Deconstructivism is a postmodern architectural movement which appeared in the 1980s. It gives the impression of the fragmentation of the constructed building, commonly characterised by an absence of obvious harmony, continuity, or symmetry. Its name is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

Constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in the Soviet Union in t ...

and "

Deconstruction In philosophy, deconstruction is a loosely-defined set of approaches to understand the relationship between text and meaning. The concept of deconstruction was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who described it as a turn away from ...

", a form of

semiotic Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of semiosis, sign processes and the communication of Meaning (semiotics), meaning. In semiotics, a Sign (semiotics), sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feel ...

analysis developed by the French philosopher

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, ...

. Architects whose work is often described as deconstructivist (though in many cases the architects themselves reject the label) include

Zaha Hadid Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid ( ''Zahā Ḥadīd''; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-born British architect, artist, and designer. She is recognised as a key figure in the architecture of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Born ...

Peter Eisenman Peter David Eisenman (born August 11, 1932) is an American architect, writer, and professor. Considered one of the New York Five, Eisenman is known for his high modernist and deconstructive designs, as well as for his authorship of several archi ...

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry ( ; ; born February 28, 1929) is a Canadian-American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become attractions. Gehry rose to prominence in th ...

Rem Koolhaas Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theory, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Graduate School of ...

Daniel Libeskind Daniel Libeskind (born May 12, 1946) is a Polish–American architect, artist, professor and set designer. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect. He is known for the design a ...

Bernard Tschumi Bernard Tschumi (born 25 January 1944 in Lausanne, Switzerland) is an architect, writer, and educator, commonly associated with deconstructivism. Son of the well-known Swiss architect Jean Tschumi and a French mother, Tschumi is a dual French ...

, and

Coop Himmelb(l)au Coop Himmelb(l)au (a pun meaning '' Coop Sky Building'' and ''Coop Sky Blue'') is an architecture, urban planning, design and art firm founded in 1968 by Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky and Michael Holzer in Vienna, Austria. History Coop Hi ...

. The term does not inherently refer to the style's ''deconstructed'' visuals as the English adjective suggests, but instead derives from the movement's foundations in contrast to the Russian Constructivist movement during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

that "broke the rules" of classical architecture through the French language. Besides fragmentation, deconstructivism often manipulates the structure's surface skin and deploys non- rectilinear shapes which appear to distort and dislocate established elements of architecture. The finished visual appearance is characterized by unpredictability and controlled chaos.

History, context and influences

Deconstructivism came to public notice with the 1982

Parc de la Villette The Parc de la Villette () is the third-largest park in Paris, in area, located at the northeastern edge of the city in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, 19th arrondissement. The park houses one of the largest concentrations of cultural venues ...

architectural design competition An architectural competition is a type of design competition, in which an entity that intends to build new work, or is just seeking ideas, invites architects to submit design proposals. The winning scheme is usually chosen by an independent panel ...

, in particular the entry from

and

and the winning entry by

, as well as the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

’s 1988 ''Deconstructivist Architecture'' exhibition in New York, organized by

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect who designed modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the postmodern 550 ...

and Mark Wigley. Tschumi stated that calling the work of these architects a "movement" or a new "style" was out of context and showed a lack of understanding of their ideas, and believed that Deconstructivism was simply a move against the practice of

PoMo The Pomo are a Indigenous peoples of California, Native American people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to ...

, which he said involved "making Doric temple forms out of plywood". Other influential exhibitions include the 1989 opening of the

Wexner Center for the Arts The Wexner Center for the Arts is the Ohio State University's "multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art." The Wexner Center is a lab and public gallery, but not an art museum, as it doe ...

in Columbus, designed by Peter Eisenman. The New York exhibition has featured works by

, and

. Since their exhibitions, some architects associated with Deconstructivism have distanced themselves from it; nonetheless, the term has stuck and has come to embrace a general trend within

Contemporary architecture Contemporary architecture is the architecture of the 21st century. No single style is dominant. Contemporary architects work in several different styles, from postmodernism, high-tech architecture and new references and interpretations of tradit ...

. Early antecedents of the architectural movement could be found in

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in adva ...

