anthroposophist philosophy Philosophical school founded by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), which sought knowledge of the spiritual world in a way that is intellectually credible. In architecture, it found expression in the holistic and harmonious concerns of Organic Architecture.
Deconstructivism A style that ‘deconstructs’ and fragments buildings, which developed as a reaction to the straight lines and order of Modernism. Fluidity and a controlled use of surprising forms characterize the style, as exemplified by Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (1997), and the Jewish Museum, Berlin (1999) by Daniel Libeskind.
English Baroque A parallel development in England to Continental Baroque, starting with Sir Christopher Wren – St Paul’s Cathedral in London (1675–1711) is an example – and characterized by a subtle Classicism, less exuberant than many Continental examples. Nicholas Hawksmoor and Sir John Vanbrugh were two other notable practitioners.
Expressionism A development of Art Nouveau and a dominant style in Europe, c. 1905–25. In some ways the antithesis of Functionalism, artistic expression is core to the style, perfectly exemplified by Antoni Gaudí’s extraordinary Sagrada Família in Barcelona (begun 1882).
Futurism A movement originating in Italy in 1909 that concerned itself with and glorified modernity, technology and ideas of the future. Some Futurist buildings were constructed under Mussolini, and the style has been associated with Italian Fascism.
informatics In architecture and planning, a general term for how Information and Communications Technology is used in the creation and management of built environments.
Mannerism Style of art, principally Italian, of c. 1520–1620. Rooted in Classicism, it shows marked characteristics that separate it from Renaissance and Baroque works, including use of distorted and strained human figures – often with marked musculature – and a use of vivid colours.
New Urbanism Movement originating in America in the 1980s – related to the Urban Village movement in Europe – that promotes a form of urban development on a more human, specifically walkable, scale as an antidote to most postwar urban sprawl.
Purism Art movement founded by Amadée Ozenfant and Le Corbusier in 1918 as a reaction to the perceived decorative nature of later Cubism. This stance subsequently found its way into Le Corbusier’s architecture.
Unités d’Habitation A concept by Le Corbusier for a ‘vertical village’, all contained within one slab block. The most famous of these is in Marseilles. Surrounded by parkland, it houses 1,600 residents and has an internal shopping street and a recreation ground and kindergarten on the roof.
Despite the use of Roman forms before the Renaissance, it was not until the 16th century that such forms and styles were re-established as the emergent, even dominant, architectural language. Adoption of the Classical orders – Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan and Composite – underpins this movement, in which building structures are composed of vertical and horizontal elements (such as columns, capitals, and entablatures), which conform to precise codes and forms. Classicism moved through various phases – Mannerism, Baroque, Rococo, Palladianism, Neoclassicism, Greek Revival and Beaux Arts – each adopting a particular position to, or interpretation of, Greek and Roman models. Mannerism and Baroque, for example, display a certain artistic freedom and experimentalism, in contrast to the austerity of mid-17th-century Greek Revival. During this time, architects began to look beyond Renaissance texts and return to source material from antiquity through archaeological explorations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as Greece. Architects of the period (notably Claude-Nicolas Ledoux) also explored the possibilities of pure form, such as the pyramid and the sphere, giving their work an Egyptian flavour. Classical architecture became more opulent during the 19th century, often on a scale designed to evoke the power of Imperial Rome.
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Classicism is the use of principles and precedents from antiquity in building design, largely to denote ideas of order, harmony, empire, and power.
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Classicism has long been identified as the architectural language of the state and civic amenities such as banks, museums, and railway stations. Karl Friedrich Schinkel used Classicism to monumental effect in Prussia in the 19th century, and the firm of McKim, Mead & White – arguably one of the foremost proponents of Neoclassicism in the U.S. – produced major works, including the now-demolished Pennsylvania Station in New York, based on the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.
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3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN
1632–1723
English architect and leader of the English Baroque
CLAUDE-NICOLAS LEDOUX
1736–1806
Prominent French Neoclassicist, few of whose works survive
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David Littlefield
Classicism deploys the architectural devices of Greece and Rome. The dome and rounded arch are Roman innovations not seen in Greek works.
