Heights of fashion in the world of architecture: Gehry to Koolhaas

What will the best-dressed buildings be wearing this year? Follow the guide below
for some style pointers

Despite appearances to the contrary (black polo necks, black suits, black
round Corbusier spectacles, black shoes offset with one luridly neon element),
architects are as fashion-conscious as regular human beings. They just love a
trend! Cast your eye over our skylines and it's like flicking through Vogue -
or, mostly, the shopping pages in Take a Break. First a style appears - sported
by some avant-garde Isabella Blow-a-like such as Rem Koolhaas or Herzog &
de Meuron - next thing you know every architect in the country's copied it from
the architectural magazines, run it up in their sweatshops and covered our high
streets in it. One minute it's edgy, next it's your local Asda. Five years ago
it was buildings shaped like wedges. Since the Gherkin, it's all curves. Once
Rafael Viñoly's Walkie Talkie's gone up in the City, though, all skyscrapers
will have to look like electrical goods.

For centuries fashion was thought beneath architecture. Great tomes were
published laying down immoveable laws of, mostly classical, style. Novelty and
originality were not the same. Modernism, though, irrevocably rewrote the rules
by finally splitting a building's structure and its style, by freeing the
façade so that buildings could now be supported no longer merely by external
walls, but also by internal steel or concrete frames.

The bones of a building could be clad in any clothes you desired. In April,
an exhibition at Somerset House - Skin and Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion
and Architecture - will explore the analogy through the work of 46 fashion
designers and architects, from Alexander McQueen to the ever Issey Miyake-clad
Zaha Hadid. These days, the market's desire for architectural flamboyance, the
speed of computer design and advances in construction technology (such as
façades that “clip on” like clothes) mean architects simply must keep up with
the latest trends. Adolf Loos's maxim that “in good society, to be conspicuous
is bad manners” won't do. If you aren't flash you won't get the cash. So here's
our handy guide to what all well-dressed buildings should - and definitely
shouldn't - be wearing in 2008.

Metallics

A slow-burn trend: Frank Gehry's titanium-clad Bilbao Guggenheim opened in
1997, Daniel Libeskind's zinc-covered Berlin Jewish Museum in 1999. Now
buildings like Cybermen are everywhere. For a more 2008 feel, though, it has to
be COR-TEN steel. Your granny will think covering yourself in what's basically
rusty metal is as clever as wearing distressed denim. But tell her this trend
isn't about elegance, it's about Richard Serra-like monumental
anti-monumentality accented with allusions to the post-industrial decline of
the West. That'll shut her up.

The more directional and those living in as-yet-ungentrified scraps of the
inner city should go for metal mesh - cheap, plentiful, tough - try it back-lit
for a gauze-like effect. The ironic are even experimenting with brass and gold
and the truly ahead-of-the-curve simply must try perforated metal (see Next
Season, below). But only Thomas Heatherwick is using BacoFoil or “crinkled
steel” on his Aberystwyth Arts Centre: wait and see before copying.

As worn by SANAA's New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, Haworth
Tompkins's Young Vic, Waterloo, London; CZWG's Bling Bling Building, Liverpool,
Plymouth Theatre Royal.

Crystal shapes

Curves and elegance are out. For that angsty, post-9/11 feel it's all about
awkwardness, as pioneered by Rem Koolhaas's “anti-icons” such as Porto's Casa
da Musica and up-and-coming CCTV Building, Beijing.
Think of it as akin to unconventional beauties such as Lily Cole: the
attraction's in the weirdness. Buildings must either look deliberately clunky
or resemble a spaceship from a 1950s B-movie. Asymmetric, naturally. Think
“toddler's been at the building blocks”. And try to avoid Daniel Libeskind-ish
shards and splinters - he is so last year.

As worn by Herzog & De Meuron's De Young Museum, San
Francisco, and their up-and-coming Tate Modern Extension, SANAA's
New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (again), Foreign Office Architects'
pending Trinity office towers, London, and Ian
Simpson's Lumiere Tower, Leeds.

The natural look

If you're not going futuristic with crystals and metal, old-style texture,
darling, is where it's at. Pillage history books for materials, the more
obscure and arcane the better - wattle and daub, anyone? Make it locally grown,
organic, single estate, tweedy. Make it authentic. This has to look hand hewn.
But - this is a cast-iron rule - partner with a determinedly directional shape
or approach - Hadid-ish curves, crystals, blocky modern, engineered wood - lest
someone mistake you for the Prince of Wales. Think twist with a classic, not
classic with a twist, and definitely not classical.

As worn by the patron saint of the slow architecture movement, Peter Zumthor
- see his latest in the Kolumba Museum, Cologne.
In the UK, anything by
Caruso St John (try their Museum of Childhood, Bethnal
Green, or their Brick House) or Sergison Bates. Also Alison Brooks Architects'
up-and-coming Great George Street.

ON THE TURN

Nu-rave

Like I said, it's all about texture now, and visual depth, not the instant
thrill of acid colours. That's too “icon building”, too try-hard. You can just
about get away with it if used as accents or if the colours are easily changed
when the attraction of lemon-yellow palls. Sadly this is all the rage with the
corporate behemoths building our new schools and hospitals, so invest in
sunglasses now.

As worn by Denton Corker Marshall's Civil Justice Centre, Manchester,
AHMM's new Westminster City Academy.

LIKE, SO OVER

The wedge and the stepped profile

Basically a cheap way of getting extra storeys through planning permission,
the idea being that if the top of the building starts at the roof height of its
neighbour then soars skyward, you won't notice the 20 storeys crammed in. The
stepped profile does similar with a complex of several buildings arranged like
siblings of increasing, then descending heights. It is also thought,
erroneously, to create a more elegant skyline. No need for it any more,
however, because Britain has gone high-rise bonkers, and this season is all about boldness. One
allowable exception: skyscrapers like upended doorstops - see Rogers,
Stirk, Harbour & Partners's “cheesegrater” Leadenhall Building and Foster & Partners'
Britain Quay for U2 in Dublin.

As worn by the skyline of post-bomb Manchester - Ian Simpson's Urbis and No1 Deansgate. The ultimate in grotesque stepped
profiles is Broadway Malyan's St George's Wharf, Vauxhall, London. This is the architectural equivalent
of Kerry Katona wearing it.