Although this week's
lecture and reading did give valuable insight into why postmodernism arose and
validated the style as a whole I still regard postmodernism as one of the worst
movements in the history of architecture. This may be because of how highly I
view the work of Corbusier and Mies or because of the architectural problems at
the heart of the United States (strip malls) that can be attributed to
postmodernists like Robert Venturi. I actually think that Venturi wanted to
make us uncomfortable with postmodernist architecture as he says in Complexity and Contradiction
in Architecture that,"(I am for) compromising rather than
'clean'" and "messy vitality over obvious unity." A building
should be more than just a facade and it seems that facades are often
overemphasized in postmodernism. To me architecture desires more than simply
"the use of fragmentation and modulations to make the building
interesting." Modernism had already perfected the art of making
interesting architecture with it's use of clean forms and light and
postmodernism is simply a halfhearted attempt to rebel against a nearly perfect
style. The one admirable thing that I can say about postmodernism is its
attempt to celebrate the existing architecture of place is valuable. With that
said I feel the movement fails to do even this correctly most of the time.
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| Venturi House |
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| Villa Savoye |
I agree that postmodern buildings are ugly, but we should be careful to not write off the movement as a whole. Yes, it provided the world with some ugly buildings, but at the same time, it laid the groundwork for subsequent movements involving much, much nicer buildings, not to mention breaking free from some concepts of the modernist movement
ReplyDeleteTo say that, "Modernism had already perfected the art of making interesting architecture", is a very bold statement. I would even argue that modern architecture is sometimes not interesting, but boring. And that one of the goals of postmodernism was to encourage and celebrate variety, and to make architecture that was actually interesting.
ReplyDeleteGreat use of images here. 100
ReplyDeleteAgree! 100
Deletedank meme.
ReplyDeleteI agree with @KatieTurner that your take on the modernist movement is rather strong. Do you think that architectural building and theory was set back by the post-modernist movement or do you think that it was an important step in the timeline of architecture, just not an attractive one?
ReplyDeleteModernism may have perfected the art of making interesting/ Clean architecture but the question which always comes to my mind was were they ever inhabitable. Do we ever see Modern buildings with life inside them ? Why is there a emphasis on putting a human scale to every rendering we do?
ReplyDelete