Post-Modern Architecture: An Introduction and The Biggest Challenge in Reading A Post-Modern Architecture Work
Postmodernism. It’s a broad category, the one that resists definition in many ways, but which has had a profound impact on many forms of art, including architecture. It first began as a critique that started in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, in which Modernism was no longer seen as radical or even relevant. Architects began to question whether architecture still indeed had the power to be a utopian remedy for social problems, as more radical modernists had claimed.
So, What Is Exactly Post-Modern Architecture?
According to (Jencks, 1977;1983), post-modernist architecture is characterized by the self-conscious and ironic use of historical styles and imagery, an emphasis on the scenographic and decorative (as opposed to the compositional) properties of the built environment, and a rejection of the social objectives and determinist claims of modernism. This was the 20th-century movement that was also been characterized by a disrespectful and eclectic miscellany of classic and modern style, and the emergence and proliferation of postmodernism which was a direct response to the rise of art movements like modernism. The concept of it was introduced in the 1950s and became a movement in the 1970s. It was sought to blend different architectural styles to incorporate historical styles while at the same time reflecting the current cultural environment in which they were made.
The use of historical motifs and allusions in postmodern architecture is linked to contemporary economic circumstances (based on Jameson, 1985, 75 perspectives). Similarly, the decorative impulses and middle-class orientation of post-modern architecture seem closely attuned to the conservatism of the political climate of the post affluent era (McLead, 1985).
The Biggest Challenge in Reading A Post-modern Architecture Work
Before straightly talk about the challenge, how does postmodernism communicate its architecture? Post-modern architecture communicates through a linguistic analogy to describe architecture that expresses meaning and some are taken from grammar, such as metaphor, words and phrases, syntaxes, semantics, and semiotics.
But in the case of reading the work of postmodern architecture, the argument that was used for scriptwriting and finding the secret narrative where it can be seen in metaphorical terms, it was filled with so much ambiguity which neither of the overall coherence nor connective tissue exists.
Postmodernism with its diversity possesses sensitivity to the building’s context and history and the client’s requirements which is often considered the general requirements of the urban buildings and their surroundings during the building’s design.
For example, in Frank Gehry’s Venice Beach House, the neighboring houses have a similar bright flat color. This vernacular sensitivity is often evident, but other times the designs respond to more high-style neighbors. James Stirling’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University features a rounded corner and striped brick patterning that relate to the form and decoration of the polychromatic Victorian Memorial Hall across the street, although in neither case is the element imitative or historicist.
But in today’s era, is Postmodernism still relevant these days?
Nonetheless, classifying a building as “postmodern” is not necessarily approved by the architects themselves. Given that there was no real movement or group that gathered these architects, and no manifesto either, you might as well come across architects who never considered themselves as postmodernists, and some even get offended when they get labeled as one. However, now that the time has passed and postmodernism has become a part of art history, we are close to realizing the importance and the immense value of the movement that helped the aesthetics move forward through a radical, yet obviously inevitable paradigm shift. It was quite obvious that postmodern architecture is not going to become a lasting trend, yet it was a crucial stepping stone that finally relieved us of the form-follows-function burden. More significantly, PoMo has shown us that not everything needs to be so darned serious, as modernism had suggested, despite the large scale and the physical gravity of an architectural project.
Bibliography
Chicago Architecture Center. (n.d). Postmodern. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.architecture.org/learn/resources/architecture-dictionary/entry/postmodern/.
Tomsich, E. (2019, September 27). Everything You Need To Know About Postmodern Architecture. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.quickenloans.com/blog/postmodern-home-style
Muscato. C. (2018, June 8). Postmodern Architecture: Characteristics & Definition. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://study.com/academy/lesson/postmodern-architecture-characteristics-definition.html
Anonymous. (n.d). Postmodern Architecture. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://resources.saylor.org/wwwresources/archived/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Postmodern-architecture.pdf
Lee, P. (2016, July 6). The Problem of Defining Postmodern Architecture. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/defining-postmodern-architecture
