The Complexity and Contradiction

“Form follows function” is one of the core ideas, the highlighted quote of the modernism era.  The belief in honest structure, expressing everything inside and each component’s functions, promotes the building of ‘glass boxes’ everywhere.  After some time, a revolution strikes architecture again.  If modernism is “starting from zero”, post-modernism is the opposite.  Taking inspirations from the masters of the past, forms and shapes that buried in our genes were born.

We can say that the revolution starts from the book called “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” by Robert Venturi.  He offered that, rather than being something but not the other thing (either…or…), why not be both of them (both…and…)?  Post-modernism believes in the concept of ‘mixture’ rather than ‘pure’, ’compromise’ rather than ‘clean’, ‘ambiguous’ rather than ‘clear’.  Modernist would choose black or white, while post-modernist would choose both black and white.  They would even go with grey.  Venturi explained his theory about “Duck and Decorated Shed” that the duck house is obvious of its function.  It took a form of a duck, and guess what, it sold duck eggs.  What you see is what you get, and you get what you expected.  On the other hand, the decorated shed is a building that you would not be able to tell its function if there’s no signage.  This is the ambiguity.  This is the post-modernism.

One of the famous examples of the post-modern architecture is the Sony Tower in New York City.  The style of the building can clearly be seen taken from the classical: the pediment on top with upright concrete strips that look like a colonnade.  But the pediment is broken, without any particular reason or purpose.  Another example is the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.  The form of the building looks very ambiguous, and it depend on each person’s interpretation whether what they see.

In my opinion, I like how post-modernism plays with each person’s imagination.  Although its concept lacks the strong point like modernism, it has its own way to attract attentions of people.  It does not stick to one specific shape or form so it gives more identity to each building.

In terms of erotic architecture, I think post modernism has advantage over modernism.  Sometimes post-modernism plays with expectations, the façade gives out one feeling but the interior gives out another.

Post-Modernism: Towards the Newer Architecture

After we have seen the best of modern architectures, the masterpiece and visions of Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and others, let us now look at its successor: the post-modernism.

Modernism, as many great architect described, is based on the concept “form follows function”.  Every detail has its meaning and usage (though there are some ornaments hidden, as we discussed earlier).  New and fresh, they got rid of the forms and decorations of the past and started the movement from zero.  But post-modernism is not that strict.  It leaves spaces for architects to ‘express’ the feelings into their work.

One of the well-known postmodernist architects was Louis Kahn.  He, unlike Mies and Le Corbusier, believed that there are still rooms left in the future for ‘the past’, the art, ornamentation, expression, that were left behind by modernism.   It can be seen in his work such as Yale University Art Gallery.  He used triangle, the shape representing pyramid and the sun, to play with the lights and openings.  He studied architecture from the ruins, the masters from the past.  His buildings would resemble the ruins themselves: no glass, no steel, just massive concretes, playing not with shiny materials but the mass and the void.

Some of other great post-modern architectures are TWA terminal in New York and Einstein Tower.  The TWA terminal’s roof structure doesn’t require to be that shape, but it really gives out the impression of a bird flying and feeling thrill of the flight.  The Einstein Tower, too, doesn’t require walls that thick, but it expresses the excessiveness and mystique around Einstein’s universe.

Personally, I feel that post-modernism’s past related part is good.  We don’t really need to start from scratches because we have the past to learn from.  I’m not saying that modernism is bad or a waste of time, because it is also a great thing to be innovative and revolutionary, but we shouldn’t just throw everything away.  Post-modernism, as stated earlier, gives spaces for architects to express their feeling and identity, thus adding the individuality to the building.  I think it is the middle path to both imagination and standards, a path towards the newer architecture.  

The Radiant City: Utopia or Dystopia?

Now let us talk about another great modernist architect whose name is known all around the world: Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, although his famous name is ‘Le Corbusier’.  With a vision that revolutionized the world, his innovative works change the looks of buildings like never before.  As seen in his prototype ‘Maison Dom-ino’ (Domino House), he introduced a whole new structure that allowed a free façade to be installed.

Le Corbusier, like Mies van der Rohe, believe in simplicity and honesty of the structure, but he also believed in mass production and standardization.  He looked to houses the same way as automobiles, which were carefully designed once and then produced in mass in the same standard.  This belief of his is shown in his visionary plan of Paris, the Radiant City.  The concept was preposterous in many other architects’ eyes.  It was a city where every building in each zone looked the same, standardized by the design perfected by Le Corbusier himself.  Each unit of living, workspace, facility, is all the same and equal for everyone, because, fundamentally, each and every one of us is equally human.

But is it good?  Will this create the Utopia every one has so long dreamed of?

Actually, this ‘Radiant City’ was built, but not in Paris.  Of all the places, it ended up being built in India.  The name of the city is ‘Chandigarh’.  Furthermore, Jacques Tati depicted the scenario of the life inside this uniform city in the film called ‘Playtime’.

I must say that it looked chaotic.  In the film, an uptown man went into the city to find someone, and he got lost so badly.  He didn’t know where or which part of the city he was because, technically, every part of the city is the same.  It was so lifeless because everyone dressed the same way, worked in the building that looked the same down to each desk, and lived a the house that no one could tell the difference to the neighbors’.  It no longer mattered where you are in this big city.

I must admit that I love its cleanliness and tidiness and uniformity.  The concept that everyone is equal is also ideal, but I wouldn’t want to live there.  It went too far to the point that it makes people become a machine.  They lost their personality, and, most of all, their individuality.  They were no longer seen as an individual, but a mass-produced product.  It is not a bad thing to have a standard, but I think we should always leave spaces for each person’s creativity and imagination.

Mies van der Rohe: Ornament and Modernism

It is undeniable that Mies van der Rohe is one of the most famous modernist architects o the era.  His ultimate speech, “less is more” inspires a great number of architects and students to produce projects that modernized the world.  “Less is more”…a short phrase that explains the concept of the man himself; reducing everything to only the needed features, the working class’s “form follows function”.

But did he really make it?  Did he really design a simple, undecorated “glass box”?

It is very ironic, but as Mies gained his fame, his client became those rich guys, and his non-bourgeois cubes became houses for the bourgeois themselves.  Even Adolf Hitler asked Mies to design an office for the Nazis, which he put it in his own style (but it ended up being a university building, not a Nazi office, and it was in America).  The side effect of this is; it took more time for him to perfect his small details, making it looked flawless.  For example, his Seagram Building.  Mies believed in making an “honest” structure, a structure that reveals itself, a beauty in its truthfulness, so he put I-beams, more specifically, bronze I-beams, in front of the reinforced concrete columns, just to say that he have these beams inside.  His “Farnsworth House” also has I-beams glued to the side of the concrete slab, making the visible replica of the structure.

And what is the function of these beams?  Nothing.  They have no function apart from showing the structure inside (which is not needed).  Then is it considered and ornament, something that Mies himself tried to avoid?

Personally, I think it is also an ornament, but a modernized one.  As time changes, the styles of art and architecture also change.  To me, this is kind of like a fluted-shaft columns of the Greek times, which, again, is not to be considered as a ‘crime’.  Mies just put the ornament up in his style, and even though it made him swallow his own words, it is innovative and inspiring.