‘Renaissance’, meaning rebirth, is the name given to the cultural movement that had its earliest beginnings around the time of Giotto (c. 1266–1337), lasting through to Raphael (1483–1520) and Palladio (1508–1580). The movement began as a northern Italian phenomenon, centred on the city states of Florence and Siena. The Renaissance was funded by increased wealth and trade, which made the role of patrons such as the Church and powerful families, including the Medici, very important. Significantly, this era marked a break with traditional medieval and Gothic architecture, described by contemporary writer Vasari as ‘barbaric’. Instead, artists and architects (who often performed both roles) began to study the remains of the Classical past – Brunelleschi, for example, spent long periods measuring and drawing the relics of Rome. Buildings began to feature rounded arches, domes, triangular pediments, and Classical columns. Further, buildings (in plan and elevation) came to be composed through geometrically pure shapes, such as squares and circles in an attempt to convey a sense of harmony, and – even – perfection. Such techniques were accompanied by the discovery of the mathematics of perspective, allowing paintings and depictions of buildings to convey a lifelike sense of depth.
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The term ‘Renaissance’ refers to the flourishing of the arts during the 15th and 16th centuries – embracing architecture, sculpture, painting and the idea of perfection.
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As well as characterizing the design of individual buildings, Renaissance ideas influenced urban design and planning. In 1458 Pope Pius II ordered the reconstruction of his birthplace, Pienza, based on Renaissance values. Arguably the only town entirely laid out along geometrically pure lines is Valetta in Malta, designed by Francesco Laparelli in 1566. Piero della Francesca’s painting The Ideal City (c. 1470) is a powerful expression of this vision of urban purity.
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3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI
1377–1446
Architect and sculptor; architect of the cupola (dome) atop the cathedral in Florence
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI
1475–1564
Artist, sculptor and architect of the Laurentian Library, the Palazzo Farnese and the Porta Pia
LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI
1404–72
Architect and architectural theorist
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David Littlefield
Renaissance architects deployed Classical features and pure geometric forms to create an impression of harmony.
The first important revival in the West was the Italian Renaissance in the 14th century, which revived Classical Greek and Roman architecture. The Renaissance itself later inspired multiple revivals, such as Palladianism in Britain. Greek Revival architecture became popular in the mid-18th century – with Claude-Nicolas Ledoux in France, Sir John Soane in England, and Thomas Jefferson in the USA as early proponents – peaking in the early 19th century. This took inspiration from the simplicity and severity of the Doric temple that contrasts starkly with later Roman forms. Even earlier, the Gothic Revival emerged in the 18th century with an accurate use of medieval forms, such as the pointed arch, the rib vault, or glazed windows. In the 19th century, the choice of styles turned into a veritable battle when A. W. N. Pugin ascribed the Gothic with superior moral and religious ideals derived from a romantic interpretation of medieval life. At its height in the 19th century, the Gothic was applied to an increasing number of public buildings, including London’s Palace of Westminster (Sir Charles Barry and A. W. N. Pugin, 1865), the Town Hall in Vienna (Friedrich von Schmidt, 1883), and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (Pierre Cuypers, 1871).
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Revivalist architecture denotes those buildings that take inspiration from, or reinterpret, past architectural styles, a paradigm that was particularly popular in the 19th century.
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Early in the Revivalist period, when style became a matter of choice, the variety of styles led to some bizarre stylistic combinations within the same building: in Nicholas Hawksmoor’s All Souls College, Oxford (1740), for example, Gothic was chosen for the exterior and Baroque for the interior. In the 19th century, such stylistic medleys became characteristic of eclectic buildings such as Joseph Poelaert’s Palace of Justice in Brussels (1883), which presents Neoclassical and Gothic elements.
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NICHOLAS HAWKSMOOR
1661–1736
English architect, who developed his own Baroque style from Classical and Gothic elements
THOMAS JEFFERSON
1743–1826
Third American president, and self-taught architect who introduced the Greek Revival style to the USA
SIR JOHN SOANE
1753–1837
English architect and one of the most important proponents and interpreters of Neoclassicism
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Anne Hultzsch
Architects revive the spirit of a past age in both parts as well as the composition of their designs.
