Old homeless men yelling in German are just as incomprehensible as homeless men yelling in French.

Hearing german people say “sheizah!” and “oh mein gott!” is hilarious.

On the U-Bahn: interesting/terrible to see that the projected time of arrival of a metro car is actually accurate. In Paris, the time is at least 45 seconds sooner than what is projected. However, the lovely D to F sharp progression that announces each stop on the bahn is lovely. As is the F natural “doors are closing” warning. Paris doesn’t play lovely melodies before reaching a stop, and the dissonant bi or tri-tonal catastrophes that precede the door-closing are so terrible and vary from car to car that I haven’t bothered to figure out what the notes are.

German people are hard to describe. You have the hipster German-folk who look like they could be living in any liberal US city; you have sprockets people with weird gelled hair and who wear all black; you have the German goth contingent of course; and you have men and women who seem a little more western European in terms of their style- but they’re rarer.

German people wait for the light to change green before crossing the street, even when there are no cars coming. I crossed once when the light was red-about to turn green for that matter- and I think a German last commented on it disdainfully to her husband. Did I mention how cute the walk and don’t walk lights are? They are of little men in top hats!!

Alright, I guess I can tell you what I did today. I woke up bright and early and spent 2.5 hours at the Jewish museum. Note that I say Jewish museum and not holocaust museum- two different subjects! The Berlin jewish museum covers the entire known history and culture of the Jewish people. Cool, right? Of course there are parts that pertain to the holocaust but not the whole thing. It was interesting to see the roots of anti-semitism over time (and learning the fact that that word wasn’t even invented till the 19th century!). One thing I didn’t like about the museum was that I felt that people were being really loud an disrespectful in, to me, what seems like such a solemn space. Or maybe I’m just developing social anxiety. I guess since the museum isn’t entirely about the holocaust there is less formality, but regardless, I felt like people were there just cuz their guidebook said to go and they don’t really understand how important it is to understand the roots of antisemitism and how much Jewish culture was lost after the holocaust.

After the museum I decide to head to south-east Berlin, which has the largest intact strip of the Berlin wall, painted with lots of famous murals. I got lunch first though on Simondach Strasse thanks to a recommendation from andre3000. I went to a cute little restaurant where I got a panini and delicious cookies and cream pudding! Then I walked back to the Berlin wall and did the whole thing in a thunderstorm. Not as bad as it sounds, by the time I got back to the beginning it had stopped raining. I didn’t bring my umbrella though lol! Who needs to see the weather before leaving her hostel anyways…then I walked back to Simondach Strasse to pick up a cupcake!! Nom noms!!! And I saw some cute boutiques along the way. It was such a cute neighborhood that did not feel at all like the Berlin I saw yesterday. My day ended with a failed trip to the Berlin Wall center- literally could not find it but I found the Berlin wall park! While walking from the U-bahn stop to the park I saw a guy biking in the bike lane, pulling a rolling chair which was pretty funny. And I had a traditional German meal at a pub recommended on the hostel map.

Tomorrow Emma is coming!!! And I think I’m gonna do a day trip to Potsdam in the morning! Because why the hell not!!! And Sunday commences the Tour de Deutschland! And Carly’s birthday. So everyone tell her happy birthday or I’ll cry!

26 October 2011: Wednesday

We got into Berlin late, so we did not do any exploring. We spend time looking around our huge hostel and planning out our next few days. Our hostel is in what was East Berlin, the communist sector. I found it interesting that you can still see some parts of the communist rule around the city. According to Rick Steves, the people of Berlin voted to keep the communist crossing signals in East Berlin. When you walk into West Berlin, the signals change design.

This was my first time staying in one of these hyper-hostels and we met many interesting people. For example, the four of us were staying in a six-person room and we had one other guest staying with us. Rob was from the Netherlands. Just picture him, long black hair, leather vest, a total 50-year old rocker. I later found out that he is in an underground rock band, meeting up with his German band mates before they start their tour of Europe. I am so thankful that we had Fran traveling with us!

27 October 2011: Thursday

This morning we took the metro to the longest bit of Berlin wall still standing. It has been turned into the east side gallery; artists have painted murals all along the wall, reflecting on the time under communist control.

By now it was time for lunch and we had the best german fast food! Bratwurst and Fries!!!!! It was so good! If you are ever in Berlin, you must stop at Konnopke’s Imbiss. Situated under a railroad track, I was told by a local Berliner that this restaurant has been open since before WWII. It was even able to stay open in the communist sector during the cold war. Yum! I want some now!

