Differentiate between postmodernist and modernist architectural styles and characteristics.
INTRODUCTION POST MODERNISM
Began in America.
Became a movement in the late 1970s.
Failure of Modern architecture:
Ornaments were removed.
Buildings appeared stark, dark and undesirable, and merely functional.
Modernist buildings failed to meet the human need for beauty.
Not sensitive to the context.
Boring, or even unwelcoming and unpleasant.
In response, architects sought to reintroduce color, decoration, and human touch to buildings.
RELATION TO PREVIOUS STYLES POST MODERNISM
Quoting from past architectural styles, sometimes in an irreverent way.
E.g., the return of columns and other elements of pre-modern designs, sometimes adapting classical Greek and Roman examples--yet not simply recreating them like with Neoclassical architecture.
The return of wit, ornamentation, and references to previous architectural traditions.
Form is adopted for its own sake, and new ways of viewing familiar styles and space abound.
Rediscovered the expressive and symbolic value of architectural elements.
MODERNISM VS POSTMODERNISM
Modernism
Innovative design of buildings, move away from classical architecture using new technology of the industrial revolution in the late 18th century – international style.
Architects tend to follow a standard style and element.
Originated in the late 19th century and extends towards the end of 1960s.
Minimalist, reject ornament – purist.
Architecture provides the needs of society, and all humans should be equal, ignored the social and cultural structures of the society and religious faith, modernism - new beliefs that people needed to follow.
Design prototypes and mass production so that all buildings would have a similar appearance in a certain way.
“Less is more” means that the concept of design should be based on simplicity.
Pure design elements, right angles, unambiguous meaning and the use of an open floor plan idea, simple lines, pure and cubic shapes.
Any part of the design has functionality and rationality rather than a form based on aesthetics.
Focused on function rather than form, and they used simple form.
Box – function in the box.
Postmodernism
Style as opposed to International style, by using classical and modern language together.
Architects are free in using any architectural style and element in their designs.
First developed in the late 1960s, developed its principles in the 1970s and lost its dominance in the 1980s.
Postmodernism is “neo-eclectic” where reference and ornament returned to architecture.
Belief in diversity, celebrating multi-ethnicity and multi-religious, there are many ways to design, not just one way.
Traditional, symbol and contrast elements, and connection between simplicity of external form with complication of interior plan - design concepts in postmodernism are inclusive and general.
“Less is a bore” means postmodern buildings should break the simplicity of modernism.
Aspects like hybrid or mixture, irony, surprise, contradictions, often non-orthogonal angles and historical elements, which replaced the purity and clarity of modernism.
Part of design can be irrational.
Both function and form have their own value - “double coding” architecture.
Form is an integration of both conventional elements and modernism with new ideas, while the function still has its own importance as the form.
Form is adopted for its own sake, and function has a strong combination with artistic form.
ROBERT VENTURI, 1925-CURRENT
Received Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1991.
Bachelor degree and Master degree in Fine Art from Princeton University.
Teach in University of Pennsylvania, Yale School of Architecture & Harvard University.
“LESS IS A BORE”.
COMPLEXITY & CONTRADICTION IN ARCHITECTURE, 1966
‘I speak of a complex and contradictory architecture based on the richness and ambiguity of modern experience, including that experience which is inherent in art. I welcome the problems and exploit the uncertainties. I like elements which are hybrid rather than “pure”, compromising rather than “clean”, accommodating rather than excluding. I am for messy vitality over obvious unity. I prefer “both-and” to “either-or”, black and white, and sometimes gray, to black or white. An architecture of complexity and contradiction must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion.’
VANNA VENTURI HOUSE, 1964
Marked the beginning of Modernist movement.
Looks like a child's drawing of a house – representing the fundamental aspects of shelter – gable roof, chimney, door and windows.
It incorporates many of the devices used by Modernist architects like Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright - from horizontal ribbon windows, to a simplistic rendered facade. But Venturi chose to also include ornament in the design.
House is a composition of rectangular, curvilinear, and diagonal elements coming together (or sometimes juxtaposing each other) - creates complexity and contradiction.
The contradiction:
The front and back don't relate to one another.
Five rooms are arranged around hearth (floor of a fireplace) and staircase.
The living room is at the centre, with the dining space and separate kitchen on one side, the master bedroom and utility room on the other, and an attic bedroom located above.
The house is designed around a chimney that is centralised and goes all the way to the top of the house.
In order to create more contradiction and complexity, Venturi experimented with scale.
Inside the house certain elements are ―too big, such as the size of the fireplace and the height of the mantel compared to the size of the room.
Doors are wide and low in height, especially in contrast to the grandness of the entrance space.
Venturi also minimized circulation space in the design of the house, so that it consisted of large distinct rooms with minimum subdivisions between them.
Architectural elements:
Pitched roof rather than flat roof, emphasis on central hearth & chimney,
Closed ground floor "set firmly on ground" rather than modernist columns & glass walls
On the front elevation the broken pediment or gable & a purely ornamental
Arch reflect return to mannerist architecture and a rejection of modernism.
ALLEN MEMORIAL ART MUSEUM, OBERLIN COLLEGE, OHIO, 1977
Post Modern + 19th century Renaissance Revival architecture style
Doric
Ionic
Corinthian
CHAPEL AT THE EPISCOPAL ACADEMY, 2010
Its distinctive form is composed of many layers - of masonry walls and soaring clerestories (above eye level window).
The spaces between these layers allow circulation and light.
The impressive and gently monumental scale of the building is softened by striped patterns at pedestrian-level.
Inside, the Chapel’s fan-shaped plan allows worshipers to face each other as well as the altar, nurturing a sense of togetherness and community.
