‘DYSTOPIAN’ ARCHITECTURE

Architecture is a way of living, it conveys a lot about the lifestyle of people. Hence the post modernism style was first evidently seen in architecture. Hence to understand the journey of post modernism we have to have a greater insight into the post-modern architecture and its evolution.

THE IGNITION

How it all started?

To understand its starting we have to take a short journey through century. Post-World War I and industrial revolution, technology and science bought huge change in life of people. People started moving from villages to cities, leading to construction of high raised building in Chicago and other area. So to meet the growing need in cities many architectural building where made more functional, as they had other colonies to take care of(Bauhaus and internationalist movement had involvement too). Whereas japan post WW1 started to flourish with new changes. In general modernism was holistic moment having different sub movements being promoter and enhancer of it.

Around 1980s started the flourishing era of post-modernist lifestyle and architecture. Post-modern movement was reaction to modernism, as many postmodernist had a contradictory belief regarding modernist principle. Many felt that modern buildings are only meeting functional need and are rather too simple. The principle of modernist that ‘Less is more’ seemed pointless to post-modernist and they rather believed in ‘Less is bore’ and ‘More is more’.

What catalysed the postmodernists believe was the event of Ronan point tower block collapse in 1968.

(It is also known that Robert Venturi book –‘Complexity &Contradiction on Architecture’ was a source of inspiration to all post-modernist and hence catalysed the effect of post-modernism in architectural field .

THE JOURNEY OF POST MODERNISM

After 1980s was time when post modernism was at its peak. Some basic principle of post- modernism was-

Reaction to Post-Modernism-

They felt that Modernism was too simple and blend and the principle of form with function seemed very senseless to post-modernist as mentioned above.

• Emotion over Rational-

Modern architecture was based on rational, scientific and technical aspects. With industrialization they adapted these changes and moulded them into pure simple and functional.

But Post-Modernism completed rejected the concept that architectural should covey and execute function only with form. They felt that people’s opinion, believe, and perceptions played a huge role. Post-modernist felt that a building should not only serve a functional purpose to the people, rather the people should be successful to form an affinity towards design of the building. This once to design can be accomplished by placing local elements in building forms in making a local connect to people. They believed in accepting indigenous and local feels in architecture. They believed in LOCALIZING DESIGN IN BUILDING.

Modernism: Rational, scientific method

Purpose: Functionality and efficiency only in simple and pure forms

Post modernism: Local and Indigenous touch to the building, Localizing design

Purpose: To create an emotional, spiritual attachment to design of building.

• Eclectic, Contextual, History:

Post-Modernist had a complete different outlook to approach design they heavily believed in taking inspiration and reference to a huge extent. Word such as eclectic and pastiche can best describe their belief.

• Eclectic means taking huge inspiration from various sources. In architecture, they took various inspirations from history, before art and design movement, nature, old works etc.

Altogether Combining various inspiration together and formulating it in their design

• Pastiche: Taking already done work, in other words imitation and mimicry. It might seem as plagiarism but early they wanted to break the concept of modernist that art is aesthetic, geometrical, classy as it indicated superiority to poor and middle class people. With pastiche so called ‘plagiarism’ in today’s world they wanted to show that art is for everyone.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MODERNIST & POST MODERNIST

STRUCTURAL PARAMETER-

Modernist:

Pure Form , Basic Geometrical , Simple Linearity

For E.g. Barcelona Pavilion by Mies Van Der Rohe, Farnsworth House & Johnson House.

This building had cuboidal and rectilinear structure.

Post-Modernist:

These buildings had more of curvilinearity more. These buildings had element of Deconstructivism (not geometrical). They juxtaposed or fused forms together to form complex and interesting forms.

For e.g. Gughenium museum in Bilbao, Spain (no wall is straight plane)

COLOR PALETTE

Modernist:

They used colours palette like white, grey, black, brown, and neutral colours only.

They considered such colour more pure, simple and suitable.

For eg. Bauhaus International Building, Robbie House

Post-Modernist:

They used Pastel and Bright colours. These convey their playfulness and local relatability to the people in the community.

For e.g. Wall House 2 by John Hejduk, Piazze D’Itallia

MATERIAL JUSTICE

Modernist:

These building gave pure justice to the material in design. They believed in realism of material in design and didn’t have any facade to hide beauty of the material.

For e.g.: Robbie House FL wright, Dhaka Assembly by Louis Khan.

Post-Modernist:

Cladding was there key feature. In cladding, original material is not shown and is hidden with a different material. It gave an ‘Image of realism’, an Illusion. Different material was used as facade over original material.

For e.g. Portland Public Service building by Michael Graves

DESIGN CONCEPTS

Modernist:

Singularity thinking

They believed in Abstraction, no sense of story concept, belief, idea behind the design of buildings. They never linked theory design with any link from past design movements or surroundings, or previous works. Exception Chicago Building as it had a historical symbol to portray at that time. Rest had no link to the design, no motive other than functionality.

For e.g. Dhaka Assembly Hall by Louis Khan etc.

Post-Modernist:

Plurality thinking

They proposed the principle of Eclectic, Pastiche, Contextual, and History. They believed in taking inspiration from many source for single design. They believed in creating affinity and localizing building design for people so that they connect to building. Emotion had more relevance for them .They believed in imitation and mimicry as form to convey irony towards modernism.

OTHER SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE

Modernist:

In buildings a strong sense of Monolithic & Internationalism (no context no facade)

These buildings used structural forms as aesthetic elements (load and tension structure can be seen in their work)

For e.g IIT Kanpur by Achyut Kavind, Washing Dulles by Ero Saarleem

Post-modernist:

They carried on taking Critical regionalism in design. It is too make a link between the surrounding and design of building making it unique and easy to connect with it

Also they used illusion in their structural design to deceive and to act as irony, satirical purpose to the building.

For e.g. Wexner Centre, Ohio University by Peter Eisenman had a pseudo pillar with no purpose (tension and load cannot be understood with forms, Vanna Venturi House.

CONCLUSION:

The concept for ‘Dystopia’ of post modernism in architecture was not about seeking imperfection but was about embracing emotion, indigenous essence of the surrounding and the people. The architectural design where not done just for functional sake, but to win the hearts and to follow on people’s opinion. These consideration of relevance of peoples opinion in architectural design is what made Postmodern architecture still unique, followed and practiced. I personally learned to embrace imperfection and to not fit into one mould but share my own opinion in ideas.

-Niharika_20bdi020