Arts & Crafts architecture is characterized by a number of vernacular features, as Arts & Crafts architects consciously chose to highlight local traditions in their work – low, pitched roofs, decorative brickwork, tall chimneys, irregular patterns of windows and doors, and mixtures of different kinds of material, including wood, stone, brick, tile, lead, iron and thatch. These were not only stylistic effects, but also the result of two key principles: that the designer should collaborate with the builder, relying on and supporting the builder’s knowledge of materials and craft techniques; and that the resulting building should be comfortable and fit within its immediate landscape. The most celebrated examples of Arts & Crafts architecture are domestic homes, which were organized around a communal core – the hearth and inglenook, a semi-enclosed seating area around a fireplace. The interiors appear casual and comfortable, and the building and furniture demonstrate the handcrafting of the materials used. Beginning in Britain, the Arts & Crafts movement had an international influence. German designers were particularly interested in the domestic designs, but the most enthusiastic take-up was in North America, where Arts & Crafts principles fitted neatly with ideals of nature, landscape and community.
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The Arts & Crafts movement began in mid-Victorian Britain in reaction to industrial and commercial advancements, and celebrated craft production of decorative arts and architecture.
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The Arts & Crafts movement was motivated most of all by a desire to change the way buildings were made. Industrial production had resulted in a split between the designer deciding on the look of a building, and the contractor (building firm) deciding how and with what it would be built. For many in the Arts & Crafts world, the ideal would be for the architect and the builder to be one and the same.
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3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
WILLIAM MORRIS
1834–96
British socialist, designer and leading theorist of the Arts & Crafts movement
WILLIAM R. LETHABY
1857–1931
British architect and art historian, cofounder of the Art Workers Guild and a leading practitioner of Arts & Crafts
CHARLES SUMNER GREENE & HENRY MATHER GREENE
1868–1957 & 1870–1954
Influential American Arts & Crafts architects
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Nick Beech
Arts & Crafts homes are total works of art – from the walls to the timber frames to rugs and wallpaper design.
Avant-garde architecture includes the factions of architects that reject mainstream ideas and push the boundaries of conventional architectural thinking. Historically this refers to a number of iconoclastic European groups and individuals at the beginning of the 20th century, who forged a new architecture more appropriate for the machine age than the complacent bourgeois values, institutions and style wars of traditional art and architecture. Modern architecture developed from these progressive ideas, among which the most important early groups were the Futurists immediately before the First World War and the Constructivists immediately after. Futurism emphasized speed, technology, violence, the aestheticization of the machine, mass industrialization, and war, while the Constructivists argued for the unification of art and life through its use to promote social and political progress. In the early volatile years of the 1900s, art was infused with politics, and Futurism became associated with Fascism in Italy and Constructivism with Communism in the USSR. Although, like Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International (1919), such Avant-garde architecture mostly only ever appeared on paper or as models, both movements became hugely influential on later progressive ones including De Stijl in Holland and the Bauhaus in Germany.
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The ‘avant-garde’ is literally the foremost part of a military advance, but used culturally, it refers to artists or works that are innovative or experimental.
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The ‘neo-avant-garde’ refers to postwar groups such as the New Brutalists and Archigram in Britain, and the Metabolists in Japan, which, while progressive, were not revolutionary like their predecessors. Some argue that the Avant-garde is an inherent characteristic of Modernism, and the generator of progress through a dialectic process of initially existing and ultimately becoming intrinsic to the mainstream. Avant-garde architects are often identified more by their manifestos than by their built work.
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3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
ANTONIO SANT’ELIA
1888–1916
Influential Italian Futurist architect who envisioned the Città Nuova (1912–14), which only ever appeared on paper
VLADIMIR TATLIN
1885–1953
Russian/Soviet Constructivist architect and designer of the seminal Monument to the Third International (1919)
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Steve Parnell
Russian Constructivism was one of the most progressive movements of the Avant-garde, producing unadorned, geometric structures, inspired by engineering.
