Postmodern architecture

May 29, 2009 by  
Filed under Architectural style

de_la_gauchetiere Postmodern architecture was an international style whose first examples are generally cited as being from the 1950s, and which continues to influence present-day architecture. Postmodernity in architecture is generally thought to be heralded by the return of "wit, ornament and reference" to architecture in response to the formalism of the International Style of modernism. As with many cultural movements, some of postmodernism’s most pronounced and visible ideas can be seen in architecture. The functional and formalized shapes and spaces of the modernist movement are replaced by unapologetically diverse aesthetics: styles collide, form is adopted for its own sake, and new ways of viewing familiar styles and space abound.

Classic examples of modern architecture are SOM’s Lever House or Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, as well as the architecture of Le Corbusier or the Bauhaus movement. Transitional examples of postmodern architecture are Michael Graves’ Portland Building in Portland, Oregon and Philip Johnson’s Sony Building (originally AT&T Building) in New York City, which borrows elements and references from the past and reintroduces color and symbolism to architecture. A prime example of inspiration for postmodern architecture lies along the Las Vegas Strip, which was studied by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in their 1972 book Learning from Las Vegas celebrating the strip’s ordinary and common architecture.

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International style (architecture)

May 28, 2009 by  
Filed under Architectural style

glass_palace The International style was a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modernist architecture. The term had its origin from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson written to record the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1932 which identified, categorized and expanded upon characteristics common to Modernism across the world.

As a result, the focus was more on the stylistic aspects of Modernism. Hitchcock’s and Johnson’s aims were to define a style of the time, which would encapsulate this modern architecture. They identified three different principles: the expression of volume rather than mass, balance rather than preconceived symmetry and the expulsion of applied ornament.

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Brutalist architecture

May 27, 2009 by  
Filed under Architectural style

boston_city_hall Brutalist architecture is a style of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement. The English architects Alison and Peter Smithson coined the term in 1954, from the French béton brut, or "raw concrete", a phrase used by Le Corbusier to describe his choice of material. The term gained currency when the British architectural critic Reyner Banham used it in the title of his 1966 book, "The New Brutalism", to identify the emerging style.

Brutalist buildings usually are formed with striking repetitive angular geometries, and where concrete is used often revealing the texture of the wooden forms used for the in-situ casting. Although concrete is the material most widely associated with Brutalist architecture, not all Brutalist buildings are formed from concrete. Instead, a building may achieve its Brutalist quality through a rough, blocky appearance, and the expression of its structural materials, forms, and (in some cases) services on its exterior.

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