Unmasking the city hall facade: A study of its visuality in images

Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine the changes in the visuality, or the culturally mediated visual perception of the City Hall facade, as symptomatic of larger social and political practices. This is achieved by tracing the genealogy of the City Hall facade as an image, or a vehicle for the propagation of ideas by various stakeholders. In particular, the myriad visualities of the facade in images are studied as a series of masks used to construct illusory visions. This is achieved by utilizing the iconological approach, which studies the formal properties of images as symptoms of the cultural landscape that produced it. In uncovering the symbolic potency of the facade, the image is studied not just as a site of instrument and agency, but also a place of resistance and subversion, where slippages abound, and established meanings can be overturned.