, notably in

Ettore Sottsass Ettore Sottsass (; 14 September 1917 – 31 December 2007) was an Italian architect and product designer. He was known for his designs of furniture, jewelry, glass, lighting, homeware and office supplies. He also worked on numerous buildings an ...

' design for the 1969

Olivetti Valentine The Olivetti Valentine is a portable, manual typewriter manufactured and marketed by the Italian company, Olivetti, that combined the company's Olivetti Lettera 32, Lettera 32 internal typewriter mechanicals with signature red, glossy plastic bo ...

typewriter, a non-conformist design that deconstructed what was typically the typewriter's bodywork, revealing elements normally concealed, using 'floating keys' and a body-colored plastic 'rail' ahead of the spacebar, visually detached from the typewriter's main body.

Modernism and postmodernism

The term ''Deconstructivism'' in contemporary architecture is opposed to the ordered rationality of

Modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

and

Postmodernism Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...

. Though postmodernist and nascent deconstructivist architects both published in the journal '' Oppositions'' (published between 1973 and 1984), that journal's contents mark a decisive break between the two movements. Deconstructivism took a confrontational stance to

architectural history The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates. The beginnings of all these traditions is thought to be humans satisfying the very basic need of shelt ...

, wanting to "disassemble" architecture. While postmodernism returned to embrace the historical references that modernism had shunned, possibly ironically, deconstructivism rejected the postmodern acceptance of such references, as well as the idea of ornament as an after-thought or decoration. In addition to ''Oppositions'', a defining text for both deconstructivism and postmodernism was

Robert Venturi Robert Charles Venturi Jr. (June 25, 1925 – September 18, 2018) was an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. Together with his wife and partner, Denise Scott Brown, he helped shape the way that ...

's ''Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture'' (1966). It argues against the purity, clarity and simplicity of modernism. With its publication, functionalism and

rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the Epistemology, epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to ot ...

, the two main branches of modernism, were overturned as paradigms. The reading of the postmodernist Venturi was that ornament and historical allusion added a richness to architecture that modernism had foregone. Some Postmodern architects endeavored to reapply ornament even to economical and minimal buildings, described by Venturi as "the decorated shed". Rationalism of design was dismissed but the functionalism of the building was still somewhat intact. This is close to the thesis of Venturi's next major work, that signs and ornament can be applied to a pragmatic architecture, and instill the philosophic complexities of

semiology Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. Semiosis is a ...

. The deconstructivist reading of ''Complexity and Contradiction'' is quite different. The basic building was the subject of problematics and intricacies in deconstructivism, with no detachment for ornament. Rather than separating ornament and function, like postmodernists such as Venturi, the functional aspects of buildings were called into question. Geometry was to deconstructivists what ornament was to postmodernists, the subject of complication, and this complication of geometry was in turn, applied to the functional, structural, and spatial aspects of deconstructivist buildings. One example of deconstructivist complexity is

Vitra Design Museum The Vitra Design Museum is a privately owned museum for design in Weil am Rhein, Germany. The architect of this building was Frank O. Gehry. His architecture was based on the art movement of the early 20th century, deconstructivism. Making the bu ...

in Weil-am-Rhein, which takes the typical unadorned white cube of modernist

art galleries An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...

and deconstructs it, using geometries reminiscent of cubism and abstract expressionism. This subverts the functional aspects of modernist simplicity while taking modernism, particularly the international style, of which its white stucco skin is reminiscent, as a starting point. Another example of the deconstructivist reading of ''Complexity and Contradiction'' is

. The Wexner Center takes the archetypal form of the

castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

, which it then imbues with complexity in a series of cuts and fragmentations. A three-dimensional grid runs somewhat arbitrarily through the building. The grid, as a reference to modernism, of which it is an accoutrement, collides with the medieval antiquity of a castle. Some of the grid's columns intentionally do not reach the ground, hovering over stairways creating a sense of neurotic unease and contradicting the structural purpose of the

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

. The Wexner Center deconstructs the archetype of the castle and renders its spaces and structure with conflict and difference.

