THE UNANGLE: TRIANGLE'S SUCCESSOR



The Triangle is the Tybalt of geometrical shapes: assertive and masculine, but not the sort of shape you'd like to have a drink with. Yet the triangle is the most stable of forms: when put in its proper role, it makes for sturdy but light structures that can be used to construct spheres and curves, as Mr. Buckminster Fuller showed with his geodesic domes. While the geodesic dome might be comprised of triangles, the overall form can be as organic as a bubble on the surface of a pond.



The triangle is pleasing enough when built with stone or earth, but when brought to the fore with modern building materials and techniques, it tends to appear a bit too severe or monotonous. Modernist architect I. M. Pei and many who have followed use the shape not as a secondary form, but a primary one, giving us a world no longer safe for balloons or frogs in mid-croak. Ouch!



I'd humbly propose that henceforth, the triangle be brought to heel: employed as a servant-shape rather than a master-shape. In its place, I'd suggest a shape that lacks the triangle's menacingly sharp elbows, and so is more befitting a civilized future: the Unangle (pronounced "Yoo-nang-gull").



In the case of London's Gherkin, we can see how the unangle translates into modern usage more pleasingly than its bull-in-a-chinashop cousin. The triangle is still employed In the Gherkin, but wisely: it's now subservient to the unangle's teardrop shape. The unangle doesn't pinch or poke the eye as a triangle might, and brings to mind similar forms found in nature: mushrooms, conifer trees or ribald produce.

Why should we have three times as many points in our world as we need? Imagine an environment devoid of unnecessarily harsh angles; perhaps people might be less apt to be 'prickly' when spared from confronting savage geometry. Akimbo, no more!

~W