This afternoon, we visited the Berliner Fernsehturm TV tower. This tower was built under the control of the Nazi party. There is a ironic story associated with this tower: Since the Nazi party rejects religion, it is interesting that when the sun is shining, a cross is reflected off of the ball of the tower!

We walked past the rathaus and to the Swiss embassy by architect Rem Koolhaas. We could only see the outside, but this building still shines with the smooth modernism that is swiss. We saw the Berliner Dom (Berlin’s Protestant Cathedral-like church), the Neo-Classical Altes Museum, and had fun sampling all of the International foods that have invaded Berlin. Fran was happy to eat Asian Takeout at Happy Noodle while JC and I were overjoyed to have Boba Tea!

This night, we went into the Pergamon Museum. This unique museum gets its name from the temple that was deconstructed in Turkey and taken, stone by stone, here to Berlin where it was reconstructed within this museum. There were many huge, ancient facades and countless artifacts dating back to antiquity.

28 October 2011: Friday

This morning we took a tour of the Reichstag. This building holds the meeting room of the new German Republic. The original building was built during the first German Republic, it was almost destroyed during the Nazi take over, and has been recently restored with a new dome by British architect Norman Foster. The dome is made of glass with ramps winding up the inside. An audio tour took us through the history of the German government, surrounding architecture, and the design of the dome. The glass construction represents the transparency of the new Republic.

We walked through the Tiergarten park, enjoying the fall colors, past Brandenburg Gate, to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews by Peter Eisenman. This memorial was very cool. Hundreds of concrete blocks rise out of the earth at different heights with the earth sloping down, creating a forest of concrete for an entire city block.

We met up with my roommate Kat, who was traveling during PLP break from Vienna to Berlin and we took her to the yummy Konnopke’s Imbiss for Bratwurst again!

29 October 2011: Saturday

Today was a very thought provoking day. We walked from the hostel through the city center to Daniel Liebskind’s Jewish Museum. I think that the museum building itself was so cool and brilliantly designed. Unfortunately the exhibit on Jewish culture took away from the impact of the museum itself.

Liebskind, a Polish Jew, was born just after the end of world war two and grew up in its aftermath. He moved to America when he was a boy and became an architect. He has been using his skills as an architect to create some very impactful museums (also one in San Francisco).

The original building for the Jewish Museum still stands with Liebskind’s metal “scar” stretching out behind it. There are several axis used to create the shape of the building. Between the axis, the “voids” become moments of contemplation. The Holocaust Tower is a tall, unheated room with just one light source, used to remember the victims of the Holocaust. The garden of exile holds 49 trees on columns with the floor at an angle giving a very disorienting feeling, the same feeling given to the refugees as they escaped to their new home. And the Memory Void held thousands of faces cut out of metal. This art installation was to represent the innocent victims of the war. You are able to walk upon the faces; you are forced to trod lightly, with the metal pieces overlapping and banging together… just watch the video…

This museum’s architecture was fabulous. I now understand why all of my professors are always raving about it.

For lunch, we found a Schwäbisch restaurant (food from Bavaria). I was so excited be cause I got everyone to try Käsespätzle!!! It was so good!

We hurried to the Neues Museum, museum of Egypt and antiquity, to see the bust of Nefertiti, before going to the Typographies of Terror Museum (TTM). The TTM was absolutely fascinating. It went in depth into the rise and fall of the Nazi party. It explained how the party gained so much popularity throughout Germany and put faces behind its leaders. It is so interesting how the party pulled Germany out of a depression after WWI while secretly destroying so many lives. The new pavilion that houses the TTM was built on top of the foundation of the original headquarters for the SS. A must see museum in Berlin.

30 October 2011: Sunday

Kat met us at the hotel this morning and the five of us took the train out of Berlin to the town of Dessau. The Bauhaus, school of Architecture was established here by German modernist architects Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rhoe (#3 on my list of favorite architects). Cal Poly sent five architecture students to study here for two quarters and we were excited to visit them and see the renowned school.

They met us at the train and gave us a tour around the small and quiet town of Dessau. It was Sunday so many things were closed. There is a very large theater in Dessau that is said to fit the entire population of Dessau (over 40,000 people). I was told that Hitler planned to make Dessau the new capital of the Nazi regime and therefore began building some very large, but now unnecessary, projects.

We had lunch in a small beer garden and spend several hours talking and laughing. We ate Bratwurst, kartoffelsalat (potato salad, but German and amazing), fresh bread, and an apple tart. We wandered slowly back to the train, enjoying the fall leaves and crisp air.

