acrylic on
canvas, 72 x 56 inches.

The purpose of this project has been to physically explore Vancouver, and create a visual
model for the rethinking and reconfiguration of the city’s architectural-landscape. The
resulting painting presents an eidetic image that is reflective of my psychogeographical
conception of the city, and Vancouver’s potential for future evolution. The painting
Dream City: Vancouver, acknowledges that Vancouver is a work in progress, a complex
and dynamic system in flux.

43

Conclusion
The project Re-imaging Place: The Eidetic Image and Vancouver’s Urban-Landscape,
constitutes an exercise in the development of a methodological approach for the
exploration, and imaging of architectural concerns as they relate to specific urbancentres. Through the pairing of Lynch’s five architectural components, and pictorial
architecture, an artist, designer or architect may use the operational language of these
components, within eidetic imagery, as a means of describing the contemporary
architectural-landscape.

In

addition,

the

visual

languages

of

Suprematism,

Constructivism, and Neoplasticism, may be used in the development of a geometric
language to be deployed in imagery, as established by contemporaries such as Zaha
Hadid, Benjamin Edwards, and Julie Mehretu.

Through the use of eidetic imagery, a researcher may suggest future possibilities for the
development of the urban-landscape, as well as stimulate discourse, and creative
invention. Forms of eidetic imagery are intended to inspire ideation, and provide new
models for understanding the urban-landscape as active potential. The painting Dream
City: Vancouver inhabits a virtual space that simulates a multiplicity of spatio-temporal
configurations. It presents the viewer with a kaleidoscopic vision that resists the univocal,
and poses a variety of developmental narratives and perspectives – demonstrating several
key characteristics of the eidetic image. The current research methodology for the
exploration, and imaging of cities is a working model that will be developed further in
future projects. Through the study of cities I may expand my knowledge of architectural
and urban planning theories as they relate to actual environments.

44

The use of eidetic imagery may enable designers to move freely through ideas and forms
without the traditional architectural planning constraints presented by client, economy,
and policy. When constructing an eidetic image in paint, or any other medium, an artist,
designer, or architect may allow the capabilities and unique properties of the chosen
medium to inform the creative process. In relation to Zaha Hadid’s use of unconventional
materials, Joseph Giovannini has written:

The impact of a design material on design often occurred unintentionally - the
process of investigation affecting subject under study inadvertently, as in
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Through feedback loops, the mediums
informed the vision. Hadid escaped the drafting table, and in acts of
interdisciplinarity, she used mediums whose material logic helped her to invent
an architecture that the T square and parallel rule no longer controlled. It was
not what the brick wanted to be, but what drawing, watercolor, models, reliefs,
storyboards, the photocopier, and most recently the computer allowed and
encouraged an idea to become. (Celant, Germano and Ramirez-Montagut, 23)

It is therefore not a question of whether painting or any other medium is a legitimate
vehicle for the exploration of ideas relating to architecture and urbanization. The key to
creating an effective eidetic image is to allow the unique characteristics, and properties of
the chosen medium (painting, drawing, modeling, mapping, and/or computer animation)
to inform the creative process – to see where painting may take architecture, and
conversely where architecture may take painting.

45

Work Cited
Berelowitz, Lance. Dream City: Vancouver and The Global Imagination. Vancouver,
Toronto and Berkeley: Douglas and McIntyre, 2005.
Celant, Germano, and Monica Ramirez-Montagut. Zaha Hadid. New York: Guggenheim
Museum Publications, 2006.
Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1984.
Chan, Patrick. Personal Interview. Vancouver. 28 February 2008.
Chau, Lawrence et al. Julie Mehretu. Alemania: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2006.
Corner, James. “Eidetic operations and new landscapes”, in James Corner (ed),
Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture. New
York: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Decter, Joshua. “Ackermann Hallucinating Maps.” Parkett no. 68 (September 2003): 3237. Parkett Publishers Zurich and New York.
Edwards, Benjamin. Personal Interview. Washington DC. 1 June – 1 September 2007.
Fogle, Douglas. “The Occidental Tourist.” Parkett no. 68 (September 2003): 20-24.
Parkett Publishers Zurich and New York.
Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random
House, 1961.

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Jappe, Anselm. Guy Debord. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1999.
Jencks, Charles. The Iconic Building. New York: Rizzoli, 2005.
Knabb, Ken. Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets,
1981.
Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 1960.
Macarthur, John. “The Image As an Architectural Material.” The South Atlantic
Quarterly 101.3 (Summer 2002): 673-693.
Mehretu, Julie. Lecture. Emily Carr Institute. Vancouver. 25 October 2007.
Mitchell, W.J.T. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1986.
Mitchell, W.J.T. Placing Words: Symbols, Space, and the City. Cambridge and London:
The MIT Press, 2005.
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