But First, Architecture!

Let’s get something straight from the get-go: I talk a lot about a lot of stuff, but it’s not because I feel like I have a particular level of knowledge or authority that obliges me to disseminate whatever’s bouncing around my head; I don't actually think I know what I'm talking about, I just think that class is more fun that way. Let the record show, then, that I am acknowledging, upfront, my naiveté on matters relating to architectural history and theory; let the hot takes begin!  

Architecture!  Oh and BTW it's also a house.

So, if I’m understanding Eisenman’s chain of logic in Post-Functionalism correctly, he’s saying that the adoption of modernism was the first real attempt, by architects, at establishing the autonomy of the discipline of architecture by attempting to divorce it from humanistic preoccupations, but that architecture didn’t really accomplish much to that end because they were too practical about it: they disavowed humanism, embraced the idea/aesthetic of functionalism, applied it to a bunch of stuff that humans were going to have to use and inevitably ended up with functionalist-flavored humanist stuff (wasn’t this one of Josef Frank’s main beefs with applied modernism?).  And, even if it had been applied correctly, it wouldn’t really have done much to promote the autonomy of architecture, because either way the discipline is being driven by principles exterior to the artifacts it produces.

I get why post-functionalism is different: it’s much closer to being a truly autonomous approach to the discipline than the theorems that immediately (and not so immediately) preceded it. I also, respectfully, submit that it isn’t that radical in the context of design history, and that fetishizing the indexicality of an object isn’t really that different then the classical preoccupation with symmetry: although they manifest in radically different artifacts, they’re autonomous design solutions that respond, primarily, to notions of aesthetics or theory that don’t necessarily align with the program or utility of the artifact. 

I’m not knocking it or any of these other design strategies (not that post-functionalism is just a design strategy, but whatever).  Really. I like it, the language of post-functionalism; it’s wild and self-important in a critical way. It appeals to me in the way that fashion week does: I’m glad it exists and am sometimes glad to see its tenets find their way into the mainstream vernacular. But if architecture is a language, I think I’ll probably focus my efforts on saying something else: we, the people of this planet, are facing real crises, after all, and I’d rather “talk” about them. There’s still plenty of room in my heart for Peter Eisenman’s cool canopies, though.  I'm glad somebody's building them, and I'm also glad that not everybody's building them.

Fashion! Oh and BTW it's also clothes.