31 October 2011: Monday

Our flight left very early this morning from Berlin, arriving in Milan at 8am! We took the bus into the Milan center, exploring the beautiful Galleria and the Milan Duomo. The Galleria is a glass covered shopping center dating back to 1865 and selling the top Italian clothing like Gucci and Prada, and housing The Seven Stars Galleria Hotel (the only 7 star hotel in the world!) Also, there is a mosaic of the crest of Torino, a bull. For good luck, you are to step on the bull, just like Fran is doing. That spot in the floor is worn through to the concrete below!

The Duomo gathers its elaborate gothic style from the French. This cathedral is also home to many catholic relics including recently dead popes and cardinals (I could even see their hair poking out from under their death masks… weird if you ask me).

We had lunch at a bakery called “Princi.” It is a local favorite and we had to push our way to the bar to order the yummy and fresh focaccia bread! The train home was smooth and relaxing after our fun trip.

David says Cityplace at Skydome was built by a guy from Hong Kong, who built condos in Hong Kong and Vancouver before Toronto. He thinks a lot of the architecture has been re-used. I think the planning, layout, & logistics is duplicated, but every building / project deserves its own identity. Mom thinks that Michael Chin & Daniel Liebskind got the ROM crystal here. We have seen some pretty ambitious curtain wall designs here.

Stewardesses are pretty cute today. China Southern Airlines. Jessica says that the government issues a cup and a spoon to everyone: the cup is the maximum allowable quantity of oil per day, the spoon s for salt. Pretty proactive health care plan, but goddamn is it ever working. Wonder if that would work back home. Probably not; everyone eats pre-packaged food.

I think I may have figured out why the commercials seem so frantic: the ads are maybe only 20 seconds long. Some are shorter. Sometimes it’s like watching the “Product consideration paid for by” at the end of Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy. AND… the reason I took this book out in the first place: they have a car company called BYD.

Had a thought about spicy food, since we’re having hot pot for lunch. This flight is taking a whole lot longer than I thought it would, and I think I might have strained something while stretching out my quads. Anyways, if we need 3 tables per meal, we can put all the spicy, mild, and medium food on their own tables. Of course that might split up friends, couples, etc, but maybe buffet style? I haven’t worked out the logistics. But it sure beats catering to the lowest common denominator. No hen left behind.

Mom is shopping for Chinese cut paper, otherwise known as “Paper cut in China”. It seems like everything I’m buying will look good on a red background. It’s lucky.

There’s a commercial on for seeing China by bike. Hardcore cyclists hitting Forbidden City, Sacred Path, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven. All the way to the Shanghai Expo. Westerners though. I think the locals get enough of bikes. Chinese commercials look a lot like Canadian & US commercials, but with Chinese people. If commercials back home had Asian car commercials featuring nothing but Asians, it’d be really really racist. Somehow here it works.

A glimpse of the outside of the Contemporary Jewish museum by Daniel Liebskind in San Francisco.  Also located nearby is Yerba Buena Park and the SFMOMA by Mario Botta which you can see in the reflection of the glass door in the last image.  There’s a tasty mexican restaurant, Tropisueno, that I met up with Chris, Melissa, Rachel, Oana, and Justin at for lunch.  Sooo good to see you guys!

(images by: vivien chin

Deconstructivism in architecture, also called deconstruction, is a development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure’s surface or skin, non-rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of architecture, such as structure and envelope. The finished visual appearance of buildings that exhibit the many deconstructivist “styles” is characterised by a stimulating unpredictability and a controlled chaos.

Important events in the history of the deconstructivist movement include the 1982 Parc de la Villette architectural design competition (especially the entry from Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman[1] and Bernard Tschumi’s winning entry), the Museum of Modern Art’s 1988 Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition in New York, organized by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley, and the 1989 opening of the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, designed by Peter Eisenman. The New York exhibition featured works by Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelb(l)au, and Bernard Tschumi. Since the exhibition, many of the architects who were associated with Deconstructivism have distanced themselves from the term. Nonetheless, the term has stuck and has now, in fact, come to embrace a general trend within contemporary architecture.

Originally, some of the architects known as Deconstructivists were influenced by the ideas of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Eisenman developed a personal relationship with 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. There are additional references in deconstructivism to 20th-century movements: the modernism/postmodernism interplay, expressionism, cubism, minimalism and contemporary art. The attempt in deconstructivism throughout is to move architecture away from what its practitioners see as the constricting ‘rules’ of modernism such as “form follows function,” “purity of form,” and “truth to materials.”

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao by Frank Gehry, on the Nervión River in downtown Bilbao, Spain.