Deconstructivist philosophy

Some Deconstructivist architects were influenced by the French philosopher

. Eisenman was a friend of Derrida, but even so his approach to architectural design was developed long before he became a Deconstructivist. For him Deconstructivism should be considered an extension of his interest in radical formalism. Some practitioners of deconstructivism were also influenced by the formal experimentation and geometric imbalances of Russian

constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in the Soviet Union in t ...

. There are additional references in deconstructivism to 20th-century movements: the

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

postmodernism Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...

interplay,

expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

and

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

. Deconstructivism attempts to move away from the supposedly constricting 'rules' of modernism such as "

form follows function Form follows function is a principle of design associated with late 19th- and early 20th-century architecture and industrial design in general, which states that the appearance and structure of a building or object ( architectural form) should p ...

", " purity of form", and "

truth to materials Truth to materials is a tenet of modern architecture (as opposed to postmodern architecture), which holds that any material should be used where it is most appropriate and its nature should not be hidden. Concrete, therefore, should not be painted ...

The main channel from deconstructivist philosophy to

architectural theory Architectural theory is the act of thinking, discussing, and writing about architecture. Architectural theory is taught in all architecture schools and is practiced by the world's leading architects. Some forms that architecture theory takes are t ...

was through the philosopher

's influence with

. Eisenman drew some philosophical bases from the literary movement

, and collaborated directly with Derrida on projects including an entry for the

competition, documented in ''Chora l Works''. Both Derrida and Eisenman, as well as

were concerned with the "

metaphysics of presence Metaphysics of presence () is a view held by Martin Heidegger in ''Being and Time'' that holds the entire history of Western philosophy Western philosophy refers to the Philosophy, philosophical thought, traditions and works of the Western wor ...

", and this is the main subject of deconstructivist philosophy in architecture theory. The presupposition is that architecture is a language capable of communicating meaning and of receiving treatments by methods of linguistic philosophy. The dialectic of presence and absence, or solid and void occurs in much of Eisenman's projects, both built and unbuilt. Both Derrida and Eisenman believe that the locus, or place of presence, is architecture, and the same dialectic of presence and absence is found in construction and deconstructivism. According to Derrida, readings of texts are best carried out when working with classical narrative structures. Any architectural deconstructivism requires the existence of a particular archetypal ''con''struction, a strongly-established conventional expectation to play flexibly against. The design of

’s own

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

residence, (from 1978), has been cited as a prototypical deconstructivist building. His starting point was a prototypical suburban house embodied with a typical set of intended social meanings. Gehry altered its massing, spatial envelopes, planes and other expectations in a playful subversion, an act of "de"construction" In addition to Derrida's concepts of the metaphysics of presence and deconstructivism, his notions of trace and erasure, embodied in his philosophy of writing and arche-writing found their way into deconstructivist

memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as home ...

s. Daniel Libeskind envisioned many of his early projects as a form of writing or discourse on writing and often works with a form of

concrete poetry Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has now developed a distinct mea ...

. He made architectural sculptures out of books and often coated the models in texts, openly making his architecture refer to writing. The notions of trace and erasure were taken up by Libeskind in essays and in his project for the

Jewish Museum Berlin The Jewish Museum Berlin (''Jüdisches Museum Berlin'') was opened in 2001 and is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. On of floor space, the museum presents the history of the Jews in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day, with new foc ...

. The museum is conceived as a trace of the erasure of the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

, intended to make its subject legible and poignant. Memorials such as

Maya Lin Maya Ying Lin (Chinese: 林瓔; born October 5, 1959) is an American architect, designer and sculptor. Born in Athens, Ohio to Chinese immigrants, she attended Yale University to study architecture. In 1981, while still an undergraduate at Yal ...

Vietnam Veterans Memorial The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, commonly called the Vietnam Memorial, is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the U.S. armed forces who served in the Vietnam War. The site is dominated by two black granit ...

and Peter Eisenman's

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (, also known as the Holocaust Memorial German: ''Holocaust-Mahnmal''), is a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust committed by Nazi Germany, designed by architect Peter Eisenman an ...

are also said to reflect themes of trace and erasure.

