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Why Play Tag?
by Cassim Shepard

If you type “define: tag” into your browser’s search bar, dozens of meanings show up. Near the top of the list you’ll find the computer programming definitions, with hard to parse words and acronyms like “L2 cache,” “markup” and “SGML.” You’ll have to scroll way down to get to the definitions you grew up with: “a game in which one child chases others,” “the signature of a graffiti artist” or, simply, “a label.” One definition, from a dictionary of world wide web parlance, bridges the gap between the way tag is understood in the digital realm and the way it is understood in physical world of childhood games, spray-paint on walls, stickers on cans and shirts: “A tag is a generic term for a language element descriptor.”

On the web, we tag images, or describe them with language elements, for purposes of communal organization, identification, sharing. But the communal part of that practice is, by nature, limited to the common experience of those who understand the chosen label. In architecture, it is no different: parallel vocabularies often do not intersect. Much of the communication impasse between the different stakeholders in physical design processes is attributable to the narrowness of these vocabularies. And the exasperation different user groups feel when “their” language is misunderstood or unheeded is equal on all sides.

To play with parallel communications between different actors in the life-cycle of a building, architect and information designer Kadambari Baxi has started a game of tag. She has chosen a series of recently completed, visually striking buildings and invited architects, an architecture writer and passersby to assign them a list of word associations that correspond to the built project. Architects often begin their process with a set of exploratory words that relate to the brief, to the constraints and opportunities, or to the formal, spatial or material concepts that will guide the design. These words may reappear during public presentations of images, drawings and models, but disappear once the building is built. The words used to describe the built buildings by the architectural press and local residents create another and often very different set of associations for the buildings. So, Baxi has asked architects to “tag” an image of one of their projects with six to ten words s/he associates with the project, and then to tag the same image with another six to ten words that s/he feels should not be associated with the project. She then posed the same task to an architecture writer and to passersby in the neighborhood. Juxtaposing the results reveals some interesting disjunctures, reinforcement of design intentions, or completely new readings of the buildings, especially when seen in relation to one another. Design, criticism and experience of contemporary architecture, is indeed a complex game.

We’re curious to hear from you buildings you’d like to see tagged, tags you associate with one of the buildings you see here, or comments on fissures in the way we talk about architecture. Steve Martin may have been on to something when he said that ‘talking about music is like dancing about architecture’ but talking about architecture doesn’t necessarily mean we are all talking about the same thing.

Play Tag! concept:
Kadambari Baxi,
consulting editor, Urban Omnibus

Fieldwork and production:
Meg Kelly,
project associate, Urban Omnibus

Architects:
nArchitects
Audrey Matlock Architect
Bernard Tschumi Architects

Writer:
Andrew Blum

Special thanks to the local residents who offered their opinions on these buildings.