“Porno is the unconsciousness of culture, the libido of humanity.” (unknown)
A comment from one of our contributors, ‘Helen’, suggested that we explore the proposal of Property Porn. Very well, Helen, we’ll see what we can come up with. Innuendo, for a start, I guess. But first a choice quote or two (seeing as we may be restricted in a choice of images):
My reaction to porno films is as follows; After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw; After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live. (Erica Jong).
But are we even using the right word? Is Porn something that you could accuse Architecture of being capable of? Doesn’t porn mean: “creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire” ? Can you really compare the purposeful subjugation of woman for the titillation of jaded male eyes, with the carefully composed architectural composition of a well designed building? What is it about the design of a nice piece of building that provokes such desire, and does it ever get to a level that we could describe as sexual? Is it this following quote that is the real issue?:
“Pornographers subvert this last, vital privacy; they do our imagining for us. They take away the words that were of the night and shout them over the roof-tops, making them hollow.”George Steiner
It may be therefore that we’re getting the medium mixed up with the message. Just as there is nothing inherently wrong (and arguably nothing more beautiful) than the naked human body, it is the depiction of it and the method of that transmission that gets qualified as “porn”. It is the book containing the images that is the pornography, not the naked body itself. So, in the same way you could argue that nakedness is natural, it is not the building’s fault that it is beautiful. Or as Jessica Rabbit once famously said: “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”
“Pornographers are the enemies of women only because our contemporary ideology of pornography does not encompass the possibility of change, as if we were the slaves of history and not its makers. Pornography is a satire on human pretensions.”Angela Carter
But it turns out that there is already a well recognised definition of Property Porn. “Property porn: a genre of escapist TV programmes, magazine features, etc showing desirable properties for sale, especially those in idyllic locations, or in need of renovation, or both”. (Collins English Dictionary). Here, Angela Carter is quite right: Pornography IS a satire on human pretensions.
Just as there is a full gamut of pornography to cater for all (mainly male) tastes, ranging from firm to saggy, young to old, pure to depraved, so there is a parallel industry of property porn ranging from simple DIY jobs (which still sounds very masturbatory) to professional and very slick. Take this quote from the About Property website:
“Property porn is an interesting concept – not least because you can’t have property porn without property porn stars. Fulfilling this role falls to the TV presenters ranging from the lovely Amanda Lamb who presents Channel 4’s A Place in the Sun, to the lewd and crude Justin Ryan and Colin McAllister from Five’s How not to decorate. And neither can you have property porn, without spawning a generation of property porn addicts – those among us who spend hour upon hour watching property TV programmes.”
So at the risk of over-doing it, over-egging the pudding, or going too far with an over-extended simile, is there really that much difference between a thinly veiled diaphanous membrane floating in the breeze in a idyllic sea-side cottage, and a barely clothed torso, flesh rippling in the pale light of the photographers focus spot? I’d make an impassioned plea that we don’t get architectural erotica muddled up with property porn.
In the same way that the visual images portrayed here are tasteful, carefully arranged, with good design lines and well maintained facades, there is nothing wrong with an appreciation of a good curvacious Zaha Hadid building. By contrast, the tatty, full frontal presentation of the gutting of a aging Victorian villa by a crew like the TV show “Carter’s My House, My Castle” is as rude, crude, and socially unnecessary as a line-up of “reader’s wives” or “rabid grannies”.
Update: And just in case there is anyone unsettled by the prospect of unclad cowgirls or overclad shopping centres, then just for you, here is an amalgam of the two! Enjoy…
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