Post-Modernism Architectural History and Theory Critique - Literature review Example

Post Modernism Architectural History and Theory Critique Name Institution Date Course Post Modernism Architectural History and Theory Critique Introduction Postmodernism is a general term that could describe a specific era, from the end of the World War II though frequently starting as late as 1970s; or it could refer to a body of ideas of philosophy and critical studies dating back to the late 1960s with the works of poststructuralists like Jean Baudrillaed, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Jean-Francois Lyotard. In the 1970s and 1980s the concept included different analyses involving symbolic system and language that utilized insights of these poststructuralists. According to Aylesworth (2013), postmodernism could be described as being founded upon strategic, critical and rhetorical practices that employ several concepts such as repetition, difference, the simulacrum, hyperreality and the trace as to destabilize other concepts such as epistemic certainty, identity, historical progress, presence, and the univocity of meaning. This paper in the most general approach investigates this movement then narrows the discussions to specific facets with concentration to its effect on architecture and architectural works both from the earliest times of its birth to the recent works in the industry. (i) Intentions Behind Postmodernism While it was a huge subject for debate in the 1950s and 1960s, several researchers pursue different dimensions with regard to postmodernism. The French, concentrated with concepts developed during the time of structural revolution in Paris with readings from great structuralists like Freud and Marx and for this they were referred to as poststructuralists. In the UK, postmodernism brought with it great changes in the architectural designs of the time and as Harvey (1989) states, Charles Jenks dated the end of modernism and the transformation to postmodernism as 3.32 pm on the 15th day of July 1972 when a housing development, the Pruitt-Igoe in St Louis, got dynamited to an uninhabitable environment for the low-income earners who lived in it. After this, other ideas of high modernism gave way, and an onslaught of diverse possibilities, with the works of Venturi, Izenour and Scott Brown proving to be more acceptable. The era therefore intended to revolutionize the architectural works of the time with the view that architects had so much more to learn from studying vernacular and popular landscapes as opposed to pursuing some abstract, doctrinaire and theoretical ideals. It was time to build for people and not for man (Harvey, 1989). With so many such shifts in different fields, postmodernism seemed to encourage shift from an epistemological to an ontological dominant. That is, the process aimed at promoting a shift from the modernist’s perspectivism that made him get achieve a better understanding on the meaning of a complex, though singular, reality, to the investigation of questions and have an understanding of how radically different realities may collide, coexist and interpenetrate. As Hicks (2004) points out, postmodernism vanguard were against the idea of universal necessities in human existence and thought that all such necessities had to be swept away, arguing that it was meaningless for people to speak for or against truth, reason or knowledge. In this sense however, it does not mean that postmodernism is true or that it is a source of knowledge, but it uses language ironically. Hicks (2004) further suggests that postmodernism actually is an activists strategy against the coalition of power and reason. The belief is that reason and power are just the same thing since both are synonymous with and lead to prisons, selection process, prohibition and the public good. Postmodernists therefore have the view that Western civilization has used reason, reality and truth to wrought destruction, oppression and dominance. As Harvey (1989) further reveals, an interplay of poststructuralist wave in Paris in 1968 and the post-Marxist with a revived American pragmatism resulted to a rising rage against the enlightment of legacy and humanism. This culminated into a strong denunciation of the abstract reason with a deep aversion to all projects would in any way seek universal human emancipation by mobilizing powers of science, technology and reason! Rocco Buttiglione’s view on postmodernism, Rocco was a theologian, acknowledged that lust and power were values that did not need reason to be discovered, and in this way reason was a mere instrument used to subjugate other people. Postmodernism in the theological context, therefore, aimed to reaffirm God’s truth in a manner that did not abandon the powers of reason (Harvey, 1989). Generally, postmodernism criticizes modernism’s idea of having one absolute answer and truth for all things. It challenges the ideas that build modernism with strong opposition to capitalist and traditional morality, but is committed to radical egalitarianism. Modernism ideals regarding absolute knowledge are strongly questioned; but with the view that people cannot have the right answers to all their questions and so they should not continue to think that they do. Postmodernism rejects belief that meaning and truth could be traced to any sources. Truth is therefore interpreted as an effect of larger knowledge and language systems or interpreted as just what works out at any specific moment. Postmodernists