Constructivism and Russian Futurism

Another major current in deconstructivist architecture takes inspiration from the Constructivist and Russian Futurist movements of the early twentieth century, both in their graphics and in their visionary architecture, little of which was actually constructed. Artists

Naum Gabo Naum Gabo (born Naum Neemia Pevsner; Russian language, Russian: Наум Борисович Певзнер; Hebrew language, Hebrew: נחום נחמיה פבזנר) (23 August 1977) was an influential sculptor, theorist, and key figure in Russia's ...

El Lissitzky El Lissitzky (, born Lazar Markovich Lissitzky , ; – 30 December 1941), was a Soviet Jewish artist, active as a painter, illustrator, designer, printmaker, photographer, and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant-garde, h ...

Kazimir Malevich Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (

, and

Alexander Rodchenko Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (; – 3 December 1956) was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design; he was married to the artist Varvara Stepa ...

, have influenced the graphic sense of geometric forms of deconstructivist architects such as

and

. Both Deconstructivism and Constructivism have been concerned with the tectonics of making an abstract assemblage. Both were concerned with the radical simplicity of geometric forms as the primary artistic content, expressed in graphics, sculpture and architecture. The Constructivist tendency toward

purism Purism, referring to the arts, was a movement that took place between 1918 and 1925 that influenced French painting and architecture. Purism was led by Amédée Ozenfant and Charles Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier). Ozenfant and Le Corbusier f ...

, though, is absent in Deconstructivism: form is often deformed when construction is deconstructed. Also lessened or absent is the advocacy of

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

and

collectivist In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and groups. Characteristics of social organization can include qualities such as sexual composition, spatiotemporal cohesion, leadership, struct ...

causes. The primary graphic motifs of constructivism were the rectangular bar and the triangular wedge, others were the more basic geometries of the square and the circle. In his series ''Prouns'', El Lizzitzky assembled collections of geometries at various angles floating free in space. They evoke basic structural units such as bars of steel or sawn lumber loosely attached, piled, or scattered. They were also often drafted and share aspects with

technical drawing Technical drawing, drafting or drawing, is the act and discipline of composing drawings that visually communicate how something functions or is constructed. Technical drawing is essential for communicating ideas in industry and engineering. ...

and

engineering drawing An engineering drawing is a type of technical drawing that is used to convey information about an object. A common use is to specify the geometry necessary for the construction of a component and is called a detail drawing. Usually, a number of ...

. Similar in composition is the deconstructivist series ''Micromegas'' by Daniel Libeskind.

Contemporary art

Two strains of modern art,

and

, have had an influence on deconstructivism.

Analytical cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

had a sure effect on deconstructivism, as forms and content are dissected and viewed from different perspectives simultaneously. A synchronicity of disjoined space is evident in many of the works of

and

Synthetic cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

, with its application of

found object A found object (a calque from the French ''objet trouvé''), or found art, is art created from undisguised, but often modified, items or products that are not normally considered materials from which art is made, often because they already hav ...

art, is not as great an influence on deconstructivism as

, but is still found in the earlier and more vernacular works of Frank Gehry. Deconstructivism also shares with minimalism a disconnection from cultural references. With its tendency toward deformation and dislocation, there is also an aspect of

and

expressionist architecture Expressionist architecture was an architectural movement in Europe during the first decades of the 20th century in parallel with the expressionism, expressionist visual and performing arts that especially developed and dominated in Germany. Bri ...

associated with deconstructivism. At times deconstructivism mirrors varieties of expressionism,

neo-expressionism Neo-expressionism is a style of Late modernism, late modernist or early-Postmodern art, postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called ''Transavantgarde'', ''Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wild ...

, and

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

as well. The angular forms of the Ufa Cinema Center by Coop Himmelb(l)au recall the abstract geometries of the numbered paintings of

Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mo ...

, in their unadorned masses. The UFA Cinema Center also would make a likely setting for the angular figures depicted in urban German street scenes by

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German Expressionism, expressionist Painting, painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expr ...