History, context & influences

Modernism and postmodernism

Deconstructivism in contemporary architecture stands in opposition to the ordered rationality of Modernism. Its relationship with Postmodernism is also decidedly contrary. Though postmodernist and nascent deconstructivist architects published theories alongside each other in the journal Oppositions (published 1973–84), that journal’s contents mark the beginning of a decisive break between the two movements. Deconstruction took a confrontational stance toward much of architecture and architectural history, wanting to disjoin and disassemble architecture.[2] While postmodernism returned to embrace— often slyly or ironically—the historical references that modernism had shunned, deconstructivism rejects the postmodern acceptance of such references. It also rejects the idea of ornament as an after-thought or decoration. These principles have meant that deconstructivism aligns itself somewhat with the sensibilities of modernist anti-historicism.

In addition to Oppositions, another text that separated deconstructivism from the fray of modernism and postmodernism was the publication of Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in architecture (1966). A defining point for both postmodernism and for deconstructivism, Complexity and Contradiction argues against the purity, clarity and simplicity of modernism. With its publication, functionalism and rationalism, the two main branches of modernism, were overturned as paradigms according to postmodernist and deconstructivist readings, with differing readings. The postmodern reading of Venturi (who was himself a postmodernist) was that ornament and historical allusion added a richness to architecture that modernism had foregone. Some Postmodern architects endeavored to reapply ornaments even to economical and minimal buildings, an effort best illustrated by Venturi’s concept of “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,[3] that signs and ornament can be applied to a pragmatic architecture, and instill the philosophic complexities of semiology.

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 spacial aspects of deconstructivist buildings. One example of deconstructivist complexity is Frank Gehry’s Vitra Design Museum in Weil-am-Rhein, which takes the typical unadorned white cube of modernist art galleries 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 Peter Eisenman’s Wexner Center for the Arts. The Wexner Center takes the archetypal form of the castle, 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 don’t reach the ground, hovering over stairways creating a sense of neurotic unease and contradicting the structural purpose of the column. The Wexner Center deconstructs the archetype of the castle and renders its spaces and structure with conflict and difference.

Deconstructivist philosophy

The main channel from deconstructivist philosophy to architectural theory was through the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s influence with Peter Eisenman. Eisenman drew some philosophical bases from the literary movement Deconstruction, and collaborated directly with Derrida on projects including an entry for the Parc de la Villette competition, documented in Chora l Works. Both Derrida and Eisenman, as well as Daniel Libeskind[4] were concerned with the “metaphysics of presence,” 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 deconstruction.[6]

According to Derrida, readings of texts are best carried out when working with classical narrative structures. Any architectural deconstruction requires the existence of a particular archetypal construction, a strongly-established conventional expectation to play flexibly against.[7] The design of Frank Gehry’s own Santa Monica 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”[8]

In addition to Derrida’s concepts of the metaphysics of presence and deconstruction, his notions of trace and erasure, embodied in his philosophy of writing and arche-writing[9] found their way into deconstructivist memorials. 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. 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 museum is conceived as a trace of the erasure of the Holocaust, intended to make its subject legible and poignant. Memorials such as Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe also reflect themes of trace and erasure.

Constructivism and Russian Futurism

Das Wolkenbügel (“The Cloud-iron”): photomontage of an unbuilt building designed by El Lissitzky in 1925

Another major current in deconstructivist architecture takes inspiration from the Russian Constructivist and 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, El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, and Alexander Rodchenko, have influenced the graphic sense of geometric forms of deconstructivist architects such as Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au. 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, though, is absent in Deconstructivism: form is often deformed when construction is deconstructed. Also lessened or absent is the advocacy of socialist and collectivist 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 and engineering drawing. Similar in composition is the deconstructivist series Micromegas by Daniel Libeskind.
The symbolic breakdown of the wall effected by introducing the Constructivist motifs of tilted and crossed bars sets up a subversion of the walls that define the bar itself. …This apparent chaos actually constructs the walls that define the bar; it is the structure. The internal disorder produces the bar while splitting it even as gashes open up along its length.

– Phillip Johnson and Mark Wigley, Deconstructive Architecture, p.34

Contemporary art

Two strains of modern art, minimalism and cubism, have had an influence on deconstructivism. Analytical cubism 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 Frank Gehry and Bernard Tschumi. Synthetic cubism, with its application of found art, is not as great an influence on deconstructivism as Analytical cubism, but is still found in the earlier and more vernacular works of Frank Gehry. Deconstructivism also shares with minimalism a disconnection from cultural references. It also often shares with minimalism notions of conceptual art.

