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.