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.

Postmodern architecture has also been described as "neo-eclectic", where reference and ornament have returned to the facade, replacing the aggressively unornamented modern styles. This eclecticism is often combined with the use of non-orthogonal angles and unusual surfaces, most famously in the State Gallery of Stuttgart (New wing of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart) and the Piazza d’Italia by Charles Willard Moore. The Scottish Parliament buildings in Edinburgh have also been cited as being of postmodern vogue.

Modernist architects regard post-modern buildings as vulgar and cluttered with "gew-gaws". Postmodern architects often regard modern spaces as soulless and bland. The divergence in opinions comes down to a difference in goals: modernism is rooted in minimal and true use of material as well as absence of ornament, while postmodernism is a rejection of strict rules set by the early modernists and seeks exuberance in the use of building techniques, angles, and stylistic references.

Links

• Postmodern architecture – Wikipedia
• About Postmodernism
• Postmodern architecture at the archINFORM database
• Gallery of Postmodern Houses
• Post Modern Architecture at Great Buildings Online

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• Postmodern architecture is an international style whose first examples are generally cited as being from the 1950s

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.

All the works which were displayed as part of the exhibition were carefully selected, as only works which strictly followed the set of rules were displayed. Previous uses of the term in the same context can be attributed to Walter Gropius in Internationale Architektur, and Ludwig Hilberseimer in Internationale neue Baukunst.

Although it was conceived as a movement that transcended style, the International Style was largely superseded in the era of Postmodern architecture that started in the 1960s. In 2006, Hugh Pearlman, the architectural critic of The Times, observed that those using the style today are simply "another species of revivalist," noting the irony.

Architects

• Alvar Aalto
• Welton Becket
• Le Corbusier
• Eileen Gray
• Walter Gropius
• Arne Jacobsen
• Philip Johnson
• Louis Kahn
• William Lescaze
• Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
• Richard Neutra
• Oscar Niemeyer
• Carlos Raul Villanueva
• Frits Peutz
• Ralph Rapson
• Gerrit Rietveld
• Arseniusz Romanowicz
• The Architects’ Collaborative
• Richard Kauffman
• Arieh Sharon
• Jerzy Sołtan
• Raphael Soriano
• Joseph Klarwein
• Eric Mendelsohn
• Joseph Emberton

Links

• International style (architecture) – Wikipedia

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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.

For example, many of Alison and Peter Smithson’s private houses are built from brick. Brutalist building materials also include brick, glass, steel, rough-hewn stone, and gabion (also known as trapion). Conversely, not all buildings exhibiting an exposed concrete exterior can be considered Brutalist, and may belong to one of a range of architectural styles including Constructivism, International Style, Expressionism, Postmodernism, and Deconstructivism.

Another common theme in Brutalist designs is the exposure of the building’s functions—ranging from their structure and services to their human use—in the exterior of the building. In the Boston City Hall (illustration left), designed in 1962, strikingly different and projected portions of the building indicate the special nature of the rooms behind those walls, such as the mayor’s office or the city council chambers. From another perspective of this theme, the design of the Hunstanton School included placing the facility’s water tank, normally a hidden service feature, in a prominently placed and visible tower.

Brutalism as an architectural style also was associated with a social utopian ideology, which tended to be supported by its designers, especially Alison and Peter Smithson, near the height of the style. Critics argue that this abstract nature of Brutalism makes the style unfriendly and uncommunicative, instead of being integrating and protective, as its proponents intended. The best known early Brutalist architecture is the work of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier, in particular his Unité d’Habitation (1952) and the 1953 Secretariat Building in Chandigarh, India.

Architects

• Architects associated with the Brutalist style include Ernő Goldfinger, husband-and-wife pairing Alison and Peter Smithson, and, to a lesser extent perhaps, Sir Denys Lasdun. Outside of Britain, Louis Kahn‘s government buildings in Asia and John Andrews‘s government and institutional structures in Australia exhibit the creative height of the style. Paul Rudolph is another noted Brutalist, as is Ralph Rapson both from the United States. Marcel Breuer was known for his "soft" approach to the style, often using curves rather than corners. Clorindo Testa in Argentina created the Bank of London and South America, one of the best examples of the fifties. More recent Modernists such as I.M. Pei and Tadao Ando also have designed notable Brutalist works. In Brazil, the style is associated with the Paulista School and is evident in the works of Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha (2006). In the Philippines, Leandro Locsin designed the massive brutalist structures, the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the Philippine International Convention Center.

Links

• Ontario Architecture: Brutalism
• From Here to Modernity includes many Brutalist examples
• Sarah J. Duncan photos of brutalist structures
• Tate Gallery Glossary entry for "Brutalism"
• Brutalist Architecture photo pool at flickr
• Paul Rudolph photo pool at flickr

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