With its tendency toward deformation and dislocation, there is also an aspect of expressionism and expressionist architecture associated with deconstructivism. At times deconstructivism mirrors varieties of expressionism, neo-expressionism, and abstract expressionism 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, 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. The work of Wassily Kandinsky also bears similarities to deconstructivist architecture. His movement into abstract expressionism and away from figurative work,[10] 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. Maya Lin and Rachel Whiteread are two examples. Lin’s 1982 project for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 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 contemporary art 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 Phillip Johnson curated the 1988 Museum of Modern Art exhibition Deconstructivist architecture, which crystallized the movement, and brought fame and notoriety to its key practitioners. The architects presented at the exhibition were Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelblau, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, and Bernard Tschumi. 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.
The projects in this exhibition mark a different sensibility, one in which the dream of pure form has been disturbed. It is the ability to disturb our thinking about form that makes these projects deconstructive. The show examines an episode, a point of intersection between several architects where each constructs an unsettling building by exploiting the hidden potential of modernism.

– Phillip Johnson and Mark Wigley, Excerpts from Deconstructivist Architecture

Computer-aided design

Computer aided design is now an essential tool in most aspects of contemporary architecture, but the particular nature of deconstrucivism makes the use of computers especially pertinent. Three-dimensional modelling and animation (virtual and physical) assists in the conception of very complex spaces, while the ability to link computer models to manufacturing jigs (CAM – Computer-aided manufacturing) allows the mass production of subtly different modular elements to be achieved at affordable costs. In retrospect many early deconstructivist works appear to have been conceived with the aid of a computer, but were not; Zaha Hadid’s sketches for instance. 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.”

Critical responses

Since the publication of Kenneth Frampton’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 as the other major offshoot of postmodernism, critical regionalism. 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 esthetic issues in the foreground. An example of this is the Wexner Center. Critical Theory, 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 Wexner Center brings vital architectural topics such as function and precedent to prominence and displays their urgency in architectural discourse, in an analytical and critical way. 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 and a utopianism of place. Deconstructivism, meanwhile, maintains a level of self-criticism, as well as external criticism and tends towards maintaining a level of complexity. Some architects identified with the movement, notably Frank Gehry, have actively rejected the classification of their work as deconstructivist.

Critics of deconstructivism see it as a purely formal exercise with little social significance. Kenneth Frampton finds it “elitist and detached.”[12] Other criticisms are similar to those of deconstructivist philosophy—that since the act of deconstruction 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 deconstruction.[13] 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.

References
Derrida, Jacques (1976). Of Grammatology, (hardcover: ISBN 0-8018-1841-9, paperback: ISBN 0-8018-1879-6, corrected edition: ISBN 0-8018-5830-5) trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Derrida, Jacques & Eisenman, Peter (1997). Chora l Works. Monacelli Press. ISBN 1-885254-40-7.
Derrida, Jacques & Husserl, Edmund (1989). Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry: An Introduction. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-6580-8
Frampton, Kenneth (1992). Modern Architecture, a critical history. Thames & Hudson- Third Edition. ISBN 0-500-20257-5
Johnson, Phillip & Wigley, Mark (1988). Deconstructivist Architecture: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Little Brown and Company. ISBN 0-87070-298-X
Hays, K.M. (edited) (1998). Oppositions Reader. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1-56898-153-8
Kandinsky, Wassily. Point and Line to Plane. Dover Publications, New York. ISBN 0-486-23808-3
Rickey, George (1995). Constructivism: Origins and Evolution. George Braziller; Revised edition. ISBN 0-8076-1381-9
Tschumi, Bernard (1994). Architecture and Disjunction. The MIT Press. Cambridge. ISBN 0-262-20094-5
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. ISBN 0-87070-282-3
Venturi, Robert (1977). Learning from Las Vegas (with D. Scott Brown and S. Izenour), Cambridge MA, 1972, revised 1977. ISBN 0-262-72006-X
Wigley, Mark (1995). The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt. The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-73114-2.
Links

• Archpedia website
• Coop Himmelb(l)au
• Eisenman’s Site
• Hadid’s Site
• Charles Jencks Website
• Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rem Koolhaas’ firm
• Libeskind Website
• Wiener Postmoderne

Classic examples of modern architecture are the Lever House and the Seagram Building in commercial space, and the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright or the Bauhaus movement in private or communal spaces. Transitional examples of postmodern architecture are the Portland Building in Portland, OR and the Sony Building (New York City) (originally AT&T Building) in New York City, which borrows elements and references from the past and reintroduces color and symbolism to architecture. A prime example of inspiration for postmodern architecture lies along the Las Vegas Strip, which was studied by Robert Venturi in his 1977 book Learning from Las Vegas celebrating the strip’s ordinary and common architecture. Venturi opined that “Less is a bore”, inverting Mies Van Der Rohe’s dictum that “Less is more”.