have therefore thrown out depth models that were at the core of most Western thought structures, arguing that the surface or mere appearance is all that there is (Whisnant, 2012). Postmodernism also embraces the concepts of inherent instability of meaning and proposes that language does not reveal, but constructs. Since truth does not have any specific meaning, then meaning could not be stable but is constantly changing with regard to the context. While it is common for people to have the view that language helps us see what others think through their stories, postmodernism views language as very opaque that people cannot see through it. Language just constructs the illusion of enabling a view into the other world and works basically to construct meaning and in turn is used to construct the reality surrounding us (Whisnant, 2012). Postmodernism therefore concentrates on ideas relating to diversity and culture pluralism. This line of though and argument has been reason for social movements that have been concerned with the ideas about class, gender, sexuality, race and other serious social concerns. This era has been characterised by a change of in the structure of feeling that has undermined, surpassed, de-constructed or bypassed modernist sentiments (Harvey, 1989). Debate, however, continues as to whether postmodernism is a break with modernism or it remains a revolt of modernism exhibiting a new form of high modernism or is it a style, a periodizing concept or does it possess a revolutionary potential given its opposition to the other forms of meta-narratives. According to McLeod (1985), postmodern advocates in architecture shun both the social and the formal premises of the modern ideas; the stripped down, minimal aesthetic and its ideology of structural rationalism, fuctionalism, mass production and social regeneration through architecture. In their view, the modern movement’s messianic belief in the new is not valid and architects can no longer assume that universal aesthetic and social solution will be achieved through technical innovation. Postmodern architects acknowledge their objectives as historicist and pluralistic. (ii) Positive and Negative Effects on Architecture After its inception and popularity in architectural design, and the subsequent loss in popularity in the 1990s, postmodernism in architecture gained ground again with ornamental patterns and iconic buildings. But as Jenks (2011) points out, the blossoming of the postmodern ideas in this field was greatly boosted by the loss of popularity of the term. Most people were sick of the term and some of the movement with the likes of Robert Venturi publicly denying being members of the club. Postmodernism turned out to be an un-fashion in architecture: commercial success that was followed by debasement. This architecture became clichéd when it turned out to be a reigning mode of the late capitalism. Commerce success once again became a living culture just like its parent; the terminology’s death proving necessary for the construction of most of its better works. Postmodernism sought to establish an expressive architecture that will communicate to a huge audience; one that will play the high game of Lutyens as well as the low game of Main Street; that will use irony to convey a double message to a double audience with iconic metaphors that stimulate the public. The skyscrapers may be for commercial purposes, but they seek to convey their commercial metaphors as iconic buildings. Comparison of architectural works of the modern and postmodern movements shows emphasis on decorative and scenographic dimensions on postmodern designs as opposed to the abstract compositional concerns of the previous designs. Postmodernism has given much prominence to colour, profile and texture in their designs than in the designs of the past (McLeod, 1985). These architects use shadowed elevations, water-coloured perspectives and poche wall sections as opposed to hard-lined axonometrics and plans as a means to convey their design ideas. But of the many objectives that unite postmodernists several concerns, their attempt to achieve architectural communication and make architecture a means for cultural expression takes one of the most central positions. The results put more emphasis on the tactile and surface properties rather than the syntactic, abstract or structural relations of architecture. Postmodernism therefore responds to the problem presented by meaning that was never solved by the modern movement (McLeod, 1989). Colin (2011) while assessing the extent of postmodernism and its persistence in current architectural works, and while he review Charles Jenks’ recent publications on the subject, notes that Jenks included several recent architectural works but points out that these later projects have emerged as antithetical to the original intent of the movement. With this observation, Colin (2011) wonders whether, with the current works of architecture devoid of meaning as they are, the movement could secure a future in the in the cities’ complexity and in a world of ever advancing technological and scientific transition. Colin (2011)’s review of the subject comes five decades after the birth of postmodernism and he points out that the movement’s biography leaves the reader with some level of uncertainty as to whether the seriously wounded character finally gives up. Jenks, in his recent work on the subject, The story of Post-Modernism. (Wiley), concedes that the movement has indeed