. The work of

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

also bears similarities to deconstructivist architecture. His movement into abstract expressionism and away from figurative work, is in the same spirit as the deconstructivist rejection of ornament for geometries. Several artists in the 1980s and 1990s contributed work that influenced or took part in deconstructivism.

and

Rachel Whiteread Dame Rachel Whiteread (born 20 April 1963) is an English artist who primarily produces sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She was the first woman to win the annual Turner Prize in 1993. Whiteread was one of the Young British ...

are two examples. Lin's 1982 project for the

, with its granite slabs severing the ground plane, is one. Its shard-like form and reduction of content to a minimalist text influenced deconstructivism, with its sense of fragmentation and emphasis on reading the monument. Lin also contributed work for Eisenman's Wexner Center. Rachel Whiteread's cast architectural spaces are another instance where

is confluent with architecture. ''Ghost'' (1990), an entire living space cast in plaster, solidifying the void, alludes to Derrida's notion of architectural presence. Gordon Matta-Clark's ''Building cuts'' were deconstructed sections of buildings exhibited in art galleries.

1988 MoMA exhibition

Mark Wigley and

curated the 1988

exhibition ''Deconstructivist architecture'', which crystallized the movement, and brought fame and notoriety to its key practitioners. The architects presented at the exhibition were

Coop Himmelblau Coop Himmelb(l)au (a pun meaning ''Coop Sky Building'' and ''Coop Sky Blue'') is an architecture, urban planning, design and art firm founded in 1968 by Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky and Michael Holzer in Vienna, Austria. History Coop Him ...

, and

. Mark Wigley wrote the accompanying essay and tried to show a common thread among the various architects whose work was usually more noted for their differences.

Computer-aided design

Computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

is now an essential tool in most aspects of contemporary architecture, but the particular nature of deconstructivism makes the use of computers especially pertinent. Three-dimensional modelling and animation (virtual and physical) assists in the conception of very complicated spaces, while the ability to link computer models to manufacturing jigs (CAM—

computer-aided manufacturing Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) also known as computer-aided modeling or computer-aided machining is the use of software to control machine tools in the manufacturing of work pieces. This is not the only definition for CAM, but it is the most ...

) allows the mass production of subtly different modular elements to be achieved at affordable costs. Also, Gehry is noted for producing many physical models as well as computer models as part of his design process. Though the computer has made the designing of complex shapes much easier, not everything that looks odd is "deconstructivist".

Gallery

File:JewishMuseumBerlin.jpg,

Jewish Museum, Berlin The Jewish Museum Berlin (''Jüdisches Museum Berlin'') was opened in 2001 and is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. On of floor space, the museum presents the history of the Jews in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day, with new foc ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

File:Bodenlos.jpg, Alpine Deconstructivism in

Kitzbühel Kitzbühel (, also: ; ) is a town rights, medieval town situated in the Kitzbühel Alps along the river Kitzbüheler Ache in Tyrol (state), Tyrol, Austria, about east of the state capital Innsbruck and is the administrative centre of the Kitzbüh ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, by Christine & Horst Lechner File:Steinhaus Steindorf.jpg, Günter Domenig' s "Steinhaus" at

Lake Ossiach Lake Ossiach (, ) is a lake in the Austrian state of Carinthia. It is the state's third largest lake after Lake Wörth () and Lake Millstatt (). Geography Lake Ossiach is located in the southern Nock Mountains range of the Gurktal Alps along t ...

File:Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein 2002.jpg,

Weil am Rhein Weil am Rhein (, ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Wiil am Rhii'') is a German town and commune. It is on the east bank of the River Rhine, and extends to the tripoint of Switzerland, France, and Germany. It is the most southwesterly tow ...

File:Prag ginger u fred gehry.jpg, Dancing House by Vlado Milunić and

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

File:Capital-city-towers-moscow-indexxrus.JPG,

City of Capitals The City of Capitals () is a mixed-use complex composed of two skyscrapers and an office building located on plot 9 in the Moscow International Business Center in Moscow, Russia with a total area of . The two skyscrapers are named after the tw ...

in Moscow IBC,

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

File:Dresden-Kristallpalast-nigh.jpg, UFA-Palast in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

, Germany, by

File:Image-Disney Concert Hall by Carol Highsmith edit-2.jpg,

Walt Disney Concert Hall The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, California, is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center and was designed by Frank Gehry. It was opened on October 23, 2003. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Av ...

