Lecture 10 postmodernism

History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

History of Architecture-II (AP-313)

POSTMODERNISM Part II

LECTURE 10

Nipesh P Narayanan

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http://www.civilization.ca/civil/egypt/egypte.html


HOW IS ARCHITECTURE PERCEIVED?


• Metaphor– Culture based common symbols– Appropriation of symbols

• Words– Architectural elements – doors, windows, columns

• Syntax– Grammar (System)

• Semantics– Appropriate usage of symbols/words (Meaning)

THE MODES OF ARCHITECTURAL COMMUNICATION ~CHARLES JENCKS


METAPHOR

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Ronchamp Chapel, France , Le Corbusier, 1955


METAPHOR

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Ronchamp Chapel, France , Le Corbusier, 1955


WORDS AND SYNTAX

India Gate, New Delhi

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SEMANTICS

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Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia , Robert Venturi, 1959-64


“Modern Architecture died in St. Louis, Missouri on July 15, 1972 at 3:32 PM (or thereabouts) when the in-famous Pruitt-Igoe scheme, or rather several of its slab blocks, were given the final coup de gráce by dynamite.”

~ Charles Jencks (1987)

DEATH OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE! (Ar. Minoru Yamasaki)

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1. History2. Pretty Drawings3. Utility (Usefulness)

“They say a building is good architecture if it works. Of course, this is poppy-cock. All buildings work…..merely that a building works is not sufficient. You expect that it works….But when it’s used as a crutch it

impedes. It lulls you into thinking that that is architecture”4. Comfort5. Cheapness6. Serving the Client7. Structure

“Why not realize that architecture is the sum of inescapable artistic decisions that YOU have to make”

1954 -THE SEVEN CRUTCHES OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE ~Philip Johnson


“[Johnson’s] first, tentative break with Mies was the Synagogue…. outside a startling simplification recalling of those of Ledoux, on the inside memories of the Soane Museum. These historical quotes are

located within a black picture-frame of Meiesian steel..” ~ C Jencks

1956 -THE SYNAGOGUES IN PORT CHESTER ~Philip Johnson

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1956 -THE SYNAGOGUES IN PORT CHESTER ~Philip Johnson

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THE MOULDINGS AND TRADITIONAL SYMBOLS

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Robert Venturi, Headquarter Building, North Penn Visiting Nurses Association, 1960


WHY THE MOULDINGS AND TRADITIONAL SYMBOLS?


WHERE IS THE ENTRANCE?

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WHERE IS THE ENTRANCE?

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THE ORNAMENT DISCUSSION

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“Less is More”~ Mies Van Der Rohe


THE ORNAMENT DISCUSSION

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AT&

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“Mies is such a genius! But I grew old! And bored! My direction is clear; eclectic tradition. This is not academic revivalism. There are no Classic

orders or Gothic finials. I try to pick up what I like throughout history. We cannot not know history”

~ Philip Johnson (1965)


• Duck– Meaning Conveyed by

Architectural Symbols

• Decorated Shell– Meaning conveyed by Signage

DUCK AND DECORATED SHELL!

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1966


DUCK OR DECORATED SHELL?

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COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION IN ARCHITECTURE ~ R Venturi (1966)

Visual preferences in opposition to modernism

• Complexity and contradiction VS Simplification

• Ambiguity and tension rather than straightforwardness

• ‘both-and’ rather than ‘either-or’

• Hybrid rather than pure elements

• Messy vitality rather than obvious unity


FRANKLIN COURT

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Philadelphia , Robert Venturi, 1972-76


FRANKLIN COURT

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Philadelphia , Robert Venturi, 1972-76


JENCKS AND THE READING OF POST-MODERN ARCHITECTURE

• Straight Revivalism

• Neo-Vernacular

• Metaphor and Metaphysics

• Radical Eclecticism

• Post-Modern Classicism


STRAIGHT REVIVALISM

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Mosque, Luxor, Egypt, Hassan Fathy (1948)


NEO VERNACULAR

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Amsterdam Zwolle Housing , Aldo Van Eyck and Theo Bosch, 1975-77


METAPHOR & METAPHYSICS

Amdavad ni Gufa , B V Doshi, 1992-95

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RADICAL ECLECTICISM

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AT&T Building, Philip Johnson, NY, 1984


POST-MODERN CLASSICISM

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Piazza D’Italia, New Orleans, 1978


JENCKS AND THE READING OF POST-MODERN ARCHITECTURE

Straight Revivalism

Neo-Vernacular

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Critical Regionalism


POST-MODERN SPACE

“Post-Modern space is historically specific, rooted in conventions, unlimited or ambiguous in zoning and irrational or

transformational in its relation of parts to whole…….

…skew or distorted spaces, created by sharp angles which exaggerate perspective….