experienced near death moments but asserts that actually, it is still alive. Its offspring, however, forced into an organised marriage with the late modernism appears to have gone mute. Dr. Jenks’ diagnosis remains ambivalent; the buildings he chose to strengthen his argument in his book, most of which are the starchitecture in the last decade do not prove to have much to claim strong attachment to postmodernism except that they were during the time after modernism. The design characteristics identified by the author as their major characteristics like the repetitive seamless continuity of the homogeneous surfaces, the posturing platitudes of the iconic monuments and the curse of delete button detailing, are in fact antithetical to the postmodernism principles; not because they exhibit difference in terms of style but because they follow not the same design philosophy but they lead to autonomous, simplistic, diagrammatic one-liners, which have been nearly completely stripped of complexity trace, symbolic meaning, multiple coding, contradiction, contextual counterpoint, irony, radical juxtaposing and pluralism. In a response to Colin (2011)’s review, while Jenks et al (2011) acknowledges that the movement has suffered a stroke, a temporary stroke according to Jenks et al (2011), it went down in the 1990s, during the decade of Default Modernism, but after the millennium, the movement has roared back and now very much alive; characterised by complexity architecture, contextual counterpoint, digitised ornament and a thousand metaphorical buildings whose enigmatic shapes communicate with global culture, sans belief, sans religion, sans a public iconography. (iii) Commitment to popularity and apparent rejection of architecture’s commitment to the avant-garde McKay (1994) recalls the mid 1970s when post modernism began to gain considerable attention, noting that it continued to enjoy increasing popularity as an incisive mode of inquiry in a good number of disciplines like the study of philosophy, literature, art, sociology, education and history, among several other disciplines. The subject, going beyond this broad scope, was given to several other distinct schools of thought including the poststructuralism of Michel Foutcault and Jacques Derrida, the contemporary Marxism of Terry Eagleton and Frederick Jameson, the neopragmatism of Richard Rorty and Francois Lyotard as well as the matters to do with feminist scholarship that employed a postmodern patriarchal society critique. This great diversity of application has complicated this subject and has made postmodernism very difficult to define; as Colquhoun, (1988) says, it would not be wise to expect one single guiding concept in postmodern practice. It has proved to be a subject of discussion across several fields with a lot of criticisms as well as support. With this broad scope, a comprehensive analysis of this school of thought together with its multitude of possible implications even for a single discipline is a huge task. Its attempt to impact on so many aspects of humanity and science has drawn to it so much controversy and criticism. While the philosophies of postmodernism may be relevant in some disciplines, the fulfilment of these philosophies in some other disciplines proved difficult and this was a reason for much controversy. Postmodernism strongly pursued the subject of meaning and in its view, architectural designed were supposed to convey some meaning McKay (1994). But as McLeod (1985) points out, architecture like music, does not mean anything else with regard to the concept of meaning which implies the notion of reference. Put in another way, double articulation proves problematic within an abstract medium. Therefore to view a building in terms of passing a specific message or code of information is very difficult. The architectonic dimensions of a given building like the structure or proportion although usually evocative, will rarely be direct means of cultural communication but their meaning will be more ambiguous (McLeod, 1985). Rodger Scruton, a high conservation philosopher, most substancially articulated the traditionalist position as far as architecture is concerned, together with an architectural historian David Watkin (Rustin, 1989). According to Scruton, buildings mean whatever they refer to in the historical tradition of architecture. He argued that any discrimination of those qualities that a business has depends on an understanding of the building’s style and those expectations that the building’s elements combined to make up a style to those who experience them. His emphasis was conterposed to the modernist commitment to the theory of pure expression purposed to derive from the abstract properties of space or from function. He criticized modern movement advocates for their thought that form of building could replace style. Scruton tried to clarify that the choice of simplicity or economy (less is more) was in itself a rhetoric choice and not a transcendence of rhetoric. Postmodernism therefore failed to recognize that any architectural work had to involve systematic forms of expression and this can be said to have resulted to undue depletion of expressive form (Rustin, 1989). As Colquhoun (1988) further points out, postmodernism reacted against the trend taken by the modernist city. One reaction was directed towards the view that the city was not buildable except in those rare political conditions that made a Chandigarh or a Brasilia possible adding that