Postmodernism In America

1
PostmodernismIn America

• ARCH 4381
• Urban Theory
• Fall 2005
• Cortney Frazier
• Kristen Meek
• Nolan Bradshaw

2
Modernism

• Started circa 1920
• Easiest way to understand postmodernism is by
  thinking about modernism
• Definition
• movement in visual arts, music, literature,
  architecture, and drama which rejected the old
  Victorian standards of how art should be made,
  consumed and what it should mean
• Characteristics
• Emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity
• A tendency toward reflexivity or
  self-consciousness
• A rejection of elaborate formal aesthetics in
  favor of minimalist designs
• In favor of spontaneity and discovery in creation
• form follows function and less is more
• Purism and simplicity, machine aesthetic,
  anti-metaphor

3
Postmodernism

• Follows most of the same ideas as modernism with
  some exceptions
• Emerged in the 1960s, became prominent in the
  late 1970s and early 1980s
• Definition
• Relating to art, architecture or literature that
  reacts against earlier modernist principles, by
  reintroducing traditional or classical elements
  of style or by carrying modernist styles or
  practices to extremes
• Characteristics
• Rejection of rigid genre distinctions,
  emphasizing parody, irony and playfulness
• Favors reflexivity and self-consciousness,
  fragmentation and discontinuity
• Emphasis on the de-structured, de-centered,
  dehumanized subject

4
Modern vs. Postmodern

• Modernism
• Tends to present a fragmented view of human
  subjectivity and history, but presents that
  fragmentation as something tragic, something to
  be mourned as a loss
• Modernists uphold the idea that art can provide
  unity, coherence and meaning which has been lost
  in most of modern life
• Knowledge is scientific learn things just to
  know them
• Postmodernism
• Celebrates, not mourns, the idea of fragmentation
  or incoherence
• The idea of not to pretend that art can make
  meaning, but lets just play with nonsense
• Knowledge becomes functional learn things to use
  the information

5
Modernism vs. Postmodernism

• Production
• Mass production
• Assembly line
• Wage control via unions
• Single tasks
• Ideology
• Welfarist (state provides for citizens)
• Rational planning based on scientific research
• Mass consumption
• Space
• City verses suburb (dualistic view of the city
• Planning and segregation (zoning)

• Small scale production
• Flexible processes
• Individual contracts
• Multiple tasks
• Individualism
• Entrepreneurship
• Individual lifestyle, consumption and display
• Blurring of dualism-urbanization of the suburbs,
  gentrification of the inner city
• Development of edge/regional centers

6
Modern vs. Postmodern in Capitalism

• Monopoly Capitalism (modernism)
• A centrally planned economy with state-run
  monopolies organizing economic activity
• Emphasis on producing commodities
• Associated with electric and internal combustion
  motors
• Multinational or Consumer Capitalism
  (postmodern)
• Emphasis placed on marketing, selling and
  consuming commodities, not on producing them
• Associated with nuclear and electronic
  technologies

7
Leading Up to Postmodernism 1960s

• Summary
• Moving away from the conservative 1950s
• Young people wanted change
• Changes in education, values, lifestyles, laws
  and entertainment
• A time of revolutionary ideas
• People became more concerned with their health
  and their environment

8
Leading Up to Postmodernism 1960s

• Art
• The desire to move into the modern age or future
• Artists wanted to inspire the viewer to leap into
  the unknown and experience art in their own way
• Pop art emerges with new artist Andy Warhol
• -mocks the marketed art world by using images
  from the street, the supermarket and the mass
  media and presents itself as art.

9
Leading Up to Postmodernism 1960s

• Books and Literature
• Reflected what was happening in the political
  arenas and social issues
• To Kill A Mockingbird depicts social distinctions
  between races in a small southern town
• Maya Angelou and Sylvia Plath helped create new
  insights on feminism as it developed
• Marshall McLuhan popularized his belief that mass
  communications were a driving force in the
  development of modern society
• Childrens books exploring new issues, such as
  Where the Wild Things Are

10
Leading Up to Postmodernism 1960s

• Education
• College campuses became centers of debate and
  scenes of protest
• Young People drafted into the Vietnam War
• Equality of Educational Opportunity (1966) a
  study that lead the way to forced integration and
  busing
• A return to teaching of basic thinking skills

11
Leading Up to Postmodernism 1960s

• Fads and Fashions
• youth swayed the fashion and fads of the decade
• Skateboards, Barbie Dolls, GI Joe
• 1960s began with
• Crew cuts
• Plaid and buttoned down shirts
• Knee-length dresses required in most public
  places
• 1960s ended with
• Unisex dressing
• Bell Bottomed Jeans, Love Beads
• Women
• Miniskirts or hot pants
• Go-go boots
• Womens hair was very short or very long
• Men
• Bright colors
• Double breasted sports jackets
• Polyester pant suits
• hair became longer with beards and moustaches

