THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II

Rajini Itham
Faculty of Architecture
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
POST MODERNISM

• Robert Venturi
• Charles Jencks

Rajini Itham
Faculty of Architecture
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
POST MODERNISM

• Postmodern architecture was an international style whose first examples are

from the 1950s.

• The functional and formal shapes and spaces of the modernist movement are
replaced by diverse aesthetics:

• styles collide
• form is adopted for its own sake
• new ways are developed for viewing familiar styles and space

• Postmodern architecture has also been described as "neo-eclectic", where

reference and ornament have returned to the facade, replacing the
unornamented modern styles.
THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
POST MODERNISM

•This eclecticism is often

combined with the use of non-
orthogonal angles and unusual
surfaces, most famously in the
State Gallery of Stuttgart and the
Piazza d'Italia by Charles Willard
Moore.

•Moore uses elements of Italian

renaissance and Roman
Antiquity.

•However, he does so with a

twist. The irony comes when it is PIAZZA D’ITALIA, New Orleans
noted that the pillars are covered - Charles Moore
with steel.
THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
POST MODERNISM

• Modernist architects regard post-modern

buildings as vulgar and cluttered.
• Postmodern architects often regard
modern spaces as soulless and bland.
• Towards the last quarter of the 20th
century as some architects started to turn
away from modern Functionalism which
they viewed as boring, and which some of
the public considered unpleasant. These
architects turned towards the past, meld
features of historic styles together to create
a new means of designing buildings.
• A good example of this new approach was
that Postmodernism saw the comeback of
pillars and other elements of premodern
designs, sometimes adapting classical Greek
and Roman examples (but not simply
SONY BUILDING, New York
recreating them, as was done in neoclassical
architecture). -Philip Johnson
THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
POST MODERNISM

• Form was no longer to be defined solely by

its functional requirements; it could be
anything the architect pleased.
• The characteristics include the use of
sculptural forms, ornaments,
anthropomorphism and materials which
perform trompe l’oeil.
• Examples of postmodern architecture are
Michael Graves' Portland Building in
Portland, Oregon and Philip Johnson's Sony
Building, which borrows elements from the
past and reintroduces color and symbolism
to architecture.

PORTLAND PUBLIC SERVICE BUILDING

-Michael Graves
THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
POST MODERNISM

• Post modernism also adopted double coding. Double coding meant the
buildings convey many meanings simultaneously. The Sony Building in New
York does this very well. The building is a tall skyscraper which brings with it
connotations of very modern technology. Yet, the top contradicts this. The top
section conveys elements of classical antiquity.

• Postmodern buildings sometimes perform the trompe l'oeil (trick of the

eye), creating the illusion of forms or depths where none actually exist, as has
been done by painters since the renaissance. The Portland Public Service
Building (1980) has pillars represented on the side of the building that to some
extent appear to be real, yet they are not.
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II

• Robert Venturi

Rajini Itham
Faculty of Architecture
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
ROBERT VENTURI

• Robert Venturi was born in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1925.
• He attended the Episcopal Academy
in Philadelphia and graduated from
Princeton University.

INFLUENCE:

• He worked with Eero Saarinen and

Louis I. Kahn before he founded his
own practice in 1958.
• In 1964 he formed a partnership with
John Rausch. Three years later, his new
wife, Denise Scott Brown, joined the
partnership.
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
ROBERT VENTURI

• ARCHITECTURAL THEORY:

• Robert Venturi was at the forefront of the Postmodern movement.

• His book, “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” (published in 1966), was
instrumental in the postmodernist movement in architecture and was fiercely critical of
the dominant Functional Modernism.
• Along with the rest of the Postmodernists, he sought to bring back ornament because
of its necessity.
• Although Venturi has designed many buildings, his theories have created more impact.
• Based on the philosophy of 'complexity and contradiction', he has re-assessed
architecture to stress the importance of multiple meanings in appreciating design.
• Venturi used a form of symbolically decorated architecture based on precedents.
• He believed that structure and decoration should remain separate entities and that
decoration should reflect the culture in which it exists.
• He also insisted on the plurality in design – the actual meaning and the contextual
meaning.
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
ROBERT VENTURI

VANNA VENTURI HOUSE

• Robert Venturi’s Vanna Venturi House (1962-

64) illustrates the Postmodernist aim of
communicating a meaning and the
characteristic of symbolism.
• The façade is, according to Venturi, a
symbolic picture of a house, looking back to
the 18th century.
• This is partly achieved through the use of
symmetry and the arch over the entrance.
• When architect Robert Venturi built this
home for his mother, he shocked the world.
• Postmodern in style, the Vanna Venturi
house changed the way we think about
architecture.
• The design of Vanna Venturi House appears
deceptively simple. A light wood frame is
divided by a rising chimney.
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
ROBERT VENTURI

