Postmodernism : A Consensus On Postmodernism

Through the reading of Reyner Banham’s essay on ‘The New Brutalism’, this essay aims to achieve a closer insight on the style and theories of the Brutalist architecture. The style’s appellation originated from the french translation, ‘béton-brut’, which meant ‘raw concrete’. Brutalism was first introduced by the architects Peter, and Alison Smithson who formed an emergence of many controversies of its definition and characteristics. The post-war architecture sought to reveal the honesty of material due to the experience of an economic crisis. This critical point of time leads to many instances of using material that was efficient and mass-produced to

Leon Krier was criticised for publishing a costly monograph on Albert Speer’s architecture (1985)in which, while acknowledging the crimes of the Nazis and the man, Krier nonetheless claimed the book’s only subject and sole justification was “Classical architecture and the passion of building” (cited by Jaskot, ‘Architecture of Oppression’, 2000). Discuss this claim, the controversy and the issues (historical, philosophical and ethical and possibly others) they raise. Can architecture, Classical, Modern or otherwise, be autonomous from politics and valued independently of the circumstances of politics and history that adhere to it?

“It is as if things generated other things in their own images by human intermediaries captivated with those possibilities of sequence and progression…” “In our terms each invention is a new serial position.” “Without change there is no history; without regularity there is no time” states Kubler. Goldhagen follows: “Modernist architects were also forging a common architectural culture, an enterprise that often engenders a spirit of cooperation, building upon what people share…” “[the modern movement] was now subjected to centrifugal rather than centripetal forces, It splintered into a number of more distinct and evolving discursive

Using the current discourse and other instances of attention surrounding the trend in Brutalism, three aspects will be discussed here in relation to the revival of interest to understand why the architectural period is receiving attention. A Significant amount of attention is situated on the internet through blogs and web pages, the blog titled fuckyeahBrutalism.tumblr.com (FYB) created on Tumblr by PhD candidate Michael Abrahamson in December 2010 which posts one high-quality image per day of buildings commonly described as Brutalist, has assembled a significant amount of followers and attention. Furthermore, there is a growing list of internet pages and blogs devoted to brutalist architectural imagery; new-Brutalism.tumblr.com; britishbrutalistarchitecture.blogspot.com.au;

The phrase ‘postmodernism’ was used to depict a style in architecture in the early 1960’s, this style used components from the past architectural styles and combined them to create buildings. This term was coined and used by cultural and political theorist to express contemporary Western and global society, two of theorists which will be discussed is Fredric Jameson and Linda Hitcheon who have apposing views on the theory.

The famous American architect by the name of Frank Lloyd Wright based his designs on what he called “organic architecture”. His philosophy of what modern architecture should be is one as unique as his buildings, but nevertheless he was a pivotal figure in the

The styles seen in by the Chicago school of architects differ from the style seen in eclectic works. In this paper I will elucidate these differences by comparing two works, one from each style. I will compare Adler & Sullivan’s Wainwright Building to Cass Gilbert’s Woolworth Building.

It is no understatement that the modern era was and continues to be one of the most destructive, progressive, and enlightening periods that mankind has come to know. One begins to understand what this pre-World War II era of modern design history must have been like through the specific lens of artist and architect Le Corbusier in his 1931 publication entitled “Towards a New Architecture”:

If one were to travel back to Paris in its immediate post-WW1 years, one would find a growingly dissatisfied architect made anxious by his surroundings. All around Le Corbusier, engineers were making their presence felt through rapid innovation of technology and industry, whilst architecture seemed to be mired in a state of stagnation. As he watched this chasm grow between his profession and the push for progress, he felt compelled to express his criticisms on the contemporary state of affairs, as well as the bold, comprehensive vision he himself carried for the future. He did so through essays in his magazine L’Esprit nouveau, and several of these were collected and published as a book in 1923 titled Vers une architecture (literally Towards an Architecture though mistranslated as Towards a New Architecture in the English edition of 1927). A manifesto of the architect’s ideas for a reconsideration of the house as well as the way to build it, it proved hugely influential in its time and undoubtedly played in part in shaping the development of architecture.

The process towards architectural construction takes on many forms, including various design stages. The graphic imagery and designs evolve until production begins. There are undoubtedly many considerations into a building’s design, which stresses their representation as even more important and influential to its potential construction. Elevation drawings and plans lay out the details of construction, they are useful to ensure the structure adheres to any local codes, however more detailed drawings are required for construction known as final renderings.1 Drawings are therefore a fundamental form of documentation that informs a building 's production. On the other hand, the emergence of archigram in the post-war era encouraged the imagination and was a platform that challenged previous form of representation. Archigram placed as much influence on the context of the building and depicting its urban surrounding as much as emphasising the building itself. In addition, architectural photography provoked the emergence of modern forms and structures; however, contextualizing buildings within the image was unnecessary. It was believed that architecture could reform people- architecture is the art one lives in and thus rational design could make rational societies.2 This idea was very much a driving force of representation which drawings, photography and archigram intended to reform their urban landscape. Unlike detailed drawing which provided an insight into the scale and

This translation is somehow getting lost from the digital through to the commitment of construction, but maybe the lost and the forgotten can become the interesting and the innovative. However, this contrast is rather intriguing and clever as it expands our possibilities and energies through the different ways of applying architecture.

The architectural world in the 20th century regards him as a pseudonym, a man whose systematic expressions of design shaped the physical structures of society in addition to the ideas of those who worked in his field alongside him. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris was the target of global frustration, for his enlightened views on a new age of architecture were not ones that the early 20th century was willing to embrace. However, there were several voices that spanned from the decades of his life to the present day today, who uncovered the man, the artist, the human being underneath the pseudonym of ‘Le Corbuiser’.

In his seminal lecture on Modernism in Architecture at McGill University School of Architecture on 21 October 2000, Arthur Erickson espoused Modernism as an artistic movement that “released [society] from the constraints of everything that had gone before with a euphoric sense of freedom” (Erickson, 2000). Modernism, as an artistic movement, is defined as a genre that aimed to transcend and subvert the limitations of traditional literary conventions of the Romantic, Realist and Victorian literary movements, and eagerly championed for new and innovative experimentation in both form and style (Cooper, pg. 9). Flowered into Society by

This reading has introduced me to various factors in architecture regarding what it represents and should be in society through Louis Sullivan’s words.

When people hear the word “architecture” people think of enormous structures in cities that are hundreds, and sometimes thousands of feet tall. Others may think of quaint buildings that are in rural England. In this paper I will mainly be referring to commercial building inside of major cities. However, this does not mean that all ideas that I present are limited to those buildings. All buildings serve as public art in their own way, and I believe that architecture is the most important form.