Postmodernism (architecture)

(this article makes dual employment with that Postmodernisme which existed and that I connected to the gate structures)

It is about an essay which compares the postmodernism, like style, with various methods of the international modern style.

With my opinion, it should be famous: Style in modern architecture?

The postmodern architecture became an architectural style with international significance. Just as the modern architects took as a starting point the architecture without architect of the engineers (factories, silos with grain, steamers), the postmodern architects inspirérent “architecture without architects” of the Hollywood or popular villas, the shopping malls and the towns of leisures of after war.

The first paradigmatic elements were given at the end of the Sixties, ( Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture ( Of complexity in architecture ) of Venturi published by the Museum off Modern art of New York in 1966) and influences it of this current of thought continues still now in the contemporary Architecture.

Postmodernité in architecture is generally characterized by the return the ornament and of the architectural reference, in answer to the formalism of the international Style Moderniste. As from the Fifties, the forms and spaces functionalist and formal of the modern Mouvement gradually will diversify and give rise to tendencies various esthetic : the Brutalisme , the organic Architecture , the high-tech , and this in a décomplexée way: the styles are entrechoquent, one adopts certain forms for themselves, of the new approaches as for the way of seeing styles or familiar spaces multiply. But the postmodernism introduces a radical rupture compared to these evolutions of the international Style insofar as he is opposed to the dogmas modern Mouvement, namely functionalism and the refusal of the ornamentation.

The absorbtion of the postmodernism, considered as a simple style, by the international modern architecture, can be illustrated by are the Portland Building in Portland in the Oregon and especially the AT&T Building of Philip Johnson with New York (currently Sony Building), which borrow elements and the references coming from passed and reintroduce the color or symbolism in architecture.

One also described Postmoderne architecture like “néo-eclectic”, with references and ornamentations having reinvested the frontage, replacing in that aggressive Moderne nudity. This eclecticism is often combined with the use of not-orthogonal angles, of left surfaces, such as for example the Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart of James Stirling or Piazza d' Italia of Charles Willard Moore.

The Modernes architects regarded the buildings postmodern as vulgar and overloaded. The postmodern architects often consider Modernes spaces insipid and without heart. These divergent opinions betray in fact of the different purposes: the Modernism seeks a truth in the strict utility and a constructive integrity of materials, banishing according to its logic the ornamentation like slag of the past, passeist thus useless, outcome with a minimalism felt like harmonious; Postmodernisme rejects the strict laws enacted by the first Modernes popes and seek the joy of the exubérance in the constructive techniques juxtaposed in eclecticism, the less agreed angles, the references stylistics in wink, the profusion constituting the surprise, that is to say a certain way of visual rhetoric. It employs this decoration in a logic of joining: whereas decoration at the XIXe century still resulted from constructive logic and a work, in particular from sculpture, on materials, it is applied here like an added again sign: it is the logic of the " hangar décoré" defined by Robert Venturi in " Learning from Las Vegas

Correspondences between the preceding styles

The new tendencies become obvious besides in the last quarter of the 20th century when some architects were diverted modern functionalism which they regarded as tedious, in the unison with most of the public. These architects turned then to the past. They made quotations of parts of old buildings and mixed them (sometimes in a rather unhappy way) to create a new manner of composing the buildings. More seizing in this new approach was that the Postmodernisme saw the return of the columns and the elements of the pre-Modern vocabulary, sometimes adapted traditional models of Greece and Rome (but not purely and simply of the reproductions as what had been made with neo-classic architecture ). In the Modernism, the pillars as architectural elements of support of load were rather replaced by other technical concepts like Porte-à-faux, or were masked in frontage by the curtain walls. The back in favor of the pillars was an esthetic choice rather than a technical need, quotations in the spirit of the pilasters. The Modernes buildings great height had become generally monoliths, rejecting the concept of stacking heterogeneous of elements different to the profit from a unit vocabulary, ground floor to the last stage. And sometimes, in the extreme cases, this structure used a basic section reproduced with identical of stage in stage (without effect of tapering nor of degrees), giving to see that the building proceeded of the only extrusion, directly since the ground, of a section posed there, impression reinforced by the elimination of any visible horizontal element — it was the case of the World Trade Center of Minoru Yamasaki.

Another return was that of the spirit, conveyed by the ornament and the reference which were with work in the buildings of the Art schools and Art déco, with frontages decorated in Céramique and ornamentations out of bronze and stainless steel. In the Postmodern structures, that is often summarized by côtoiement contradictory references of styles borrowed from older buildings, and also from references to style of traditional furniture out of wooden but except scale and treaty out of painted plastic or panels stainless. Surprisingly these buildings manage in the majority of the cases to have an esthetic interest, for example by a contrasting effect with the frame which surrounds them. However, as with any stylistic innovation, that took a certain time before being accepted by the majority of the public.

The Contextualisme, a way of thinking of the end of the XXe century, influenced the Idéologie in general Postmoderne movement. Contextualisme was centered on the idea that any knowledge depends on the context. This idea was pushed until saying that nothing of can be included/understood apart from any context. This influenced Postmodernisme which became attentive with the context and endeavoured to make interact its constructions with. Nevertheless, one can note a rather clear junction and very rapid, as of the Eighties, between European Contextualisme which stuck to a redécouverte European urban spaces and opposed to the ideas of the Charter of Athens, and Postmodernisme with the decorative exubérance with American, extremely eclectic, developing with more imagination in a country without the European historical depth, and remainder of this fact generally completely indifferent to the context.

Postmodernism

Postmodernisme started with the the United States around the years 1960-70 then gained Europe and the rest of the world, and continues to exist still today: that remains even the style dominating in the towns of plays or leisures (Las Vegas, Dubai, or the Val district of Europe close to Disneyland of Paris). The objectives of Postmodernisme developed in reaction with the Modernisme: they tried to show the limits of their predecessors. Their claims go even until the search for a complicity with the public, often borrowing humorous or desired ways desired full with spirit. This dash towards the public is expressed most of the time by a superabundance of references of old architectural styles, sometimes much at the same time.

Postmodernisme leaves the perception which it has of a failure of the modern Movement. The concerns of this last as for the functionalism (technical, economic and philosophico-moral) led it to think the ornament like element of being banished: thus all the buildings were to be equipped with cold rational appearance. Postmodernisme thought on the contrary that these buildings failed in their search to satisfy the human needs for comfort and beauty for the body and the eyes. The Modernism did not satisfy desire of the significant or academic beauty. The problem increased when already monotonous buildings were transformed into slum. Postmodernisme thought of solving the problem by reintroducing the ornamentation and the decoration for " D-enchanter" these districts. The architectural form was not only defined any more by its functional needs, it could (finally) become again what the architect postmodernist found pleasant that it is in the use of a vocabulary of pageantry giving good turning associated with the vocabulary with construction.

Random links: