POST MODERN ARCHITECTURE

THEORY AND PRACTICE

Dr. Khaled Mohamed Dewidar

Introduction:
Postmodernism, is it a concept or a practice? A matter of a local style or a whole new

period? Rosalind Krauss, defined postmodernism as a break with the aesthetic field of

modernism and a new concept of space and time. All critics, including Kenneth

Frampton, hold a belief that the project of modernity is now deeply problematic. In my

opinion, modernism as a practice has not failed, but on the contrary, it has won as a

tradition. In short modernism seems to be dominate but dead. This state of affairs

suggests that if the modern project is to be saved at all, it must be exceeded. This is the

imperative work of art and architecture, at the present time. How can we break with a

program that makes a value of crisis (modernism), or progress beyond the era of progress

(modernity) One can say that every period suffers a modern moment, in which it becomes

self-conscious? True, the word may have lost a fixed historical but as an ideology it has

not.

Modernity for Jürgen Habermas, is a project of life and a cultural concept based on

specific conditions. It is a concept developing new spheres of science and art, a counter

project that came to rarefy our culture in the form of an anarchic Avant gard. This is the

modernism that Hubermas opposes to the project of modernity.

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This revolt is much reflected and revealed in the post-modernism concept of Rosalind

Krauss, who expresses it as a change in the object itself. Thus post modernism as a

practice is not confined to a given medium, but rather in relation to logical operations on

a set of cultural terms. In this way the very nature of art and architecture has changed.

With this model, the post- modern strategy becomes very clear: to deconstruct

modernism not in order to seal it in its own image, but in order to open it and rewrite its

own closed systems. Post Modernism, had led us to reflect upon culture, a corpse of

codes and a set of resolutions with many different forms and shapes. Each position within

the postmodern context is marked by a historical agenda. It is best conceived as a conflict

between the new and the old, the present and the past.

In cultural terms, today there exists a basic opposition between a postmodernism which

seeks to deconstruct modernism and resists the status quo and a postmodernism which

repudiates the former to celebrate the latter, “a postmodernism of resistance and a post

modernism of reaction” One may support postmodernism as a populist and attack

modernism as an elitist, or conversely, support modernism as an elitist movement and

attack postmodernism as a mere kitsch. Such view, reflects an important issue, that

postmodernism is publicly regarded and appreciated. The postmodernism of reaction is

singular in its rejection to modernism. It is conceived in terms of a return to tradition and

it is reduced to a style. Architecturally speaking, it is a historical revival (Historicism).

The postmodern of resistance, arises as a counter practice not only to the culture of

modernism but also to the critical deconstruction of tradition and historical forms.

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In short, it seeks to question rather than to exploit cultural codes. Jürgen Humbermas

poses the basic issue of a progressive modernity and a reactionary post modernism. In

this sense, the crisis of modern architecture is defined.

Postmodern architect tends to respond with a populist masking or stylistic Avant –

gardism or a withdrawal into different architectural codes. It is an aesthetic break with

conventional norms. This crisis was felt radically in the sixties; the movement was often

cited as the Post-Modernism break. This concept has led to a new architecture, a new

language and a new theory of design.

In 1980, the Venice Architectural Biennial formed an Avant – grade of reversed

architectural fronts and facades. Architects sacrificed the tradition of modernity in order

to make room for a new historicism (postmodern reaction) Whatever can survive time has

always been considered classic, postmodern architecture, no longer borrows this power of

being classic, from the authority of a past epoch, instead it becomes a classic because it

has once been architecturally modern. Our sense of modernity creates its own self-

enclosed canons of being classic. The impulse of modernity is exhausted. We must admit

that we are experiencing the end of the idea of the modern. Thinking more generally, we

are in the transition of broader phenomena called postmodernity. The tradition of the

new, the belief in technological progress and the role of the Avant grade, all these

concepts have been thrown into doubt. The major assumption of modernism as an idea

and a philosophical notion has been displaced by other concepts. A definition must be

attempted if we are to think about what is happening today, and make discriminations

concerning its value. Postmodernists, are a group of architects who have evolved from

proceeding movements because they have seen the inadequacy of modernism both as an

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ideology and language. It failed to transform the society in a positive direction. Its major

language, the international style, was almost exhausted. On the other hand,

postmodernism is pragmatic in its social ideology and takes many of the stylistic ideas of

modernism to an extreme. It, includes a variety of approaches which departs from the

paternalism and utopianism of its predecessors. It has a double coded language, one-part

modern and one part something else. The reason for this double coding is technology, and

semiotic aspects. Architects seek to use a current technology, but also communication

with the public. Postmodernists accept the industrial society, but they give it an image,

which surpasses the machinery of the modernist. Seen within this perspective, modernism

and postmodernism are dialectically related both historically and logically.

The fact that postmodernism started as a reaction to modern architecture and its

conspicuous failures, a failure to generate convincing urban developments and to

communicate effectively. Hence, postmodernism developed a city-based morphology

known as contextulalism, as well as a richer language of architecture based on metaphors

and historical imagery. AS a whole, this theory revived the notion of urban contrasts, of

the opposition between monument and the background. It revived the idea of urban

universals and historical collage, city schemes were to complete the city patterns. The

culmination of all these ideas and trends could be easily realized in the architectural

works of Robert Venturi, Charles Moore, Robert Stern and Michael Graves. They

crystallized postmodernism most effectively and remain its major protagonists. Two

events helped to establish this trend as a major development in architectural thought and

profession. The Venice Biennial of 1980 that was mainly devoted to the subject” The

presence of the past” that confirmed the historical approach, while Michael Graves

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postmodern classicism defined the architectural style. His synthetic abilities allowed him

to adapt to many current ideas in particular the concept of contextualism as raised by

Leon Krier, the concepts of the fundamentalism of Aldo Rossi, the colorful and historical

approach of Robert Venturi and the radical eclecticism of Charles Moore. Thus forming

and presentation a new synthesis that would finally lead to a new architectural style.

Other developments played an important role in defining the wide growing concept of

postmodernism. The Neo-vernacular movements and its reabsorption of older

technologies, the ad-hoc mixtures of technologies and styles in the work of Lucien Kroll

and Ralph Erskine and the straight revivalism and radical eclecticism approaches in the

work of Charles Moore.

One of the strongest motivations of postmodernism; is to design within the taste of the

community, while still innovating in architecture. Charles Moore derived much of his

symbolism by practicing within the Italian Community, in designing the Pizza D’Italia.

Two important issues should be mentioned, that lie within the postmodern domain. The

attempt to communicate with poetic images, some of which may have a metaphysical

basis and they should be seen as counter to the modernist abstraction.

Secondly, the development of an ambiguous spatial concept based on a whole set of

devices: skew, erosion, elision, cut out screens and a vibrant color scheme.

We are at the beginning of a new paradigm, the postmodern paradigm. To summarize its

agenda briefly: it is an attempt to go beyond the materialistic world that epitomized

modernism. It is a paradigm based on the sciences of complexity placing primary

emphasis on the way order emerges out of chaos. As a cultural movement it

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acknowledges differences. This will lead to its major characteristic approach of double

coding. An architect representing this movement speaks on at least two levels: that of the

international elite in a global profession, and that of a particular person inhabiting a local

culture. Postmodernism is the engagement of both levels, as a result, its characteristic

style id hybrid. Today we have two major streams intertwining and competing: Late and

postmodern. With the survival of classical and traditional architecture, they will dominate

and will make architecture a part of the living art. Charles Jenks identified late and

postmodern periods with thirty different variables, that could be easily used in their

comparison and differentiation. Any architectural period id a complex compound of

ideological, stylistic and compositional ideas, and the architectural critic in a pluralistic

epoch must use all these categories to differentiate different schools. Late Modernists

seek to revitalize the modern commitment to technology, abstraction and servicing. They

place primary emphasis on the building function and program, extreme articulation,

structure as an ornament, highly sculptural from, slick surface and isotopic spaces. The

ultimate monument of late modernism is both Sir Richard Rogers’ L1oyds Bank and Sir

Norman Fosters’ Hong Kong Bank. Both reduced the building to its structure essence,

cladding and mechanical services. Thus creating a vital expression for the second

machine ago. Postmodernism is pluralistic by philosophy and inclination, but that does

not keep it insulated from fractures of judgment and criticism. Robert Venturi’s addition

to the National Gallery of Arts in London, is a sensuous corner addition to what was

describe as an undemanding building. This contextual addition, is much subtler and

interesting. It continues the urban from and make comments on it. In this case completing

and extending the Wilkins Façade. It is a design that completes Trafalgar Square and its

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public role within the society. In the rear façade, Venturi change the order of voids and

pilasters in a modest response to a minor street. It is a popular building full of historical

references and symbolism. Venturi in my opinion, accepted the legitimacy of both

modernism and traditional codes. He accepts all language and vocabularies of the culture.

This wing extends the classical language in a new way by attaching the pilasters on the

right side and separating them on the left, thus making an optical buzz that had no

precedent in the classical tradition. Here, Venturi makes new moves on classicism,

maintaining the same metaphor on the façade. In a sharp counterpoint to the pilasters and

its heaviness is a dark glass wall reminiscent of Mies’s structure. It represents a

contradiction between heaviness and lightness, solid and void, opaque and transparent. It

works functionally by allowing a view to the Square from the inside. Similarly, the top

light galleries above the parapet in steel and glass cladding, completely contradicts the

classical language as the Miesian glass wall above the main entrance lobby. Such double

coding of style raises the notion of pluralistic and eclecticism in a postmodern work.

Venturi proposes a, “civilized obligation towards a difficult whole, which includes

opposites, disjunctive complexity and abstraction” One strong motivation of post

modernism is to break down the elitism inherent in modern architecture sometimes post

modernism is confused with late modernism, because as we have seen, this movement is

also a mannerist play on a former language. The postmodern was firstly used in a non-

architectural context as early as 1938, by the English Historian Arnold Taynobee. In

1978, Charles Jencks attempted a definition for postmodern architecture, focusing on the

positive notion of double coding instead of focusing on the historical image alone, which

is the American contribution to the style. Both schools, European and American, differed

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over the emphasis placed on urbanism, participation, ornament and images. The

American school stresses on the latter two aspects, while the European on the former two.

The following are the most important trends acting within the postmodern scheme:

historicism, straight revivalist, radical eclecticism, contextualism and postmodern

classicism. Each one of these schemes will be studied, analyses and presented with

different case studies, showing its different vocabularies and design philosophies

Historicism: The Beginning of Post Modernism.

The vitality of today’s architectural language is one with the task of interpreting history

in a modern and a futuristic version. So as to make it act effectively and creating as an

incentive to creativity. The passive imitations that accompanied the revivalist movement

and their approach towards history is absurd. In my opinion, consistent adherence to

styles that have limited variety of form and details, is destructive to creative architecture.

Modernism, as it is understood today, is that unhistorical and arbitrary style of design.

One of the main debates about post modernism revolves around the importance of

historicism. According to Paolo Portoghessi, “the focus is on the presence of the past.

The most practical modification is the approach to history.

Architecture is based on conventions, which are meaningless without a connection to the

past. The crux of the matter, is what one actually does with the past. Venturi’s attitude to

the past seems exemplary. For him it is not the idea of repeating previous architectural

forms, but rather in the expectation of feeding more amply new sensibilities that are the

product of the present, which merely copying cannot do. In his book on complexity and

contradictions in Architecture, Venturi established the historical precedent as a major

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source for post modernism. He uses historical lessons rather than exploring the past.

Venturi’s approach depends on the exigencies of the commission, that is a sensitivity to

the environment heightened by his study of classicizing past. In this sense he is against

modern architecture which ignores the environment, by producing buildings that look like

updated Greek temples but are insensitive to their environment.

Venturi discussed interrelated phenomena which have been over looked in modern

architecture. These phenomena are, complexity, contradiction, difficult whole, ambiguity,

and both – and. In other words, he is dealing with ‘how to make architecture in terms of

principles with an emphasis on the language. ‘he started a new wave of soft humanistic

architecture, setting up a series of his own arguments and visual preferences in opposition

to the morality and purism of the modern movement. He looked for a pluralistic language

and opposed any trace of heroic European monism. He rejected the obsession of modern

architecture to deny the past.

He is for ‘complexities and contradictions ‘in architecture and their resultant tension and

balance. He is for ‘richness of meaning ‘rather than ‘clarity of meaning, ‘for the ‘implicit

‘as well as the ‘explicit ‘functions. He prefers ‘both – and’ to ‘either – or ‘black and

white and sometimes grey, to black or white. He is for ‘hybrid ‘rather the ‘pure

‘elements. ‘compromising ‘rather than ‘clear, ‘distorted, ‘rather than ‘straight forward,

‘ambiguous, ‘rather than ‘articulated. ‘He is for vitality as well as validity.

Robert Venturi’s thesis, in the following paragraphs, will be explored in full details by

examining and presenting it through one of his major structures, “The Guild House “

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It is the most famous house built by Venturi. It was designed to recall the traditional

Philadelphia row houses; in other words, it has been designed to fit in its context. The

design is reduced to a minimum usage of materials, room size and site development.

Except for the community room which is relativity large and located at the top.

Venturi’s concern in designing this project are the following issues: spatial demands of

the street, the tri – partite division of the building (base, middle, upper part), difference in

plans, that is recalled in the different window patterns, fitting the building to its context,

by using bricks matching the adjacent structures.

Venturi’s thesis is that architecture is both complex and contradictory, and it must be an

architecture, based on richness and ambiguity of modern experience. He is for vitality as

well as validity of architecture. The concept of complexity and contradiction, could be

achieved by the following aspect:

Breaking the conventional order, by using conventional elements unconventionally.

Meaning is enhanced by breaking the order.

Recognition of confusion inside and outside.

Rejection of simplification.

The variety inherent in the ambiguity of visual perception is highly recommended.

Less is not more, less is bore Venturi.

The manipulation of size, scale and shape, thus leading to what he achieved as the

difficult whole concept.

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Rejection to clarify of meaning, thus enhancing the concept ambiguity.

Complexity and contradiction does not mean incoherence or subjective

expressionism.

He is aiming to a difficult unity on inclusion rather that an easy unity of exclusion.

The issue of both/ and, not either/ or. (Both public and private, both inside and outside,

good and awkward, big and small. Close and open. Continuous and articulated round and

square). The building should not be designed from the inside/ out (the Modernist

architecture). It should be designed from both the inside/ out and the outside/ in.

Different levels of meanings. Thus the building could be considered as a decorated shed

and not a duck.

The difficult whole concept. For Venturi the whole is dependent on the inherent

characteristics of the parts.

The concept of duality and inflection. For Venturi the architecture must resolve the

dualities into one whole. The notion of inflection arises when the whole is implied by

exploiting the nature of the individual parts.

The concept of diversity of direction. (Double entrance).

The concept of the dominate element. (The large rounded window at the top).

Subsequent structures by Robert Venturi confirmed a serious commitment to both the

present and the past. In his look Learning from Las Vegas, he analyzed architecture as a

language perceived through a code or a sign. He contended that buildings should look

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like a decorated shed and not a duck. The decorated shed is a simple enclosure with

different signs attached to it. Whereas a duck is a building in the shape of its function, or

a modern structure and volume become its decoration. Venturi rejects a whole

communication system, an iconic sign, in order to present his preferred mode of

communication, the decorated shed, the symbolic sign.

He is for the symbolic sign and not for the iconic sign. He presented the idea of the

decorated shed as a new building type and as a vehicle for ornamentation in architecture.

He presented three ideas about the concept of the appliqué: spatial layering. Signboards,

and ornaments. Via them we came to a new concept of representing architecture. In this

context, representation involves the depiction as opposed to construction., “not to

reconstruct the originals, if we cannot construct historical architecture today, we can

represent them through applique and signs. Venturi provided two more important

contributions, first, his interest in pillaging from disregarded historical work and second,

was his plunge in pop art and architecture. His argument taken as a whole, insisted on

revaluing 19th century eclecticism for how they communicated on a mass level. By

contrast, post modernism which has developed from a semiotic research, looks at the

abstract notion of taste and its coding.

His Mother’s House, Vana Venturi, in Chestnut Hill-Philadelphia – is a Mannerist work

of modernism. It takes the flat plane and the simple modern volumes and distorts them.

Moldings are added to increase the scale and occur the old point. The shifted axes on the

front, become a conventional motif of postmodern space. On the rear façade, traditional

elements in are distorted way are utilized: a large Roman lunette window increase the

scale. The combined pitched roof implies a building twice its size, while the ellipse

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between them implies a fracture. To all this, is added the asymmetrical symmetry of the

plan and the odd fan shaped window. In my opinion it is a classical structure in the

substance of its plan and in the ornament of its façade. Within the classical aesthetic it

conforms to a mannerist tradition which admits contradiction within the ideal whole.

These contradictions are manifested in the following: The plan, the front and the rear

facades are symmetrical about a central axis, but within the consistent perimeter of the

plan and the façade, the extremities vary to conform to exceptions. The configuration of

the openings and windows are asymmetrical, if balanced, for the same reason. The central

core of the house is solid and not a void as the typical Palladian villa. The central

entrance reads on the front elevation as a void, rather big in scale like that of a Palladian

villa, but it is also contradiction by the set back wall of the solid core. Symmetry in plan

is modified at the extremities via exceptions, and nearer the center via distortions. The

gable is a split pediment to reveal the chimney behind, thus enhancing the mannerist

effect of spatial layering. In the rear façade, the central element is the big arched window;

it is a neo – classical façade, that promotes big scale and grand unity in small pavilion.

This use of ornamental redundancy and classical associations completes the classical

composition of the whole. There are some important elements in this design which are

not classical: the strip window of the kitchen. They form part of the classical – mannerist

contradiction within the whole. They establish an architecture based on the evolving

modern and the reviving of the classic. “In the end I am speaking of a historical symbolic

building that seeks the essence of a style in the ultimate aim of symbolism.”

“When the modern masters’ of architecture strength; lay in consistency, ours should be in

diversity,” by this, Venturi shows the theories behind his work, that is based on variety

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and diversity of architectural language and vocabularies, rather than consistency and

originality. He is for an architecture that promotes richness and ambiguity over unity and

clarity, contradiction and redundancy over harmony and simplicity. An architecture

deriving its meaning from symbols and its expression from its from. This approach

expands the range of vocabularies beyond the industrial vernacular and the machine

aesthetic of the International Style. “The freedom from consistency and the opportunity

for diversity is very important for the sensitivity of place, time and culture.” Venturi,

condenses the depth of space, in material qualities and in the composition of the external

surface and façade. He expands the scope of architecture to include; meaning, expression,

and communicational symbols either denotative or connotative. “ In an attempt to

produce an architecture that is relevant for diversities, I put the burden on the symbolic

rather the formal and technical aspects of architecture,” The approach towards

symbolism is not surprising, as it is a reaction to the long period when the symbol was

banned as a manifestation of ornament, or went unacknowledged as was the case with

early modern industrial symbolism, or was substituted for the expressionistic articulation

of structure and form as in the Modern Movement . Our historicism should involve less a

rivalry and more medley of styles. It is very important to introduce other sources of

symbolism, if diversity is to be achieved. Venturi, insists on the separation between form,

symbol and function, “this independence between form and functions can distinguish our

architecture from the modern movement, and the independence between form and symbol

distinguishes our architecture from traditional and historical architecture and symbol

distinguishes our architecture from traditional and historical architecture. “For him,

modern architecture forms and historical symbols cannot harmonize. Historical symbols

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and ornamental patterns must become appliqué. Quoins on a corner of façade are

structural in a Renaissance or revivalist architectural style, but not now, because we build

differently. “We do not want harmony between structure and symbol, if it is forced or

false. If we are at last postmodern to accept structural and formal contradictions, we are

still modern to reject structural and formal dishonesty, tromp d’ oeuil in architecture is

effective.” In my opinion, Venturi has proclaimed his independence from modernism,

and has substituted a new vocabulary that is different in its symbolism from that of the

old but similar in its singularity. He has abandoned the universal language of modernism

for modern symbolism, and promoted a new kind of Neo – classical architecture. He is

for historicism in architecture and had advocated an explicitly symbolic and

representational that is conveyed through an appliqué.

Straight Revivalism:

In spite of several mini revivals, there is no live tradition. Historical styles are dead. In

industrial societies, there are a lot of straight revivals, which could be named Neo – Style,

to distinguish it from the unbroken tradition such as the 18th century.

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