The interior is lit by means of 2 levels of clerestory windows and from the interstices between overlapping layers of walls, which allow indirect light to create aura.
PHILIP JOHNSON, 1906-2005
American architect
Student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
In 1930, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York city
Awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and First Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Support Avant Garde
Philip Johnson‘s style was ever-changing from Modernism to Deconstruction to Historicist Postmodernism
AVANT GARDE
Avant Garde - new and experimental ideas and methods in art, music, or literature and politics
The love of zero, 1927 film
Cover of Anna Blume, Dichtungen, 1919
POP ART
Pop Art: challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular culture such as advertising, news, etc.
Material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated, and/or combined with unrelated material.
Richard Hamilton's collage “Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?” (1956)
Eduardo Paolozzi. I was a Rich Man's Plaything (1947)
GLASS HOUSE, CONNECTICUT, 1949
Designed by Philip Johnson as his own residence.
Important and influential project for Johnson and for Modern Architecture.
Minimal structure, geometry, proportion, and the effects of transparency and reflection.
Example of early use of industrial materials such as glass and steel in home design.
AT&T BUILDING, 1984
Chippendale Cabinet
AT&T building now known as Sony Tower
37-stories high-rise skyscraper
Located in the New York City, Manhattan.
Headquarters of Sony Corporation of America.
It became immediately controversial for its ornamental Top (sometimes mocked as "Chippendale",
Challenged architectural Modernism's demand for functionalism and purely efficient design.
7-stories height arched entranceway
Massive, round window placed above the door.
The simple geometry of these elements is indicative of both a return to the perfect forms pursued by Renaissance mathematician- architects and a desire to break free from modernism's characteristic orthogonality.
Steel structure cladded with slabs of pink granite - an older and less industrial material that projects an aura of solidity and permanence
Monumental street level lobby with its cross-vaulted and gilded ceiling and monumental statute representing the Spirit of Communication
CRYSTAL CATHEDRAL, CALIFORNIA, 1980
Crystalline structures uniformly sheathed in glass Gothic
Religious theater of sorts, acting as both television studio and stage to a congregation of 3,000 people
Open to the "sky and the surrounding world"
The facade is composed of more than 10,000 glass panels affixed to a framework of steel trusses.
Single-glazed panes and held in place by structural silicone, reducing the visual prominence of the joint
The mirrored glass transmits only 8% light & 10% total solar energy into the space.
This allows for an entirely passive ventilation system, aside from the mechanical controls used to operate the windows.
While closed, the operable windows are indistinguishable from fixed panes, preserving the continuity of the glass facade.
Opened, they project like glass gills from the otherwise smooth surface.
PPG PLACE, PENNSYLVANIA, 1984
Modern corporate tower with a neo-gothic monument
First to construct such a building entirely out of glass.
Cladded in almost a million square feet of glass manufactured by the anchor tenant PPG industries
Mirrored glass curtain wall
The façade simultaneously reflects ambient light from various angles and dynamically bounces color and image between adjacent facets.
"The crown jewel in Pittsburgh's skyline"
MICHAEL GRAVES, 1934-2015
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana
Master degree in Architecture from Harvard University
Professor at Princeton University
Director of Michael Graves & Associates
PORTLAND BUILDING, 2007
Competition for the design of the Portland Service Building
Hold city’s municipal offices - located adjacent to City Hall, the County Courthouse and the Chapman Square Park
Graves’ colorful low-cost design impressed the jury, who discarded his competitors' costly glass and concrete designs, and awarded Graves the commission
Ornamental and classical elements, recognized as an icon of postmodern architecture
The building attempts to create a continuum between past and present
Symmetrical block with four off-white, stucco-covered rectangular facades
Reinterpreted classical elements,
Over-scaled keystones, pilasters and belvederes
Tan flanking walls and square windows
The building is set on a two-story base, reminiscent of a Greek pedestal, which divides it into the Classical three-part partition of “base-body-top”
Fluted pilasters and tiered stylobate - a continuous base supporting a row of columns in classical greek architecture
More aesthetic appearance than modernism because observers can find historical elements and a mixture of materials
Symbolism through color—green for the ground, blue for the sky, etc—in order to visually tie the building to its environment and location
TEAM DISNEYBUILDING BURBANK, MICHAEL GRAVES, 1991 & GREEK ERECTHEION CARYATID Parthenon
The front façade is a Post-Modern interpretation of the Parthenon, with dwarfs, nearly 6 meters in height, holding up the pediment and facing a pedestrian plaza and reflecting pool
HUMANA BUILDING, KENTUCKY, 1982
Each of the sides of the building is different, but all meet in a sloping pyramid at the top and are clad in pink granite.
The north facade's - perfectly flush with the original Main Street storefronts, so that it honors the older downtown architecture.
STEIGENBERGER HOTEL, EYGYPT, 1997
Mixture of modern architecture while respecting regional traditions
Using locally affordable materials and technology to create a luxurious environment - to adopt a cultural and significantly pithy idea onto the Egyptian landscape.
Egyptian rural vernacular architecture - built of local brick and stucco, with vaults and domes that could be used to create a culturally stimulating hospitality environment.
CHARLES MOORE, 1925-1993
American architect, educator & writer
Inspired by Venturi, pumped up classical elements like columns, keystones and arches
Memorial to the city's Italian citizens – past and present
Pictorial approach to designing his urban plaza.
Brightly coloured structures
Various classical orders ornaments
Textured and embellished pavement
Colonnades, arches and a bell tower are arranged in a curving formation around a fountain
Neon lights at night
Light and shadows play across the surface of the plaza, and views through the various openings create a complex spatial experience for visitors moving through the colonnades.