…always keep a mental coordinate system no matter how free-form and baroque they become. The reference plane is always an

implied frontality, and the route through the building or the curvilinear elements then relate to this conceptual cage”

~ Charles Jencks (1987)


POST-MODERN SPACE

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Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia , Robert Venturi, 1959-64


POST-MODERN SPACE

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House 3, Minnesota , Peter Eisenman, 1971


POST-MODERN SPACE

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Westchester House , NY, Robert Stern, 1974-76


POST-MODERN SPACE

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Faculty Club, California , Charles Moore & William Turnbill, 1969


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Pennsylvania, 2007

ARCHITECT – PHILIP JOHNSON - PPG PLACE


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Massachusetts, 2008

ARCHITECT – PHILIP JOHNSON - THE JOHNSON BUILDING


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London, 1980-87

ARCHITECT – JAMES STIRLING- CLORE GALLERY


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London, 1997

ARCHITECT – JAMES STIRLING- NO 1 POULTRY


ARCHITECT – CHARLES MOORE - PIAZZA D'ITALIA

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Piazza D’Italia, New Orleans, 1978


ARCHITECT – CHARLES MOORE – FACULTY CLUB

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California , Charles Moore & William Turnbill, 1969


ARCHITECT – CHARLES MOORE – FACULTY CLUB

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California , Charles Moore & William Turnbill, 1969


ARCHITECT – I M PEI – LE GRAND LOUVRE

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Le Grand Louvre, Paris , 1988


ARCHITECT – I M PEI – BELL TOWER

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Kyoto, Japan , 1997


ARCHITECT – MARIO BOTTA – SF-MOMA

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SF, 1995


ARCHITECT – CHARLES JENCKS – GARAGIA ROTUNDA

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Wellfleet, Massachusetts , 1977


ARCHITECT – CHARLES JENCKS – GARAGIA ROTUNDA

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Wellfleet, Massachusetts , 1977


ARCHITECT – MICHAEL GRAVES – PORTLAND BUILDING

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Portland, 1982


ARCHITECT – LÉON KRIER – NEW TOWN OF POUNDBURY

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New Urbanism, England, 1980s


ARCHITECT – ALDO ROSSI – SAN CATALDO CEMETERY – NEO RATIONALISM

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Modena, Italy, 1984


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Modena, Italy, 1984

ARCHITECT – ALDO ROSSI – SAN CATALDO CEMETERY – NEO RATIONALISM


ARCHITECT – ROB KRIER – RITTERSTRASSE APARTMENTS

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Berlin, 1978


ARCHITECT – ROBERT VENTURI + DENISE SCOTT BROWN – CHAPEL

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Pennsylvania, 2010


ARCHITECT – ROBERT VENTURI + DENISE SCOTT BROWN – CHAPEL

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Pennsylvania, 2010


POST-MODERN ARCHITECTS AND THE URBAN CONCERNS


• Social Modernity and Modernism– The unrealised dream

• Post-Modern response to the “Public”– Expression, Ornament, Wit

• Urban Outburst and the fall of Modernism’s promise– Complexity as opposed to modernism’s standardization

• Urban as the new Laboratory– Rem Koolhaas in Lagos– Rob Krier - Town Spaces. Contemporary Interpretations in

Traditional Urbanism– Aldo Rossi - The architecture of the city

POST-MODERN ARCHITECTS AND THE URBAN CONCERNS


1. Multivalence is preferred to univalence, imagination to fancy.

2. ‘Complexity and Contraction’ over ‘Minimalism’

3. Chaos Theory explain nature than liner dynamics.

4. Memory and History are inevitable

13 PROPOSITIONS OF POST-MODERN ARCHITECTURE, JENCKS

1996


5. All architecture is invented and perceived through codes, hence the languages of architecture and symbolic architecture, hence the double-coding of architecture within the codes of both the professional and populace.


1996


6. All codes are influenced by a semiotic community and various taste cultures, hence the need in pluralist culture for a design based on Radical Eclecticism.


1996


7. Architecture is a public language, hence the need for a Post-Modern Classicism which is partly based on architectural universals and changing technology.


1996


8. Architecture necessitates ornament (or patterns) which should be symbolic and symphonic, hence relevance of information theory.


1996


9. Architecture necessitates metaphor and this should relate us to natural and cultural concerns, hence the explosion of zoomorphic imagery, face houses and scientific iconography instead of ‘machine for living’.


1996


10. Architecture must form the city , hence Contexualism, collage City, Neo Rationalism, small-block planning, and mixed uses and ages of buildings.


1996


11. Architecture must crystallise social reality and in global city today, the Heteropolis, the very much means the pluralism of ethnic groups; hence participatory design and adhocism.


1996


12. Architecture must confront the ecological reality and that means sustainable development, Green architecture and cosmic symbolism.


1996


13. We live in a surprising, creative, self-organising universe which still gets locked-into various solutions; hence the need for a cosmogenic architecture which celebrates criticism, process and humour.


1996


“A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant”

~ Jean François (1979), ‘The Postmodern Condition’


REFERENCE

Charles Jencks. 1977. The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. Academy Editions. ISBN 0856709336

Robert Venturi . 1966. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. "The Museum of Modern Art, New York"; 2nd edition (July 2, 2002). ISBN 0870702823

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Lecture 10 postmodernism