Architectural Modernism embraces a multitude of 20th-century movements that share stylistic and technical characteristics, such as abstraction, mass production, industrialization, scientific rationalization, universalization, rejection of tradition and a general belief in ‘form follows function’. In the 1920s, a number of avant-garde movements invented new ways of building for the machine age that sought to use technology to improve everybody’s everyday life. Italian Rationalism developed an undecorated and logical but classical modern architecture, Russian Constructivism aimed to unite art and life through an expression of architectural elements, Dutch de Stijl and French Purism strove to transpose Cubist painting to architecture and the German Bauhaus sought to marry industrial production with good design. Modern architecture became known in the USA as International Style after a 1932 exhibition showing the new European architecture. It attained almost universal acceptance for postwar reconstruction due to its speed, scale and relative inexpensiveness, and remains the dominant design idiom. Its most influential protagonist was arguably Le Corbusier, whose writings, ideas, and buildings – key among them the Villa Savoye, Paris (1931), various Unités d’Habitation housing blocks and the city of Chandigarh, India (1959) – have influenced generations of architects.
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Modernism is the cultural and artistic manifestation of modernity, and it dominated 20th-century thought, promoting progress towards a better future through scientific rationalization.
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‘Modern’ should not be confused with ‘contemporary’ architecture – Modernism is a set of ideas and world views that reject history and are associated with progress. It is a moot point whether Modernism has been replaced or merely extended by Postmodernism. The motif that arguably exemplifies modern architecture as a style and simultaneously exposes its contradictions is the flat roof, which completely fails in terms of form following function.
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3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
LE CORBUSIER
1887–1965
Swiss-born architect most closely associated with and influential on Modernism
WALTER GROPIUS
1883–1969
German-born architect and founder of the Bauhaus, who later worked in the USA
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Steve Parnell
The Unité d’Habitation is a Modernist architecture icon. Seen as a village within one building, it was highly influential on postwar housing.
Unlike the more regular geometry of most architectural idioms, organic architecture takes its inspiration from natural forms. The Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau movements of the late 19th century display some of its concerns: a desire to use local materials, a commitment to handcrafting rather than mass-produced uniformity and flowing, asymmetrical forms that harmonize with surrounding natural features. New technologies in metalwork and concrete allowed this to develop: the plantlike curves and tendrils of Art Nouveau could be realized in wrought iron – as in Hector Guimard’s Paris Métro station entrances – while Erich Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower at Potsdam employed concrete to create a curvaceous, sculptural form. Key early figures include Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan in America and Hugo Häring, Rudolf Steiner, and Hans Scharoun in Europe. After the mid-20th century, the concept of organic architecture was taken to new Expressionistic heights, including the freeformed Sydney Opera House by Jørn Utzon (1973; designed 1957) and the TWA Flight Center at JFK International Airport, New York (1962), as well as to futuristic designs based on cybernetic and informatic models of life as researched by Buckminster Fuller, and the contemporary move toward biomimetic design.
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Organic architecture strives to create a unified, harmonic, interrelated whole of buildings and environment, and it synthesizes form and function independently from style.
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The term ‘Organic Architecture’ was coined by Frank Lloyd Wright to describe his approach to buildings as organisms with all-inclusive designs, where every element – from layout and technical details to windows, ornamentation to furniture – relates to every other. One famous example is the Fallingwater house in Pennsylvania (1935), which he positioned directly over a waterfall to create a dialogue between the steep site and the large horizontal cantilevered terraces of the house.
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3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
RUDOLF STEINER
1861–1925
Austrian anthroposophist philosopher, architect, writer
BRUCE GOFF
1904–1982
American architect, well known for his idiosyncratic, eclectic, organic architecture
IMRE MAKOVECZ
1935–2011
Hungarian architect and prominent proponent of organic architecture
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Marjan Colletti
Architecture has always appealed to nature’s organic functions and forms for inspiration.
Acknowledged as one of the greatest American architects of all time, Frank Lloyd Wright – architect, interior designer, writer, educator, father of Organic Architecture, leader of the Prairie School, advocate and creator of Usonian housing, pioneer of open-plan living – led a long, successful and prolific career. He produced more than 1,000 designs, of which over half were realized, and created in his masterpiece, Fallingwater, an iconic piece of Americana and the architectural equivalent of the Great American Novel.
Wright started work in Chicago, aged 20, expertly networking his mother’s influential family. He was soon employed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, and he was greatly influenced by Sullivan’s ideas, but famously fell out with him when caught moonlighting on other buildings to supplement his income.
