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... and for some reason I can't picture post-modernism fitting in anywhere in an architectural timeline.
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This is intentional. Modernists believed in linear, forward moving history, where each time period was special and unique. The essence of a time period is called
zeitgeist. The postmodernists believed (well, still believe) that "history" as we know it is a construct, and that it formulated and propagated by the oppressing class and the elites.
A postmodernist would question who it is that gets to decide what is historic and what isn't historic, and what the zeitgeist of each time is (who's history is the definitive history? They would say wealthy white males, etc.). They would also question someone like Mies van der Rohe, who defined his current time's zeitgeist, and then convinced enough people of it and his architecture based on it, leading to fame and commissions.
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... it's kind of an insult to classical styles. Really though I don't mind this, I just have a hard time looking at it as a legit style. It's so...pop.
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This is along the same lines. The point of that is to undermine those styles. The same thing goes for
deconstructivism (a branch of postmodernism) which questions on a deeper level the concept of "building" and its assumptions, and archetypes. Who is to say what is legitimate and what is not?
I think that postmodernism was and is so successful because of the following reasons:
Academia: The truth is that most people would find creating and writing about modernism to be boring (the fundamental ideas are simple and straightforward). Postmodernism brings in wit and irony and playfulness... academics can make fun, edgy projects. There's also a lot of convoluted theory to expand on, and lots of old theory just waiting for "new interpretations" to be written. And since there's so much active theory-making going on, there are a lot of different camps and sub-movements, which allows for the cliquey social component. To sum it up, however good or bad modernism is, most people find it too boring to actually be a part of it.
Practice (architecture firms): Practice likes it because clients (the general public) likes it. Although most "postmodern" buildings built don't really have much to do with the theory itself.
(I should add though, that there are different sub-movements within postmodernism, and that not all of them are the same)
I think that Europe is fortunate to have very little postmodernism.