Post-modernism in Design & Architecture: Comprehensive Study Notes

Emergence & Historical Context

  • Post-modernism (often written "PoMo") emerges in the 1960s, gains full momentum through the 1970s–1990s and is still felt in the new millennium.

    • Seen as a reaction against and a critique of High Modernism’s grand ambitions, austerity and faith in universal solutions.

  • Symbolic “death of modernism”: cultural theorist Charles Jencks declares that modernism died on 03/15/1972 at exactly 03{:}22\,\text{PM} – the moment the St Louis housing complex Pruitt-Igoe (built 1951) was demolished.

    • Pruitt-Igoe had embodied Le Corbusier’s utopian mass-housing dream, but devolved into crime-ridden, poorly maintained slums, illustrating the failure of purely rational, top-down modernist planning.

    • Film citation: Godfrey Reggio’s 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi (Hopi: “life out of balance”) includes footage of the implosion.

Modernism vs Post-modernism (Side-by-side traits)

  • Modernism

    • Ideology & morality

    • Seriousness; belief in progress

    • Socialist/egalitarian design goals

    • “Good” taste, purity, rational structure

    • Universal values, form-follows-function, construction honesty

  • Post-modernism

    • Pastiche & parody; bricolage

    • Whimsy, irony, playful skepticism

    • Capitalist embrace; market-driven objects

    • Celebration of “bad taste,” kitsch, surface ornament

    • Subjective value; deconstruction of all former “truths”

Pop Design as Transitional Bridge (connection to previous lecture)

  • Pop design of the late 1950s–1960s legitimates mass culture (“Big C” vs “little c” culture) and primes designers to treat ads, comics, Tootsie-Pop wrappers, etc., as equally valid references.

  • Opens door for PoMo’s celebratory treatment of everyday imagery and celebrity culture.

Key Italian Avant-Garde Collectives & Objects

Studio Alchimia (name references alchemy – turning base matter into gold)

  • Goal: redesign = create new meaning out of the familiar.

  • Icon: Joe Chair (1970, Giò Nanatan De Pas, Donato D’Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi)

    • Giant bean-bag shaped like Joe DiMaggio’s baseball mitt → mix of pop celebrity + domestic fun.

Alessandro Mendini

  • Proust Armchair (1978)

    • Rococo-style frame; surface entirely hand-painted in Pointillist dots (projection of a Paul Signac painting).

    • References writer Marcel Proust (memory, history) and impressionism.

  • Breuer Wassily Chair “re-design”

    • Original tubular-steel modernist icon simply overlaid with multicolored foam “clouds.”

    • Act of parody: no structural change—surface joke mocks modernist reverence.

Archizoom (Italy)

  • Works seen in MoMA’s catalogue Italy: The New Domestic Landscape (1971).

    • Superonda: adjustable foam waves reminiscent of Verner Panton’s lounge landscapes.

    • Safari: faux-leopard conversation pit (deliberately kitsch).

    • Dream Beds: beds featuring images such as Bob Dylan & rainbows – conflate celebrity, mass media and domestic objects.

  • Andrea Branzi’s essay “Pop Realism”

    • Pop as “Trojan horse” exposing the artificiality of market desires.

    • Consumption pattern no longer: machine → factory → market, but must integrate advertising & promotion.

Ettore Sottsass

  • Late 1960s cabinets/vases conceived as domestic altarpieces – fetish objects for consumer ritual.

  • Shifts from function to meaning: asks what symbolic role will the object play for its owner?

  • Leads Memphis Group founding (1981).

MoMA 1971 — “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape”

  • Curators collect radical consumer products highlighting:

    • Innovative forms/technics (e.g., Blow chair inflatable from previous lecture)

    • Flexibility & new usage patterns

    • Sociopolitical commentary / contestation (refusal to serve existing socio-industrial system)

  • Marks MoMA’s pivot from dictating “Good Design” toward showcasing ambiguity, pluralism and critique.

Memphis Group (1981-1988)

  • Name alludes to Memphis TN + Memphis Egypt + Bob Dylan song playing in studio first night.

  • Colorful laminates, cartoonish geometry, fake-stone patterns; furniture often expensive “collectible design.”

  • Example: Carlton room-divider/cabinet; wrestling-ring beds.

  • Ethos: “Fun, surface, hybridity, consumer excess.”

Semiotics & Theoretical Foundations

Denise Scott Brown & Robert Venturi

  • Husband-wife architect duo; book Learning from Las Vegas (1972).

  • Duck vs Decorated Shed distinction:

    • Duck = building’s shape itself communicates function (Long Island “Big Duck” poultry store).

    • Decorated Shed = generic structure + applied signage (e.g., roadside diner with “EAT”).

    • Claim: shed + sign is more honest & efficient communication.

  • Field trip to old Las Vegas strip → observe sign overload; embrace vernacular & symbolism.

Semiotic Triad

  • Signifier = physical form/word (“pen,” red color, teapot object).

  • Signified = concept (writing instrument, “hot,” vessel that boils water).

  • Sign = union of the two in cultural understanding.

  • Arbitrary cultural assignment: red ≠ inherently hot; we agree it is.

Michael Graves — Whistling Bird Teapot (Alessi, 1985)

  • Red parts = hot zones; blue handles = cool-touch → color as informational code.

