Bugatti Veyron ‘Pur Sang’

Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron ’Pur Sang’ (Copyright Bugatti)

The natural look, that is what this Bugatti is all about. A car without paint is something like a girl without mascara. Or a building without coloring and prints.

A week ago the Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron ‘Pur Sang’ was presented at the Frankfurt Motor Show. It’s a “two-tone study of pure materialness showing the car’s true essentials: carbon and aluminium”, Bugatti writes.

Forgetting the paint cuts 100 kilograms from the standard weight of 1900 kg. So the car could pass as a cheaper (and faster) brother of the original model. Instead a ‘limited edition’ of five models is produced which cost somewhat more and were sold in a couple of days.

Taking all this beauty back to architecture, we might want to think about ‘limited edition’ architecture. Not endless variation on a theme, like Greg Lynn proposes in his Embryo House, but a limited variation that is guaranteed by contract. Not another Bilbao, but never another Bilbao again. Creativity only when the client pays for it.

Another thing we might want to question is the fact that most architecture still aims for the natural look. Why not put on a little mascara, some more prints? Anybody?

I want to question this because the natural look can be related to the modernist ‘it is what it is’ approach to architecture. If it looks like concrete, it must be concrete. Architecture becomes easily readable, sure, but also a bit too simple. Why not mixing it up and making representation just a little bit more complex?

These are things I am thinking about lately. And I realize that the natural look, or the avoidance of color, coincides with applying all colors. Le Corbusier, I think, was one of the first to do just all colors. Look for instance at his Unité’s d’habition’s. It was coloring after ‘De Stijl’ I suppose. Contemporary equivalents would be William Alsop and Sauerbruch Hutton. The simplistic monochrome architecture of the Superdutch generation - MVRDV, Neutelings Riedijk, UN Studio - can hardly be seen as an improvement at this point. There must be architects around with a more clever use of paint!

I am planning a report on the lecture that Matthias Sauerbruch will do next week in the NAi in Rotterdam, so you will hear more about that in a week or so.

Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron ’Pur Sang’ (Copyright Bugatti)

Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron ’Pur Sang’ (Copyright Bugatti)

Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron ’Pur Sang’ (Copyright Bugatti)

Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron ’Pur Sang’ (Copyright Bugatti)

Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron ’Pur Sang’ (Copyright Bugatti)

Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron ’Pur Sang’ (Copyright Bugatti)

Over at Wired two Bugatti competitors are introduced. But, where is Koenigsegg?

Related representation: See-through, by EEA

Related Automotive: Ex-three, C for yourself, Carchitecture