the results there were highly questionable from both an aesthetic view point and a sociological point of view. Another view stems from the fact that in those existing cities, the application of modernist principles such as highway construction, the welcoming of skyscrapers, and zoning destroyed the central urban areas or rendered them alien. A third involved creation of huge high-rise projects in housing on the periphery or in the centre of great cities which, according to postmodernism, obliterated all trace of the fabric and community structure that associated with it but not providing a genuine alternative. As Eagleton (1985) points out, postmodernist culture will destroy its boundaries to become coextensive with the ordinary commodified life, which will not recognize any formal frontiers that are not transgressed constantly. And if the ruling order can appropriate all artefacts, then better to pre-empt this fate impudently than to unwillingly suffer it; commodification can only be resisted by that which is a commodity already. But if modernist work becomes institutionalised in the superstructure, the culture of postmodernism will certainly react to such elitism by establishing itself at the base. Brecht remarks that better to begin from the bad new things, than from the good old ones. An avant-garde has been instrumental in the modernism history, interrupting all senses of continuity by introducing radical surges, repressions and recuperations (Eagleton, 1985). But how to interpret this and how to find the immutable and eternal elements within such radical disruptions has been a serious problem. Even if in the spirit of commitment to discover the character of the accidental, modernism had to achieve this in a continually changing field that contradicted yesterday’s rational experience. Aesthetic judgements and practices got fragmented into such kind of scrapbook full of colourful entries with no relation to one another, and no determining, economic or rational scheme; that Raban refers to as an essential aspect of urban life (Harvey, 1989). As suggested by Bürger (1984) what is parodied by the culture of postmodernism, considering its dissolution of art into forms of commodity production is no different from the revolutionary avant-garde twentieth-century art. Postmodernism therefore mimes the formal resolution of social life and art attempted by avant-garde and remorselessly empties it of its political content. In this view, for architecture and urban planning, postmodernism signifies a break from the idea that development and planning must focus on large-scale, technologically rational, metropolitan-wide and efficient urban plans that are backed by absolutely no-frills architecture but it instead cultivates a conception of the urban fabric as fragmented, a palimpsest of the past forms that are superimposed on each other with an assortment of current uses, of which majority may be ephemeral (Harvey, 1989). Conclusion Postmodernism has come a long way from its inception from the 60s to its growth in the 70s and 80s. While the movement struggled to achieve and establish itself in several fronts, its huge influence was witnessed in architectural works with huge works in the UK, France and in the USA. The movement established itself by strong criticism of the Modernist movement capitalising on the shortcomings of its predecessor and taking over in structural design. But recent developments have seen little of the movement’s previously dominance and debate is on whether or not postmodernism has persisted and made it through following its loss of popularity in the 90s. Charles Jenks still believes that postmodernism continues to remain relevant and will remain for many more years to come. List of reference Bürger, P, 1984, Theory of the Avant-Garde, University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis. Rustin, M, 1989, Postmodernism and Antimodernism in Contemporary British Architecture, Assemblage, No. 8, pp. 88-103. Colquhoun, A, 1988, Postmodernism and Structuralism: A Retrospective Glance, Assemblage, No. 5, pp. 6-15. Jenks et al, 2011, Paradigm Lost? Charles Jencks and others reconsider the ultimate fate of Postmodernism, Architectural Review, Vol. 230 Issue 1378, p31-32, 2p. McKay, A, 1994, The Implications of Postmodernism for Moral Education, McGill Journal of Education, Vol. 29 No.1. Whisnant, CJ, 2012, Some Common Themes and Ideas within the Field of Postmodern Thought: A Handout for HIS 389, last modified May 13, 2012, retrieved on 29th October 2013 from Eagleton, T, 1985, Capitalism, Modernism and Postmodernism, New Left Review I/152. Colin, F, 2011, Reassessing postmodernism is the movement still relevant 50 years on?, Architectural Review, Vol. 230 Issue 1377, p112-117, 6p. Aylesworth, G, 2013, Postmodernism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . McLeod, M, 1989, Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism, Assemblage, No. 8, pp. 22-59. Hicks SRC, 2004, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Fault Scholargy Publishing: Arizona. Jencks, C, 2011, What is Radical Post-Modernism?, John Wiley & Sons Ltd: New York. McLeod, M, 1985, The postmodern Moment: A Handbook of Contemporary Innovation in the Arts / edited, with an introduction, by Stanley Trachtenberg, Chapter 2 pages 19-52, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Harvey, D, 1989, The Condition of Postmodernity An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Blackwell Publishers: Cambridge. Read More