  • Bird whistle anthropomorphizes steam outlet; playful icon communicates without words.

  • Later mass-market version for Target → high-design meets big-box retail.

Venturi & Scott Brown Furniture & Buildings

  • Knoll plywood chairs (Gothic, Art Nouveau, Chippendale silhouettes) with graphic surface patterns → expose stylistic quotation.

  • Children’s Museum, Houston (1992)

    • Over-scaled cartoon columns, pastel palette; evokes classical museum front but via playful, almost Egyptian-revival language.

SITE (Sculpture In The Environment) & BEST Superstores

  • Client: Sidney Lewis (retail magnate & art patron).

  • Series of big-box showrooms that blur architecture & public art:

    • Peeling Wall (Richmond VA): brick façade curls like wallpaper revealing blank box → commentary on generic retail environments.

    • Tilt Up / Lifting Wall, Crumbling Block, Notch / Lego Stack variants – each storefront dramatizes deconstruction.

Popular Culture, Identity & Performance

  • MTV era: channel-surf collage becomes aesthetic model.

  • Grace Jones – “Slave to the Rhythm” (1985)

    • Video as montage of robotic Grace, desert images, etc.; constructs persona via fragmented imagery.

  • Other performers adopting PoMo kitsch/irony:

    • Klaus Nomi (German operatic new-wave alien persona)

    • Public Enemy (political hip-hop branding)

    • The B-52s (“Love Shack,” oversized beehive wigs, 1950s surf-kitschness; RuPaul cameo).

Representative Post-modern Architecture

  • Portland Building (1982, Michael Graves) – applied colorful spandrels, oversized fluting, decorative garlands on simple cube.

  • 550 Madison / AT&T Building (1984, Philip Johnson & John Burgee) – pink granite skyscraper crowned by Chippendale broken pediment with central circular cut-out.

Recurrent Themes & Concepts (Master List)

  • Individualism & authorial signature

  • Irony, parody, humor, play

  • Deconstruction of modernist “rules”

  • Semiotics: objects/buildings as coded signs

  • Pastiche & stylistic collage (mix of periods, cultures)

  • Celebration of kitsch & “bad taste”

  • Surface over structure; decoration reclaimed

  • Consumerism openly embraced; luxury pricing

  • Identity as performance/construct (designers, pop stars)

  • Hybridization & pluralism: “both-and,” not “either-or.”

Suggested Films & Media for Further Study

  • Beetlejuice (1988, dir. Tim Burton) – farmhouse renovated into gaudy PoMo interior by Catherine O’Hara’s character.

  • American Psycho (2000; novel 1991) – Patrick Bateman’s stark high-modernist apartment critiques corporate emptiness & fetish objects.

  • Pulp Fiction (1994, Tarantino) – nonlinear narrative, nostalgia for 1950s Americana; commentary on suburban culture.

  • Music videos: Grace Jones “Slave to the Rhythm,” The B-52s “Love Shack.”

Key Terms Glossary

  • Alchemy – mythical transmutation → metaphor for redesigning meaning.

  • Pastiche – imitation collage without satire; vs Parody = satirical imitation.

  • Kitsch – mass-produced, sentimental artefacts; re-embraced.

  • Hybridization – blending of previously separate styles or meanings.

  • Decorated Shed / Duck – Venturi & Scott Brown’s communicative building types.

  • Semiotics – study of signs (signifier + signified = sign).

Chronology Highlights

  • 1951 Pruitt-Igoe completed.

  • 1966–1967 Venturi & Scott Brown photograph Las Vegas.

  • 1971 MoMA “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape.”

  • 03/15/1972 Pruitt-Igoe demolished (03{:}22\,\text{PM}).

  • 1978 Mendini Proust Chair.

  • 1981 Memphis Group founded in Milan.

  • 1982 Portland Building opens; Koyaanisqatsi released.

  • 1984 550 Madison completed.

  • 1985 Graves Whistling Bird Teapot.

  • 1992 Children’s Museum of Houston.

Study Prompts

  • Compare form-follows-function (Modernism) with form-follows-fiction (Post-modernism; imaginative symbolism).

  • Identify a contemporary retail or pop-culture example that functions as a “decorated shed.” What signs are employed?

  • Debate: Is Post-modernism’s embrace of consumerism subversive (exposing artifice) or complicit (profiting from it)?

  • Sketch an everyday object twice: once as a “modernist essential,” once as a PoMo pastiche laden with references. What changes?

Quick-Reference Designer/Object Matrix

  • Alessandro Mendini → Proust Chair, “Bauhaus Redesign” Wassily.

  • Studio Alchimia → Joe Chair (mitt), lamp pills.

  • Archizoom → Superonda, Safari pit, Dream Beds.

  • Ettore Sottsass → Carlton shelf, Memphis laminates.

  • Venturi & Scott Brown → Duck/Shed theory, Houston Children’s Museum, Knoll plywood chairs.

  • Michael Graves → Portland Building, Whistling Bird Teapot.

  • SITE → BEST showrooms (Peeling, Tilt, Crumbling façades).

Closing Takeaway

Post-modern design dismantles the singular, utopian narrative of modernism, substituting a pluralistic playground of signs, surfaces and stories. Nothing is too sacred to be quoted, repainted, resized or resold—in PoMo the demolition of certainty itself becomes the new creative ground.