Post-Modern Architecture:love it or hate it?

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

whats your stance on post modern architecture?


http://www.travlang.com/blog/wp-cont...ower_china.jpg


http://www.sunipix.com/Lipstick%20Building-3.jpg


http://farm1.static.flickr.com/67/15...c9e7e400c8.jpg


http://ekosedaneputra.files.wordpres...onas-tower.jpg

[Flamesrule]

I really love post modern and just modern buildings, but the thing I hate about is the new height they are giving the buildings.

[jetsetter]

"Post modern" architecture is almost as terrible as "modern" architecture.

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

Originally Posted by jetsetter

"Post modern" architecture is almost as terrible as "modern" architecture.

whats wrong with modern architecture?

[JSsocal]

Originally Posted by SkyscrapersOfNewYork

whats wrong with modern architecture?

This:


BTW I assume he's talking about modernism, not contemporary architecture. When I think of Post Modern though I don't usually think of the exaples you've shown, primarily because of the choice of materials. (metals as opposed to granite and stone). These are what I generally think of:





Now if there's any post-modern building to hate, its the Chicago public library...

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

Originally Posted by JSsocal

This:


BTW I assume he's talking about modernism, not contemporary architecture. When I think of Post Modern though I don't usually think of the exaples you've shown, primarily because of the choice of materials. (metals as opposed to granite and stone). These are what I generally think of:





Now if there's any post-modern building to hate, its the Chicago public library...

oh God things like those identical housing complexes scare me....but when i think modern architecture i think of this.


http://gallery.photo.net/photo/9121791-md.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3606/...cae3a5591d.jpg

and post modern i think of this and as what i posted before

http://www.takethehandle.com/interac...oup_center.jpg

[JSsocal]

^^^Well that's about as modern(ist) as it gets. Thats still there with the idea that less is more, and postmodernism is a response to that type of thinking, that ornamentation can still exist in buildings. Generally though there are different variations. Robert Stern Buildings for example relate extremely well to the past, going down to the appropriate materials and ornamentation, and then there are the ones that simply follow the proportions, and setback styles of older buildings. I personally like postmodern buildings, but they can become very clunky very quickly, given the demands of office tenants today. (See one World wide Plaza for example). What strikes me though, is that a firm like SOM can design something so modernist in One Liberty Plaza, and then design something like One World Wide Plaza. It just shows you how much of a trend post-modernism really was.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by JSsocal

Now if there's any post-modern building to hate, its the Chicago public library...

i've gotta disagree with you on HWL. over the years it has really grown on me and come to be one of my favorite PoMo works. it's just so ridiculously and absurdly over-scaled that i've come to respect it for its sheer audacity. it really is an amazing sight to behold in person. now, from a functional aspect there is a lot to criticize about it, but some of that blame also lies at the feet of CPL who don't utilize the space as well as they could or should. however, as a work of "what in god's name is that thing?" architecture, it's pretty amazing.

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by vandelay

I wonder if critics complained about the comical aping of historical styles in imperial Rome, or Renaissance Florence, or Baroque London.

Of course they didn't. No one dared to think or teach that a building just might not need columns on the front and finials on top until the onset of the industrial revolution where the needs of industrial engineering began to supersede the architectural pleasantries of classicism. Out of such a philosophical environment rose a whole new concept of design call Modernism with a complete and utter rejection of the past. Modernism was basically the first new style since the Greeks invented architecture 5000 years or so ago. Everything in between was just a slightly different version of the previous styles.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i've gotta disagree with you on HWL. over the years it has really grown on me and come to be one of my favorite PoMo works. it's just so ridiculously and absurdly over-scaled that i've come to respect it for its sheer audacity. it really is an amazing sight to behold in person. now, from a functional aspect there is a lot to criticize about it, but some of that blame also lies at the feet of CPL who don't utilize the space as well as they could or should. however, as a work of "what in god's name is that thing?" architecture, it's pretty amazing.

Completely agree. HWL is one of the most ridiculous, over the top, and whimsical structures ever built to serve a practical purpose. For that ballsy-ness I give it an A and am proud that it calls Chicago home. I just wish the interior were a bit more grand and had less obscure hallways. The first time I saw I went "holy shit what the hell is that, I'm going inside it". When I got to the front door I was utterly disappointed to find that the the "front door" led into a drywall-lined corridor that zig-zagged to a measly lobby in the middle of the building. That was quite a let down.

[ChiPsy]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Over the years [HWL] has...come to be one of my favorite PoMo works. it's just so ridiculously and absurdly over-scaled that i've come to respect it for its sheer audacity. it really is an amazing sight to behold in person. ... [A]s a work of "what in god's name is that thing?" architecture, it's pretty amazing.

Here here. HWL is amazing in its setting; audacious and proud.

[volguus zildrohar]

It's fine in reasonable doses. I'm a fan of older architecture anyway so I don't care much for skylines that are almost completely PoMo anyway. Shanghai, Dubai and such places - if you gave a high school aged skyscraper geek billions of development dollars, you'd get places like that. Not my cup of tea.

[Flamesrule]

What I meant by my answer is that I LOVE post modern buildings from the HEIGHT of 100ft-700ft BUT really anyhting abouve that is NOT my favorite buildings if they are post modern.



BTW I hate Dubia becuase of the heights of the buildings.

[Cirrus]

Far and away better than modernism. Proof that buildings don't have to be bland to be contemporary.