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

File:Guggenheim Bilbao may-2006.jpg, The

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art in Bilbao, Biscay, Spain. It is one of several museums affiliated to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and features permanent and visiting exhibits of works by Spanish a ...

, in

Bilbao Bilbao is a city in northern Spain, the largest city in the Provinces of Spain, province of Biscay and in the Basque Country (greater region), Basque Country as a whole. It is also the largest city proper in northern Spain. Bilbao is the List o ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

File:Estación Paseo de Gracia (1991-2014) Daniel Navas, Neus Solé. Arquitectos -3.jpg, Paseo de Gracia Station,

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

(1991) by Daniel Navas, Neus Solé. Arch. File:Gymnázium v Orlové.jpg, The Gymnasium by Josef Kiszka and Barbara Potysz, in

Orlová Orlová (; , ) is a town in Karviná District in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 28,000 inhabitants. The town is struggling with structural problems and is infamously known as the worst town to live in in the Czech ...

File:Barcelona 2010 August 005 Hotel.JPG, Hotel Porta Fira (left) in

, Spain, by

Toyo Ito is a Japanese architect known for creating conceptual architecture, in which he seeks to simultaneously express the physical and virtual worlds. He is a leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of a "simulated ...

File:McCormick Tribune 060304.jpg, The

McCormick Tribune Campus Center The McCormick Tribune Campus Center (MTCC) is a building on the main campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology, in the Douglas, Chicago#Bronzeville, Bronzeville neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. The McCormick Tribune Campus Center ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

's IIT Campus by

, completed 2003 File:Puente de la mujer, Buenos Aires (32008).jpg,

Puente de la Mujer The Puente de la Mujer ( Spanish for "Woman's Bridge") is a rotating footbridge for Dock 3 of the Puerto Madero commercial district of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is of the cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge type and is also a swing bridge, bu ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

Santiago Calatrava Santiago Calatrava Valls (born 28 July 1951) is a Spaniards, Spanish-Swiss people, Swiss architect, structural engineer, sculptor and painter, particularly known for his bridges supported by single leaning pylons, and his railway stations, stad ...

File:Synagogue Mainz Exterior1.jpg, New synagogue in

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Manuel Herz Manuel Herz is an architect with his own practice in Basel, Switzerland and Cologne, Germany. Education He was educated at the RWTH Aachen in Germany and at the Architectural Association in London. He has received numerous prizes and awards, ...

Critical responses

Since the publication of

Kenneth Frampton Kenneth Brian Frampton (born 20 November 1930) is a British architect, critic and historian. He is regarded as one of the world's leading historians of modernist architecture and contemporary architecture. He is an Emeritus Professor of Archit ...

's ''Modern Architecture: A Critical History'' (first edition 1980) there has been a keen consciousness of the role of criticism within architectural theory. Whilst referencing Derrida as a philosophical influence, deconstructivism can also be seen as having as much a basis in

critical theory Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are ...

as the other major offshoot of postmodernism,

critical regionalism Critical regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter the placelessness and lack of identity of the International Style, but also rejects the whimsical individualism and ornamentation of Postmodern architecture. The stylings ...

. The two aspects of critical theory, urgency and analysis, are found in deconstructivism. There is a tendency to re-examine and critique other works or precedents in deconstructivism, and also a tendency to set aesthetic issues in the foreground. An example of this is the

Wexner Center The Wexner Center for the Arts is the Ohio State University's "multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art." The Wexner Center is a lab and public gallery, but not an art museum, as it doe ...

Critical Theory Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are ...

