Post Modernism Flashcards
POSTMODERN ARCHITECTURE:
A desire to avoid boredom, that is to pursue the interesting
A determination to escape from logic and order
Eccentricity and tastelessness have become tools of design
Work of architecture=
Functional buildings + An added aesthetic component?
OR
Building + Decoration?
“Postmodernism” suggest…
“futurism” although the future it envisions is defined by its break with at least some of the forces that have shaped modernity…
Both Modernism and Postmodernism were…
born of concern with the shape of the modern world
Postmodernism was a…
realization and response to the failures of Modernism
Principles of functionalism - Programmatic determinism - Technological expressionism
Produced buildings without connection to the site, place, the human being and history
“When modern architects righteously abandoned ornament on buildings,
they unconsciously designed buildings that were ornament.” (Venturi)
“The sign architecture of Las Vegas belongs with the car and highway.
To catch our attention as we drive by, these signs have to scream; to be understood they must carry a clear message.”
Mute:
Modern architecture (language problem)
Aesthetic populism
Utilization of familiar and canonical symbols in architecture (Las Vegas)
Postmodernists were fascinated…
with this kitsch language
Social formation no longer obeys the classical capitalism,
namely the primacy industrial production and the omnipresence of class struggle.
Robert Venturi (b. 1925) developed the…
theoretical basis of post-modernism in his Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966)
Robert Venturi (b. 1925)
father of post modernism
Modernism:
Dullness and boredom
Complexities & contradictory forms can bring design…
into closer touch with human qualities
post modernism design groups
MEMPHIS (Milan-based group 1980s)
Ettore Sottsas
Vanna Venturi House date + location
Philadelphia, 1964
Vanna Venturi House designer
Robert Venturi
Vanna Venturi House features
Designed for his mom
staircase to nowhere
Reminiscent of greek temple - broken pediment
But scale is wrong too big
Asymmetrical facade
VANNA VENTURI HOUSE features 2
Its basic symmetry is modified by surprising asymmetries
Interior spaces have unexpectedly angled forms that upset their routine rectangularity
Furniture is traditional and nondescript rather than the modern classics that might be expected
Decorative ornament and references to historical precedents
Exaggerated proportions
Whimsical and contradictory qualities
A.T. &T Building (now Sony Plaza) date + location
New York, 1978-83
A.T. &T Building (now Sony Plaza) deisgner
Philip Johnson
Started as a modernist designer then changed to post modernist
A.T. &T Building (now Sony Plaza) features
Broken pediment on exterior corner
Older look on the inside
Austrian Travel Bureau Office date + location
Vienna, 1978
Austrian Travel Bureau Office designer
Hans Hollein
Austrian Travel Bureau Office columns
Some columns have structural properties some don’t
Also are dressed as an artificial gold palm tree
Some columns look like greek columns, but are made to look broken
Modernist liked columns to all be structural and look like columns - no tricks
Cariton Book case date and designer
1981
Ettore Sottsass
Cariton Book case features
Whimsical and colorful
Loved pastel colors
Queen Anne & Chippendale Chairs date + designer
(Knoll),
1978-84
Robert Venturi
Queen Anne & Chippendale Chairs features
Flattened forms of original designs
Uses memory of designs
Negative and positive space
Kitschy pattern almost childlike
Made of plywood
Not true look to what the material is
Looks like a textile or plastic
Fifth Avenue Duplex Renovation date + location
New York, 1983
Fifth Avenue Duplex Renovation designer
Robert A. M. Stern
Fifth Avenue Duplex Renovation features
Columns look traditional from the front, but the sides of the columns are flat and don’t continue in pattern
Has an element that is reminiscent of an arch with a keystone hanging below
