Postmodern Architecture

Postmodern architecture is a style or movement which emerged in the 1960s as a reaction against the austerity, formality, and lack of variety of modern architecture, particularly in the international style advocated by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock. The movement was introduced by the architect and urban planner Denise Scott Brown and architectural theorist Robert Venturi in their book ''Learning from Las Vegas''. The style flourished from the 1980s through the 1990s, particularly in the work of Scott Brown & Venturi, Philip Johnson, Charles Moore and Michael Graves. In the late 1990s, it divided into a multitude of new tendencies, including high-tech architecture, neo-futurism, new classical architecture and deconstructivism. However, some buildings built after this period are still considered post-modern.

Origins

Postmodern architecture emerged in the 1960s as a reaction against the perceived shortcomings of modern architecture, particularly its rigid doctrines, its uniformity, its lack of ornament, and its habit of ignoring the history and culture of the cities where it appeared. In 1966, Venturi formalized the movement in his book, ''Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture''. Venturi summarized the kind of architecture he wanted to see replace modernism:

I speak of a complex and contradictory architecture based on the richness and ambiguity of modern experience, including that experience which is inherent in art. ... I welcome the problems and exploit the uncertainties. ... I like elements which are hybrid rather than "pure", compromising rather than "clean" ... accommodating rather than excluding. ... I am for messy vitality over obvious unity. ... I prefer "both-and" to "either-or", black and white, and sometimes gray, to black or white. ... An architecture of complexity and contradiction must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion.

In place of the functional doctrines of modernism, Venturi proposed giving primary emphasis to the façade, incorporating historical elements, a subtle use of unusual materials and historical allusions, and the use of fragmentation and modulations to make the building interesting. Accomplished architect and urban planner Denise Scott Brown, who was Venturi's wife, and Venturi wrote ''Learning from Las Vegas'' (1972), co-authored with Steven Izenour, in which they further developed their joint argument against modernism. They urged architects to take into consideration and to celebrate the existing architecture in a place, rather than to try to impose a visionary utopia from their own fantasies. This was in line with Scott Brown's belief that buildings should be built for people, and that architecture should listen to them. Scott Brown and Venturi argued that ornamental and decorative elements "accommodate existing needs for variety and communication". The book was instrumental in opening readers' eyes to new ways of thinking about buildings, as it drew from the entire history of architecture—both high-style and vernacular, both historic and modern—and In response to Mies van der Rohe's famous maxim "Less is more", Venturi responded, to "Less is a bore." Venturi cited the examples of his wife's and his own buildings, Guild House, in Philadelphia, as examples of a new style that welcomed variety and historical references, without returning to academic revival of old styles.

In Italy at about the same time, a similar revolt against strict modernism was being launched by the architect Aldo Rossi, who criticized the rebuilding of Italian cities and buildings destroyed during the war in the modernist style, which had had no relation to the architectural history, original street plans, or culture of the cities. Rossi insisted that cities be rebuilt in ways that preserved their historical fabric and local traditions. Similar ideas were and projects were put forward at the Venice Biennale in 1980. The call for a post-modern style was joined by Christian de Portzamparc in France and Ricardo Bofill in Spain, and in Japan by Arata Isozaki.

Notable postmodern buildings and architects

Robert Venturi

File:Guildhouse Philly.JPG, The Guild House in Philadelphia by Robert Venturi (1960–1963)
File:Vanna Venturi House in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania LCCN2011631388.tif, Vanna Venturi House by Robert Venturi (1964)
File:Fire Station 4, Columbus, Indiana LCCN2013650708.tif, Fire Station Number 4 in Columbus, Indiana (1968)
File:Dartmouth College campus 2007-10-02 Carson Hall.JPG, Carson Hall, Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire
File:Udel - Trabant center2.jpg, Trabant Center at the University of Delaware in Newark, DE (1996)
File:Episcopal Acad Chapel ext.JPG, Episcopal Academy Chapel
File:Princeton Frist Campus Center back.jpg, Frist Campus Center at Princeton University (2000)

Robert Venturi (1925–2018) was both a prominent theorist of postmodernism and an architect whose buildings illustrated his ideas. After studying at the American Academy in Rome, he worked in the offices of the modernists Eero Saarinen and Louis Kahn until 1958, and then became a professor of architecture at Yale University. One of his first buildings was the Guild House in Philadelphia, built between 1960 and 1963, and a house for his mother in Chestnut Hill, in Philadelphia. These two houses became symbols of the postmodern movement. He went on to design, in the 1960s and 1970s, a series of buildings which took into account both historic precedents, and the ideas and forms existing in the real life of the cities around them.

Michael Graves

File:Portland Building 1982.jpg, Portland Building by Michael Graves (1982)
File:HumanaBuilding1.jpg, Humana Building in Louisville, Kentucky (1982)
File:Modern Building in Central Antwerp - panoramio.jpg, Radisson Blu Astrid Hotel in Antwerp (1993)
File:Denver Central Library. View from south.jpg, The Denver Public Library by Michael Graves (1995)
File:IFC Building.JPG, IFC building in Washington, D.C. (1996)
File:De Castaliatorens (de Puntmutsen).jpg, Castalia building in The Hague (1998)

Michael Graves (1934–2015) designed two of the most prominent buildings in the postmodern style, the Portland Building and the Denver Public Library. He later followed up his landmark buildings by designing large, low-cost retail stores for chains such as Target and J.C. Penney in the United States, which had a major influence on the design of retail stores in city centers and shopping malls. In his early career, he, along with the Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk and Richard Meier, was considered one of the New York Five, a group of advocates of pure modern architecture, but in 1982 he turned toward postmodernism with the Portland Building, one of the first major structures in the style. The building has since been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Charles Moore

File:PiazzaDItalia1990.jpg, Piazza d'Italia in New Orleans