Gallery: Architecture's Fine Line Between Stealing and Inspiration
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*Un/Fair Use*, an exhibit up at the Center for Architecture in New York City, looks at the tricky business of copyrighting architecture. These models (there are 50 total) illustrate which shapes and styles can be fairly used, and which ones pose a problem. This "single surface" model, for instance, is up for fair use. OMA, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and MVRDV have all employed it in their designs.
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Likewise, you can't copyright what the show's curators dubbed the "heroic phallus," used by firms like Foster + Partners and Ateliers Jean Nouvel.
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Same goes for the "amorphous blob" typology, seen in designs from Zaha Hadid, Peter Cook, Future Systems, and Massimilano Fuksas Architetto.
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This model, on the other hand, shows a building at the center of *Sturdza v the United Arab Emirates*. Architect Elena Sturdza designed this building for the UAE Embassy. Later, the UAE ceased communication with her and brought on another architect, whose renderings bore a similarity to Sturdza's. Ultimately the case boiled down to whether Sturdza was licensed to practice in the UAE.
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In the 1988 case *Demetriades v. Kaufmann*, a husband and wife hired a home builder to create an exact copy of a Scarsdale, New York home they admired. The Kaufmans actually got copies of the original home's plans, and took pictures. Because copyright law didn't yet protect architecture, though, the court viewed the house as just an object of use, which cannot be copyrighted.
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Architectural copyright is difficult because the buildings (or renderings) in question have to go through tests to determine substantial similarity. Doing that can get pretty granular. Even this expressive "diagrid," for instance, is a fair move. Architects like Foster + Partners, Herzog & de Meuron, and OMA have used it.
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The "smooth twist," seen in buildings by Santiago Calatrava, BIG, SOM, and Info Based Architecture.
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And, of course, the "cube," is not copyright protectable—you can't exactly trademark a square.
