Online press, blogs,
tweets, social media, and other digital forums have drastically increased the
speed at which architectural imagery is distributed and consumed today. While
an unprecedented amount of work is available to the public, the lifespan of any
single design or topic has been reduced in the profession’s collective
consciousness to a week, an afternoon, a single post – an endlessly changing
architecture du jour. In the deluge, excellent projects receive the same
fleeting attention as mediocre ones. Meanwhile, mere exposure has taken the
place of thoughtful engagement, not to mention a substantial discussion.
CLOG slows things down. Each issue explores, from multiple viewpoints and
through a variety of means, a single subject particularly relevant to
architecture now. Succinctly, on paper, away from the distractions and
imperatives of the screen.
For its inaugural issue,
CLOG focuses on Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), a firm whose rise and rapid output
has kept pace with-and is inseparable from – online media while remaining
largely unexamined from a critical perspective. Bringing together contributors
from backgrounds including art, architecture, criticism, journalism, parkour,
engineering, comics, photography, philosophy, and more, CLOG:BIG presents the
first holistic, critical examination of Bjarke Ingels and his firm.