Like everything, PoMo has its good examples and bad examples, but generally speaking it is superior to most of what has been produced since World War II.

[M II A II R II K]

Postmodernism is Back


August 15, 2010

By Aaron Betsky



Read More: http://www.architectmagazine.com/blo...g&postId=96728

This image has been popping up around the Web for the last week and certainly caught my eye. It promises some light place at the end of a dark tunnel, but it is that tunnel that holds the eye as much as that promise. Above the open stairs, the tube is a knot of interlocking ropes, coiling around each other as they rise up towards a final intersection. A glimpse between the risers promises more fluidity of form vaulting through space.

This staircase is part of John Becker’s thesis project at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning. It was overseen, not coincidentally, by Geoff Manaugh, who writes one of the most popular architecture blogs, bldgblog. The thesis imagines a future pure-water product produced in the chalk hills of England by capturing dew. The main building is a warping of Neo-Classical forms into a continuously curved skeleton that rises out of, or digs into, the earth. Becker invented not just the building where the water is sourced and bottled, but a story about the site’s history (written "retrospectively," in 2071). The story includes plans and sections that evoke 18th century architecture in their filigree etching of lines into pages, explained with elaborate, serif lettering. It is the combination of narrative, the photorealism of the views, and the archaizing imagery of the drawings—as well as the skill of the design itself—that makes this project so compelling.

This project also reinforced the suspicion I have had for a few years, particularly since attending thesis reviews at MIT and seeing one student attempting to evoke Michael Graves’ “poche planning” in a plan of shifted grids and thick walls: Postmodernism is back. In particular, the notion of history as providing images that you can collage onto a structure that is not scientific or economic, but rather a malleable framework for experience, expanding, contracting, evoking past and future, is back. I hope that the ability to use such form and structure to develop a character that has a story and a style to it, will also return.

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

[QUOTE=M II A II R II K;4948789]Postmodernism is Back










WTF is that!!!!!!!??????

[RLS_rls]

^Thats neat, but the SBF Tower is waaay cooler.

[Bedhead]

Originally Posted by mrskyline

With Postmodernism the building is no longer abstract. It becomes a "sign" and signifies something. PPG Place is saying "I am a castle." World Wide Plaza makes a reference (some would say crudely) to the classic New York skyscraper top of the 1930's. When you put a spire on a building like One Liberty Place it is no longer pure but instead is making reference to something.

I think that's the key to it. The 80s were a time when people were trying to make designs more intuitive, so that they became easier to use, without having to learn how to use them - the classic example being WYSIWYG and point and click interfaces on computers.

Modernist buildings from the 60s and 70s (many of which I like) could be difficult to use. For example, the Barbican in London was designed with many fantastic high level walkways, but people used to get lost on the walkways, and stuck to the ground level streets that they could follow on maps, even though these streets were designed primarily for cars. As a result, most people who walk through the Barbican never see this:


my pic

but see this instead:


urban75, urban75.org

On the scale of a city, having one glass/concrete block after another doesn't tell people much about how to navigate around or behave - if schools, theatres, offices and churches all look the same, it's not clear where to walk, which buildings are open to the public, where the entrance is or how quiet/informal/deferential you should be when inside. At its best, postmodernism tells you how to interact with your environment.

For example, this office in Bristol, England obviously refers to the Royal Crescent in the nearby city of Bath.


flickriver.com, scot howse, http://www.flickriver.com/photos/psy...an/2789997953/



It is not a replica, but it is a close enough resemblance that it can say "this is a posh office, but there is a public space in front where you should feel relaxed and at home".

The photo doesn't really show it, but this approach works pretty well - there are often public events in front of the building which have a good atmosphere, and people like the way the building creates an attractive & friendly backdrop.

[Nowhereman1280]

I like the best examples of all styles, but prefer Modernism. If you look at any one style you can find buildings to appreciate even if its not quite your cup of tea. For example, I can totally appreciate the sarcastic Post Modernism of people like Graves, Venturi, and Tigerman, but I can't stand the shit that Johnson shat out towards the end of his career. Don't even get me started on the concrete box with holes in it Neo-Classicism of people like Lucien LaGrange.

While I like some PoMo buildings and totally love a few like Stanley Tigerman's Anti-Cruelty Society in Chicago, Modernist buildings like Mies' apartment towers, Goldberg's Marina City and River City, and The Barbican are what really do it for me. That said, any city that lacks a good mix of all styles completely turns me off. That's why I have a huge thing for Chicago, its got an even mix of literally every style for the past 150 years with a little extra emphasis on Modernism.


Good PoMo:


Chicagotribune.com

Notice that the entryway of the building is designed to look like the muzzle and face of a dog. This mixes up Modernist geometries and reflects the use of the building. Now that is how PoMo should be used, none of this comical aping of historical styles.

[vandelay]

I wonder if critics complained about the comical aping of historical styles in imperial Rome, or Renaissance Florence, or Baroque London.

[brian.odonnell20]

this style is so hit or miss (mostly miss in my opinion). There is simply too many designs that are so conceptual and have no cohesiveness with other buildings. I haven't seen many aesthetically pleasing supertalls at all built nowadays, because of this. Its because there's not many limitations in postmodernism, which can be good in some senses, but also gradually eliminates most of a design's contextuality. Think 56 Leonard in nyc. It's interesting and new, but also very unappealing and sticks out like a sore thumb.