VANNA VENTURI HOUSE

• The house has a sense of symmetry, yet the symmetry is
often distorted. For example, the façade is balanced with
five window squares on each side.
• The way the windows are arranged, however, is not
symmetrical. Consequently, the viewer is momentarily
startled and disoriented.
• Inside the house, the staircase and chimney compete for
the main center space. Both unexpectedly divide to fit
around each other.
• Combining surprise with tradition, the Vanna Venturi House
includes numerous references to historic architecture.
• There are suggestions of various Renaissance features.
• It is centered on the idea of the chimney, the hearth, from
which the space is pulled.
• The space is distended from that hearth as the mass of the
chimney rises up to split the house.
• The living room is half-vaulted.
• The whole house appears to be rising and being split
through the middle.
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
ROBERT VENTURI

PROVINCIAL CAPITOL BUILDING, FRANCE

• The program called for an administrative and

legislative complex including offices, the legislative
assembly chamber, public services, various public and
governmental support spaces, three levels of
underground parking for public and staff, and outdoor
and indoor ceremonial spaces.
• The design challenge was to insert this inherently large
and potentially imposing building into a smaller-scaled
commercial/residential quarter of Toulouse, and to
combine the repetitive office units with monumental
forms appropriate to the official and ceremonial
functions of government.
• The building's siting in the center of the site, framed by
landscaped park and gardens, softens its impact in this
neighborhood, while allowing the possibility of future
expansion of smaller increments nearer the perimeter
of the site.
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
ROBERT VENTURI

PROVINCIAL CAPITOL BUILDING, FRANCE

• One can see the great curved section of the building as a

reflection of the curve of the Garonne in this area, as it flows
to the sea.
• The solution arranges offices in two slender six-story wings of
flexible loft space linked by two glass-clad bridges.
• These linear administration buildings frame a pedestrian way,
a “civic street” that crosses the site diagonally and via a
monumental entrance connects the site of an historic city gate
near the Canal du Midi bridge.
• Covered bridges in glass span the pedestrian street
connecting the two wings of the building at two locations.
• They offer dramatic views from within the complex and, by
their form and silhouette, serve as symbolic gateways to the
civic crescent.
• At the center of the site one wing bows outward to
create the crescent-shaped public space along this civic street.
• The surfaces of the interior court contain the same
windows, and are of brick so the "street" evokes the rosy aura
of the historical streets of Toulouse; one of the very few
"brick" cities in France.
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II

• Charles Jencks

Rajini Itham
Faculty of Architecture
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
CHARLES JENCKS

• Charles Jencks was an architect and designer.

• Born in Baltimore, he first studied English Literature at
Harvard University, later gaining an MA in architecture
from the Graduate School of Design in 1965. He also has
a PhD in Architectural History from University College,
London.

ARCHITECTURAL THEORY:
• His 1977 book “The Language of Post-Modern
Architecture” is often regarded as having popularized
Postmodernism in relation to architecture.
• His books on the history and criticism of
Modernism and Postmodernism were widely read in
architectural circles.
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
CHARLES JENCKS

ARCHITECTURAL WORKS:

• Charles Jencks has become a leading figure in British landscape architecture.

• His landscape work is inspired by fractals, genetics, chaos theory, waves.
• He lectures widely in the United States, Japan, and Europe, has made a number of
television programmes on architecture, and designed important objects, including
buildings, furniture, and landscape gardens.
• In Edinburgh, Scotland, he designed the Landform at the Scottish National Gallery
of Modern Art.
• He is also a furniture designer and sculptor, completing the DNA Sculpture in
London's Kew Gardens in 2003.
• His recent work is on cosmogenic architecture and complexity theory.
 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
CHARLES JENCKS

MAGGIE CANCER CENTER

The design of mounds here

represents the Dividing Cells as
cell related to mitosis and the
signals they send to each other
to remain healthy.

Sculpture depicting the DNA spiral by Charles Jencks.

 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II
CHARLES JENCKS

LANDFORM UEDA, GALLERY OF MODERN ART, EDINBURGH

A landform based on the flow of earth and traffic.

Building as natural language:

Jencks mention various manifestation of cosmogenesis in nature
and their architectural representations
1. Through contemporary science such as fractals, strange
attractors, wave, folds etc.
2. Representing the basic cosmogenic truth- self –organizing,
juxtaposition.
3. Architecture should acknowledge the time and the spirit
an era, which roots, local content, a building in particular
time, place and constructional relevance need to be
developed.
4. It should have double coding with aesthetic and
conceptual codes: architecture must adopt a shared
symbolism - both the local and universal cosmogenic
language.
THANK YOU

Rajini itham
Faculty of Architecture
rajiniitham@pes.edu
+91 80 6666 3333 Extn 883