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View Poll Results: how do you feel about post modern architecture?
Love it 28 57.14%
Hate it 7 14.29%
Not sure 4 8.16%
Dont love it, but dont hate it 10 20.41%
Voters: 49. You may not vote on this poll

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  #1  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2010, 12:04 PM
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Post-Modern Architecture:love it or hate it?

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  #2  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2010, 12:23 PM
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I really love post modern and just modern buildings, but the thing I hate about is the new height they are giving the buildings.
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Old Posted Aug 10, 2010, 12:10 AM
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"Post modern" architecture is almost as terrible as "modern" architecture.
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Old Posted Aug 10, 2010, 12:16 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jetsetter View Post
"Post modern" architecture is almost as terrible as "modern" architecture.
whats wrong with modern architecture?
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Old Posted Aug 10, 2010, 1:59 AM
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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.
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Old Posted Aug 10, 2010, 3:43 PM
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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.
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Old Posted Aug 10, 2010, 4:30 PM
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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.
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Old Posted Aug 11, 2010, 12:04 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SkyscrapersOfNewYork View Post
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...
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Old Posted Aug 11, 2010, 12:23 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JSsocal View Post
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
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Old Posted Aug 11, 2010, 12:53 AM
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^^^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.
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  #11  
Old Posted Aug 11, 2010, 1:39 AM
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There are good and bad buildings in all styles. Architects didn't sit around in the late 1970's to early 80's and said "Now we're going to build Postmodern buildings. Like any style, it was something that was in the air and happened in music and art as well.

My understanding of the distinction between Modernism and Postmodernism is this: Modernism is strictly about the beauty and balance of the form. With the Seagram Building its all about the proportions and sensuous materials. Its classical.

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 like some Philip Johnson buildings like Houston's Bank of America, PPG Place, IDS, Williams, and even Sony, although probably more for its historical significance than the architecture. Other buildings like 191 Peachtree Tower I have a harder time getting into. The top of the building seems like a cartoon and has the same tacky quality of a shopping mall that is trying to reflect a classy old building on the cheap. When I see a mall like that I can't help but think that it would have better to not even try to give the illusion of a historical building. I am also thankful that his totally silly Times Square plan was not built (a series of skyscrapers with tacky French Palace style roofs). I think Michael Graves may be appreciated more as time goes by.

I read an interesting critique of Johnson's architecture after his death that suggested that the overbearing banality of Nazi architecture (like Albert Speer who Johnson associated with) can be found in his Postmodern buildings. One characteristic of the bombastic Nazi architecture was that it was designed to make the individual feel small and insignificant and there was an emphasis on symmetry. I have to say that the huge windowless bulk and soaring arch entrances of buildings like the Sony tower and Houston Bank of America tower seem to suggest a hint of this. Is it possible that in the 1980's Johnson returned to his Nazi architectural roots, designing corporate monoliths rather than state monoliths?

I'm not suggesting that Johnson at the end of his life was still a Nazi sympathizer. He certainly did all he could to distance himself from the political follies of his earlier life.

Last edited by mrskyline; Aug 11, 2010 at 2:09 AM.
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Old Posted Aug 16, 2010, 4:20 PM
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Postmodernism is Back


August 15, 2010

By Aaron Betsky



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

Quote:
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.







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  #13  
Old Posted Aug 16, 2010, 5:09 PM
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[QUOTE=M II A II R II K;4948789]Postmodernism is Back










WTF is that!!!!!!!??????
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Old Posted Aug 17, 2010, 4:45 AM
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^Thats neat, but the SBF Tower is waaay cooler.
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Old Posted Aug 30, 2010, 1:10 PM
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Quote:
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.
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Old Posted Aug 30, 2010, 5:27 PM
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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.
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Old Posted Aug 30, 2010, 6:12 PM
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I wonder if critics complained about the comical aping of historical styles in imperial Rome, or Renaissance Florence, or Baroque London.
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Old Posted Aug 30, 2010, 6:36 PM
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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.

Last edited by brian.odonnell20; Aug 30, 2010 at 6:47 PM.
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Old Posted Aug 30, 2010, 9:17 PM
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Philly's late-80s early-90s trophy towers are all postmodern:

Liberty Place:

here

BNY Mellon Center:

here

Bell Atlantic Tower (aka 1717 Arch):

here

2 Logan Square:

here

Commerce Plaza:

here
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Old Posted Aug 30, 2010, 9:31 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JSsocal View Post
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.
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