, however, had at its core a critique of capitalism and its excess, and from that respect many of the works of the Deconstructivists would fail in that regard if only they are made for an elite and are, as objects, highly expensive, despite whatever critique they may claim to impart on the conventions of design. The difference between criticality in deconstructivism and criticality in critical regionalism is that critical regionalism ''reduces'' the overall level of complexity involved and maintains a clearer analysis while attempting to reconcile modernist architecture with local differences. In effect, this leads to a modernist "vernacular". Critical regionalism displays a lack of

self-criticism Self-criticism involves how an individual evaluates oneself. Self-criticism in psychology is typically studied and discussed as a negative personality trait in which a person has a disrupted self-identity. The opposite of self-criticism would be ...

and a

utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictiona ...

nism of place. Deconstructivism, meanwhile, maintains a level of self-criticism and a

dystopia A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmen ...

nism of place, as well as external criticism and tends towards maintaining a level of complexity. Some architects identified with the movement, notably

, have actively rejected the classification of their work as deconstructivist. Critics of deconstructivism see it as a purely formal exercise with little social significance.

finds it "elitist and detached". Nikos Salingaros calls deconstructivism a "viral expression" that invades design thinking in order to build destroyed forms; while curiously similar to both Derrida's and Philip Johnson's descriptions, this is meant as a harsh condemnation of the entire movement. Other criticisms are similar to those of deconstructivist philosophy—that since the act of deconstructivism is not an empirical process, it can result in whatever an architect wishes, and it thus suffers from a lack of consistency. Today there is a sense that the philosophical underpinnings of the beginning of the movement have been lost, and all that is left is the aesthetic of deconstructivism.Chakraborty, Judhajit; Deconstruction: From Philosophy to Design. Arizona State University, retrieved June 2006. "Today, in the mid 90s the term 'deconstructivism' is used casually to label any work that favours complexity over simplicity and dramatises the formal possibilities of digital production." Other criticisms reject the premise that architecture is a language capable of being the subject of linguistic philosophy, or, if it was a language in the past, critics claim it is no longer. Others question the wisdom and impact on future generations of an architecture that rejects the past and presents no clear values as replacements and which often pursues strategies that are intentionally aggressive to human senses.

Citations

General and cited references

* * Derrida, Jacques (1967). ''Of Grammatology'', (hardcover: , paperback: , corrected edition: ) trans.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (; born 24 February 1942) is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative ...

. Johns Hopkins University Press. * Derrida, Jacques & Eisenman, Peter (1997). ''Chora l Works''. Monacelli Press. . * Derrida, Jacques & Husserl, Edmund (1989). ''Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction''. University of Nebraska Press. * Frampton, Kenneth (1992). ''Modern Architecture, a critical history''. Thames & Hudson- Third Edition. * Johnson, Phillip & Wigley, Mark (1988). ''Deconstructivist Architecture: The Museum of Modern Art, New York''. Little Brown and Company. * Hays, K.M. (ed.) (1998). ''Oppositions Reader''. Princeton Architectural Press. * Kandinsky, Wassily. ''Point and Line to Plane''. Dover Publications, New York. * McLeod, Mary, "Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism," "Assemblage," 8 (1989), pp. 23–59. * * Rickey, George (1995). ''Constructivism: Origins and Evolution''. George Braziller; Revised edition. * Salingaros, Nikos (2008). "Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction", 3rd edition. Umbau-Verlag, Solingen, Germany. * * Tschumi, Bernard (1994). ''Architecture and Disjunction''. The MIT Press. Cambridge. * Van der Straeten, Bart
''Image and Narrative – The Uncanny and the architecture of Deconstruction''
Retrieved April, 2006. * Venturi, Robert (1966). ''Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture'', The Museum of Modern Art Press, New York. * Venturi, Robert (1977). ''Learning from Las Vegas'' (with D. Scott Brown and S. Izenour), Cambridge MA, 1972, revised 1977. * Wigley, Mark (1995). ''The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt''. The MIT Press. . * Vicente Esteban Medina (2003
''Forma y composición en la Arquitectura deconstructivista''
© Tesis doctoral, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Registro Propiedad Intellectual Madrid Nº 16/2005/3967. Link de descarga de tesis en pdf: http://oa.upm.es/481/

External links

* Vicente Esteban Medina (2003)
''Forma y composición en la Arquitectura deconstructivista''
{{Authority control Art movements 20th-century architectural styles 21st-century architectural styles + Architectural design Deconstructivist Architecture

History, context and influences

Modernism and postmodernism

Deconstructivist philosophy

Constructivism and Russian Futurism

Contemporary art

1988 MoMA exhibition

Computer-aided design

Gallery

Critical responses

See also

Citations

General and cited references

Further reading

External links