Wright went on to lead what became known as the Prairie School, whose signature designs used unpainted organic materials, low-lying horizontal structures, wraparound windows, a central hearth and open-plan space inside. He also designed furniture, fittings and window glass for his houses, so presenting a unified whole. Wright’s buildings expressed themselves through organic structure and the mimicking of natural forms, as well as through the building’s materials and setting. The Price Tower (1952–6), in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, for example, is based on the form of a tree, with the services carried in a central trunk and the rooms cantilevered out on branches, while the helical Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (opened in 1959) crouches like an enormous snail in central New York.
After the horrific murder of his mistress Martha Cheney, her children, and five others and the burning of their home, Taliesin, in 1914 Wright went to Japan, commissioned to build the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo. He was greatly inspired by Japanese art and the use of simple materials and landscaping, which is apparent in his designs for the Graycliff Estate (1926–31). He rebuilt Taliesin (twice), and in 1932 opened it up as an architectural studio. Here he created the concept for Broadacre City, several Usonian houses, the Johnson Wax Research Tower in Racine, Wisconsin (1944–51), and Fallingwater. In 1937 he built Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, establishing the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation there and designing the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Price Tower, various community housing schemes and Usonian homes, and his last work, the Kalita Humphreys Theater, Dallas (opened 1959).
Claiming few influences himself, Frank Lloyd Wright has had a truly profound effect on subsequent architects.
Born Frank Lincoln Wright – he took Lloyd from his mother’s maiden name after his father deserted the family – in Richland Center, Wisconsin
1886–7
Attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison
1887
Worked for architect Joseph Silsbee in Chicago
1888–93
Worked for Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan
1893
Established his own practice in Chicago
1893
First independent commission, the Winslow House, River Forest, Illinois
1900–2
Built the first four houses that introduced the principles of what became known as the Prairie School
1905–8
Built the Unity Temple, Oak Park, Illinois
1908–10
Built the Robie House, Chicago
1911
Began work on a house, Taliesin, at Spring Green, Wisconsin. It was burned down in 1914
1915
Designed the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo
1926–31
Designed the Graycliff Estate, Buffalo, New York
1932
Opened the rebuilt Taliesin
1935
Designed the iconic Fallingwater, Pennsylvania
1936–7
Built the Jacobs House, the first Usonian House
1936
Worked on the Johnson Wax Research Tower, Racine, Wisconsin
1937
Moved to Phoenix, Arizona, and built Taliesin West
1943
Began designing the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York,
1952–6
Built the Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma
1959
Opening of his last project, the Kalita Humphreys Theater, Dallas, Texas
9 April 1959
Died in Phoenix, Arizona
The Metabolists announced themselves with the manifesto Metabolism: The Proposals for New Urbanism at the 1960 World Design Conference in Tokyo. This proposed a number of ideas for future cities by architect members of the group, including Kisho Kurokawa and Kiyonori Kikutake. The Metabolists rejected the influential mechanistic way of thinking about reconstructing postwar cities advocated by CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne), suggesting more biological metaphors that allowed for impermanence, portability and improved flexibility. Technology remained an enabler, but at its root was the idea of the city as a process. Many of the group’s proposals involved building megastructures on the sea or huge towers in the sky, often with biomorphic imagery. The Tokyo Bay Plan (1960) by Kenzo Tange, who mentored the group but was never a member himself, is an early example of such a vast floating infrastructure of buildings and highways spanning the bay. The individual capsule was also a recurring motif that featured as an easily replaceable minimalist inhabitable unit within a larger framework. One of the few built examples of Metabolist architecture is Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972), composed of capsules designed to last only 25 years on a more permanent core.
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Metabolism was a Japanese movement that envisioned cities as living organisms, comprising elements with different metabolic cycles that transformed over time.
3-MINUTE ELEVATION
The group’s swan song was the 1970 Tokyo Expo, which Tange masterplanned and invited Metabolists to contribute buildings. They constructed many impressive pavilions and structures, but the social ideas of the movement were lost to the inevitable consumerist and exhibitionist nature of an event intended to promote modern Japanese design and technology. The future of the Nakagin Capsule Tower is currently being debated, provoked more by property prices than by questions of architectural merit.
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3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
KENZO TANGE
1913–2005
Arguably Japan’s most celebrated architect and mentor of Metabolist group
KISHO KUROKAWA
1934–2007
Japanese architect, founding member of the Metabolists, and designer of the Nakagin Capsule Tower
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Steve Parnell
The Nakagin Capsule Tower is a rare example of built Metabolist architecture. Its prefabricated capsules fitted to a permanent core were intended to be reconfigured or replaced over time.
