Dutch architects have used emoji as a form of modern day gargoyles to decorate the side of a building in the Dutch city of Amersfoort.
Architect Changiz Tehrani from Dutch firm Attika Architekten told The Verge that they were recognised symbols of the 21st century which is why he decided to cast 22 of them in concrete and use them as decoration for a building.
“In classical architecture they used heads of the king or whatever, and they put that on the facade,” Tehrani told The Verge. “So we were thinking, what can we use as an ornament so when you look at this building in 10 or 20 years you can say ‘hey this is from that year!’” The answer was obvious: emoji.
Architect Changiz Tehrani poses with one of the concrete emoji
The emoji only appear one one side of the brick-clad building, which faces into a town square constructed around a 150-year-old oak tree. The building itself is mixed-use, with shops on the ground floor and flats above, while the rest of the square is home to a library, a theatre and a school.
The design for each emoji was taken from the template used by WhatsApp, and converted by Attika into a 3D model. These were then sent to the building company involved in the project, which created molds for the emoji and cast them in concrete. Only faces were chosen as they were the most expressive and recognisable emoji.
Construction on the building finished in 2015, but commercial occupation only began last summer, with official pictures published last month.
Images: Attika Architekten/Bart van Hoek