Postmodern architecture has also been described as “neo-eclectic”, where reference and ornament have returned to the facade, replacing the aggressively unornamented modern styles. This eclecticism is often combined with the use of non-orthogonal angles and unusual surfaces, most famously in the State Gallery of Stuttgart (New wing of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart) and the Piazza d’Italia by Charles Willard Moore.

Modernist architects regard post-modern buildings as vulgar and cluttered with “gew-gaws”. Postmodern architects often regard modern spaces as soulless and bland. The divergence in opinions comes down to a difference in goals: modernism is rooted in minimal and true use of material as well as absence of ornament, while postmodernism is a rejection of strict rules set by the early modernists and seeks exuberance in the use of building techniques, angles, and stylistic references.

Brief discussion

New trends became evident in the last quarter of the 20th century. Some architects started to turn away from Modern Functionalism which they viewed as boring, and which most of the public considered unwelcoming and even unpleasant. These architects turned towards the past, quoting past aspects of various buildings and melding them together (even sometimes in an inharmonious manner) became a new means of designing buildings. A detail example of this was that Post Modernism saw the comeback of the classical pillar and other elements of premodern designs, sometimes adapting (but not aping, as was done in the 19th century) classical Greek and Roman examples. In Modernism the pillar (as an design feature) was either replaced by other technological means such as cantilevers, or masked completly by curtain wall façades. The revival of the pillar was not a technological necessity, rather an aesthetic one. Modernist high-rise buildings had become in most instances monolithic, rejecting the concept of a stack of varied design elements for a single vocabulary from ground level to the top, in the most extreme cases even using a constant “footprint” (with no tapering or “wedding cake” design), with the building sometimes even suggesting the possibility of a single metalic extrusion directly from the ground, mostly by eliminating horizontal elements from the visual presentation — this was seen most strictly in the World Trade Center buildings of Minoru Yamasaki.

Another return was that of “wit, ornament and reference”, seen in older buildings in terra cotta decorative facades and bronze or stainless steel embelishments of the beaux arts and art deco periods. In post-modern structures this was often achieved by placing very contradictory quotes of long ago building styles alongside each other, and even the incorporation of furniture stylistic references at a huge scale. Surprisingly, the buildings manage to (most of the time) retain a generally pleasing aesthetic. However, as with any new aesthetic it would take some time to be accepted by the general public.

Contextualism, a trend in thinking in the later parts of 20th Century, influences the ideologies of the Post Modern movement in general. Contextualism was centred on the belief that all knowledge is “context-sensitive”. This idea was even taken further to say that knowledge cannot be known without considering its context. This influenced Post Modern architecture to be sensitive to context as discussed below.

No discussion of Post Modernism Architecture could possibly exclude Robert Venturi. He was surely at the forefront of instantiating this movement. His book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (published in 1966), was instrumental in Post Modernism and was fiercely critical of the dominant functional Modernism.

Post Modernism began in America around the 1960’s/70’s and then it spread to Europe and the rest of the world, to remain right through to the present.

The aims of Post Modernism begin with its reaction to Modernism; it tries to address its predecessor’s failures. This list of aims is extended to include communicating ideas with the public often in a then humorous or witty way. Often, the communication is done by quoting extensively from past architectural styles, often many at once. In breaking away with modernism it also strives produce buildings that are sensitive to the context within which they are built.

Post Modernism has its origins in the failure of Modern Architecture. The failures of its predecessor were manifold. Its obsession with functionalism and economical building meant that ornaments were done away with and the buildings were cloaked in a stark rational appearance. The buildings failed to meet the human’s need for comfort both for body and for the eye in aesthetic. Most humans enjoy looking at beautifuly decorated buildings. Modernism didn’t account for this and the problem worsened when the already monotonous apartment blocks degenerated into slums. Post Modernism sought to cure this by reintroducing ornaments and decoration for its own sake. Form was no longer to be defined solely by its functional requirements; it could be anything the architect pleased.

The move away from away from Modernism’s functionalism is well illustrated by Venturi’s witty adaptation of Mies van der Rohe’s maxim “Less is more”. Venturi instead said “less is a bore”. Along with the rest of the Post Modernists he sought to bring back ornament because of its necessity. He explains this and his criticism of Modernism in his Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture by saying that:

Architects can bemoan or try to ignore them (referring to the [ornamentaland decorative] elements in buildings) or even try to abolish them, but they will not go away. Or they will not go away for a long time, because architects do not have the power to replace them (nor do they know what to replace them with).

Robert Venturi was possibly the foremost campaigner of the rebellion against Modernism Architecture which became known as Post Modernism. His two books Complexity and Contradiction (1966) and Learning from Las Vegas (1972) (although not actual manifestoes of Post Modern Architecture) do well to express many of the aims embodied in Post Modernism. The latter book he co-authored with Steven Izenour and his wife, Denise Scott Brown.

Complexity and Contradiction highlights an aim that ornamental and decorative elements “accommodate existing needs for variety and communication”. Here Venturi stresses the importance of the building communicating a meaning to the public (which necessitates non-functional elements of the building). The Post Modernists in general strive to achieve this communication through their buildings.

This communication is not intended to a direct narrating of the meaning. Venturi goes on to explain that it is rather intended to be a communication that could be interpreted in many ways. Each interpretation is more or less true for its moment because work of such quality will have many dimensions and layers of meaning.

This pluralism of meaning is intended to mirror the similar nature of that contemporary society.

The pluralism in meaning was also echoed in the Post Modern Architects striving for variety in their buildings. Venturi reminisces in one of his essays, A View from the Campidoglio, to that effect when he says that:

When [he] was young, a sure way to distinguish great architects was through the consistency and originality of their work…This should no longer be the case. Where the Modern masters’ strength lay in consistency, ours should lie in diversity.

Postmodernism with its diversity possesses sensitivity to the building’s context and history, and the client’s requirements. The Postmodernist architects considered the general requirements of the urban buildings and their surroundings during the building’s design. This could be better explained with the aid of an example: Venice Beach House designed by Frank Gehry(figure needed). In the picture a glimpse can be gained of the neighbouring house’s similar bright flat colour. This vernacular sensitivity is evident in some Post-modern buildings.

The aims of Postmodernism can mostly be explained through the writings of its champion, Robert Venturi. These include solving the problems of a legacy of Modernism, communicating meanings with ambiguity, and sensitivity for the building’s context. These aims are surprisingly unified for a period of buildings designed by architects who largely never collaborated with each other. The aims do however leave room for various implementations as can be illustrated by the diverse buildings created during the Movement.

The characteristics of Postmodernism allow its aim to be expressed in diverse ways. These characteristics include the use of sculptural forms, ornaments, anthropomorphism and materials which perform trompe l’oeil. These physical characteristics are combined with conceptual characteristics of meaning. These characteristics of meaning include pluralism, double coding, irony and paradox, and contextualism.

Detail of Abteiberg Museum

The sculptural forms, not necessarily organic, were created with much ardour. These can be seen in Hans Hollein’s Abteiberg Museum (1972-1982). The building is made up of several building units, all very different. Each building’s forms are nothing like the conforming rigid ones of Modernism. These forms are sculptural and are somewhat playful. These forms are not reduced to an absolute minimum; they are built and shaped for their own sake. The building units all fit together in a very organic way, which enhances the effect of the forms.

Portland Public Service Building

After many years of being neglected, ornament returned. This can be seen in Frank Gehry’s house, The Venice Beach house (image needed) built in 1986. The house is littered with small details, that would’ve have been considered excessive and needless in Modernism. These are the ornamental features. The Beach House has an assembly of circular logs which exist mostly for decoration. The logs on top do have a minor purpose of holding up the window covers. However, the mere fact that they could have been replaced with a practically invisible nail, makes their exaggerated existence largely ornamental. For a more prominent ornament, Michael Graves’ Portland Public Service Building (1980), proves wholly adequate. The two obtruding triangular forms are at most largely ornamental features. They exist for aesthetic or their own purpose. The return of ornament was a necessary one.

Postmodernism, with its sensitivity the building’s context, did not exclude the anthropomorphic needs of humans from the building. Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Nega Cemetery (1970-72) (fig. 2) exemplifies this. The human requirements of a cemetery is that it posses a solemn nature, yet it must not cause the visitor to become depressed. Scarpa’s cemetery achieves the solemn mood with the dull grey colours of the walls and neatly defined forms, but the bright green grass prevents this being too overwhelming. This sensitivity becomes more obvious when thinking about how a Modern architect would have solved this need. He would have most likely neglected the human element and paved the area with concrete slabs.

Post-modern buildings sometimes perform the age old trompe l’oeil. This involves the illusion of forms or depths where none actually exist and has been used by the renaissance painters. The Portland Public Service Building (1980) has pillars represented on the side of the building that to some extent appear to be real, yet they aren’t.

The Hood Museum of Art (1981-1983) (image needed) has a typical symmetrical façade which was at the time prevalent throughout Post-Modern Buildings.