A key characteristic of High-tech architecture is its use of metal and glass. In aesthetic terms it proposes a form of inverted approach, in which the honesty of expression, even in terms of revealing the bones and internal structure of the building, is regarded as desirable. This approach embodies ideas about industrial and mass production that can – although not always – allow elements of the building to be standardized and produced in a factory, before assembly on site. One of the priorities of High-tech is flexibility of use, which means that the emphasis is on functionality of space rather than its social or artistic privileges, exemplified by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano’s Pompidou Centre in Paris. High-tech buildings are therefore designed to be efficient and functional, rather than serving a specific purpose. As Le Corbusier described the house as ‘a machine for living’, but struggled to achieve this kind of aesthetic fully, High-tech exemplifies the potential of this maxim. In High-tech architecture, the ‘machine’ is a metaphor that depicts applied technology and serves as a source of inspiration and imagery. Such buildings relate little to their context, and their aesthetics do not reflect what goes on inside the building.
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Emerging in the early 1970s, High-tech architecture employs the latest construction methods and technologies, including prefabrication and standardization, creating a structural and functional aesthetic.
3-MINUTE ELEVATION
Two common attributes of High-tech architecture are the use of exposed structure and open services. The underlying aesthetic is seen in the expressive quality of the structure with the extensive use of steel as a structural framework or supporting device. Steel, as well as steel reinforced concrete, is favoured because of its high tensile strength, which allows for structural lightness and functional open-plan interiors.
RELATED TOPICS
3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
SIR NORMAN FOSTER
1935–
British architect, one of the pioneers of High-tech architecture in Britain
RENZO PIANO
1937–
Italian architect, codesigner (with Richard Rogers) of the Pompidou Centre, Paris, and architect of the Shard, London
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Dragana Cebzan Antic
The honesty of the façade materials is a recognizable quality of High-tech architecture.
The critic Charles Jencks, father of the Anglo-American strain of Postmodernism, asserted that ‘Modern architecture died in St Louis, Missouri, on July 15, 1972 at 3.32pm’, when the unloved Pruitt-Igoe slab-housing blocks were demolished. Postmodernism should be deemed more a sensibility than an individual style or movement, as it comprises various movements, including Pluralism and Deconstructivism, all of which are resistant to Modernist dogma. The height of Postmodern architecture was 1977–92, when it was mainly concerned with questions of taste and architecture’s ability to communicate with the general public, as well as an architectural elite (its so-called ‘double-coding’). Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in Learning from Las Vegas (1972) discuss this at length in an attempt to show that the advertising of Las Vegas Strip was ‘almost all right’. Other communication devices are the use of historical references, often in irony or as parody, and a reliance on the façade to communicate with no reference to a building’s internal layout. Seminal Postmodern works include Michael Graves’s Portland Building, Portland, Oregon (1982), Philip Johnson’s AT&T Building, New York (1984) and James Stirling’s Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (1984). The New Urbanism of Leon Krier at Seaside, Florida, and Poundbury, in Dorset, are also considered Postmodern.
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Postmodernism was a direct response to the alienation and growing disillusionment with modern architecture that both architects and the public felt in the late 1960s.
3-MINUTE ELEVATION
Postmodern architecture is considered by purists as lacking taste, two-dimensional, regressive, or even downright dishonest. However, the recent popularity of iconic buildings can be seen as a continuation of a Postmodern desire to communicate. Throughout the 1980s, Postmodernism quickly became associated with the interests of big business, such as Michael Graves’s work at Disneyland, Paris, and César Pelli at Docklands, London, so the label was disowned for selling out to commercialism.
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3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
ROBERT VENTURI & DENISE SCOTT BROWN
1925– & 1931–
American architects who studied and wrote on architectural coding
MICHAEL GRAVES
1934–
American architect deemed to be associated with architectural ‘Disneyfication’
CHARLES JENCKS
1939–
Anglo-American architectural critic, author of The Language of Post-Modern Architecture
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Steve Parnell
The AT&T (now Sony) Building, New York and the Portland Building, Oregon, are seminal Postmodern buildings.