Robert Venturi’s Vanna Venturi House (1962-64) (image needed) illustrates Postmodernist aim of communicating a meaning and the characteristic of symbolism. This façade is , according to Venturi, a “symbolic picture” of house, looking back to the 18th century . This is partly achieved through the use of symmetry and the arch over the entrance.

Piazza d’Italia by Charles Willard Moore, New Orleans.

Perhaps the best example of irony in Post-modern buildings is Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia (1978). Moore quotes (architecturally) elements of Italian renaissance and Roman Antiquity. However he does so with a twist. The irony comes when it is noted that the pillars are covered with steel. It is also paradoxical in the way he quotes Italian antiquity for away from the original in New Orleans.

Double coding meant the buildings convey many meanings simultaneously. The AT&T Building does this very well. The building is a tall skyscraper which brings with it connotations of very modern technology. Yet, the top contradicts this. The top section conveys elements of the antiquity. This double coding is a prevalent trait of Postmodernism.

The characteristics of Postmodernism were rather unified given their diverse appearances. The most notable among their characteristics is their playfully extravagant forms and the humour of the meanings the buildings conveyed.

Influential Architects
Some of the most well-known and influential architects in the postmodern style are:

John Burgee
Michael Graves is perhaps the most well-known figure in the postmodern movement.
Jon Jerde
Philip Johnson
Ricardo Legorreta
Richard Meier
Charles Willard Moore
Cesar Pelli
Antoine Predock
Robert A.M. Stern
James Stirling
Robert Venturi

Changes in History Teaching
The rise of interest in history that came as a consequence of the general Postmodernist turn had a profound impact on architectural education. History courses became increasingly regularized and insisted upon. With the demand for professors knowledgeable in the history of architecture, one saw the emergence of several Ph.D. programs in schools of architecture, Ph.D. programs that differentiated themselves from art history Ph.D. programs, where architectural historians had previously trained. In the US, MIT and Cornell were the first, created in the mid 1970s, followed by Columbia, Berkeley, and Princeton. Among the founders of new architectural history programs were Bruno Zevi at the Institute for the History of Architecture in Venice, Stanford Anderson and Henry Millon at MIT, Alexander Tzonis at the Architectural Association, Anthony Vidler at Princeton, Manfredo Tafuri at the University of Venice, Kenneth Frampton at Columbia University, and Werner Oechslin and Kurt Forster at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, ETH.

The creation of these programs was paralleled by the hiring, in the 1970s, of professionally trained historians by schools of architecture: Margaret Crawford (with a Ph.D. from U.C.L.A) at SCI-Arch; Elisabeth Grossman (Ph.D., Brown University) at Rhode Island School of Design; Christian Otto[2] (Ph.D., Columbia University) at Cornell University; Richard Chafee (Ph.D., Courtauld Institute) at Roger Williams University; and Howard Burns (M.A. Kings College) at Harvard, to name just a few examples. A second generation of scholars then emerged that began to extend these efforts in the direction of what is now called “theory.” One thinks of K. Michael Hays (Ph.D., MIT) at Harvard, Mark Wigley (Ph.D., Auckland University) at Princeton (though he now teaches at Columbia University), and Beatriz Colomina (Ph.D., School of Architecture, Barcelona) at Princeton; Mark Jarzombek (Ph.D. MIT) at Cornell (though he is now at MIT), Jennifer Bloomer (Ph.D., Georgia Tech) at Iowa State and Catherine Ingraham (Ph.D., John Hopkins) now at Pratt Institute.

References

An example of an attempt at post-modernism (Shanghai), arguably overdone.

^ Mark Jarzombek, “The Disciplinary Dislocations of Architectural History,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58/3 (September 1999), p. 489. See also other articles in that issue by Eve Blau, Stanford Anderson, Alina Payne, Daniel Bluestone, Jeon-Louis Cohen and others.
^ Cornel University dept. of Architecture website[1]

Other References
Postmodern Architecture: Restoring Context Princeton University Lecture
Postmodern Architecture and Urbanism University of California – Berkeley Lecture
Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form. Robert Venturi, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977 ISBN 0-262-22015-6
History of Post-Modern Architecture. Heinrich Klotz, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. ISBN 0-262-11123-3

Links

• Kritikos: journal of postmodern cultural sound, text and image
• About Postmodernism
• About Michael Graves
• Gallery of Postmodern Houses
• Great Buildings Online
• Ph.D. program in the history and theory of architecture at MIT
• Ph.D. program in the history and theory of architecture at Princeton *Ph.D. program in the history and theory of architecture at Berkeley