12
Leading Up to Postmodernism 1960s

• Historic Events and Technology
• Civil Rights Movement
• Martin Luther King
• Cesar Chavez organized Hispanics for workers
  rights
• Birth of Womens Liberation
• Birth control, abortion in some states,
  artificial insemination
• Engle V. Vitale
• Prayer in public schools unconstitutional
• Hippie Movement
• Sexual freedom, use of drugs
• Turn to mystic eastern religions
• Fidel Castro declares Cuba communist
• Threat of Soviet Missiles
• John F. Kennedy assassinated
• Johnson becomes president
• Space Race
• first men to walk on the moon

13
Leading Up to Postmodernism 1960s

• Music and Television
• Elvis returned to music scene
• Motown Record Company
• Specialized in black rhythm and blues and aided
  in emergence of female groups
• Folk music revival
• The Beatles with innovative rock
• Acid rock, psychedelic rock
• Influenced by drug scene
• Computers used in music composition
• Musicals became popular and theatre expanded
• Movies became more political, sex became more
  explicit
• James Bond Films
• American Bandstand
• Dancing became an individual activity
• Prime Time Cartoon Shows
• The Flintstones, The Jetsons
• For both children and adults
• Supernatural and science fiction became popular

14
Leading Up to Postmodernism 1960s

• Architecture
• Refinement of modernism
• Streamlined contemporary look
• Influence of space and futuristic design
• Venturi wrote Complexity and Contradiction in
  Architecture in 1966 and called for a change in
  reductive simplicity of modernism beginning with
  a protest in the late 60s

15
Environment of Postmodernism 1970s

• Summary
• Growing disillusionment of government
• Advances of civil rights
• Increased influence of the womens movement
• A heightened concern for the environment
• Many radical ideas of the 60s gained wider
  acceptance

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Environment of Postmodernism 1970s

• Books and Literature
• A general theme of mans alienation from his
  spiritual roots
• Trying to find meaning in a society spiritually
  empty and in a state of moral decay
• Exploration of the loneliness of contemporary,
  power-hungry society
• Toni Morrison emerged as a strong author

17
Environment of Postmodernism 1970s

• Education
• Two trends heavily impacted the nations schools
• Movements
• Anti-war movements were highly visible on college
  and university campuses
• Mandatory busing
• To achieve racial school integration and equal
  education access to the handicapped

18
Environment of Postmodernism 1970s

• Fads and Fashions
• Mood Rings, Lava Lamps, Rubik Cube, Sea Monkeys,
  Smiley Face Stickers and Pet Rocks
• All capture the imagination
• Men
• Shoulder length hair
• Non-traditional clothing
• bell bottoms, hip huggers, colorful patches,
  earth shoes
• Women
• Gypsy dresses, hot pants, micro-miniskirts
• Fashionable in all lengths of dresses
• The movie Annie Hall inspired women to wear
  traditional mens clothing

19
Environment of Postmodernism 1970s

• Technology
• Intel introduced the microprocessor
• Apollo 17 brought back samples of rock from the
  moon
• Unmanned space probes explored multiple planets
• Atari produced the first television games
• VCR changed home entertainment
• Jumbo jets revolutionized commercial flight
• Research in genetic engineering
• First test tube baby

20
Environment of Postmodernism 1970s

• Events and People
• Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment and
  Johnson becomes president
• Vietnam War continued to divide the country
• Roe v. Wade legalized abortion
• Increased immigration
• Women, Minorities and Gays increasingly demanded
  full legal equality and privileges in society
• Affirmative Action became a controversial policy
• Native Americans became politically active

21
Environment of Postmodernism 1970s

• Music and Television
• Death of Elvis and break up of The Beatles
• Easy-Listening and Reggae became popular
• Aerosmith, Elton John, Led Zeppelin
• Comeback for the movies
• Sci-fi adventure and special effects (Star Wars)
• Rocky movies reaffirmed the American Dream
• Public yearning for simpler, more innocent times
• American Graffiti and Grease
• Vietnam influenced
• themes of several movies
• News broadcasts from the frontlines
• Television touched on subjects previously taboo
• Abortion, race, homosexuality, sex and religion
• Saturday Night Live and All In The Family

22
Environment of Postmodernism 1970s

• Architecture
• Slowing and refinement of trends in the 1960s
• Combined environmental and minimalist ideas on a
  large scale
• Challenged all rules regarding mass, time, size
  and space
• Illusionism
• Sought to surprise viewers and cause them to
  question their interpretation of reality
• Modern movement retreated
• Gradual move toward humanism and renewed respect
  for traditional and historical design
• Architects attempted to consider the needs and
  feelings of the people who would use their
  buildings
• Demolition of Minoru Yamasaki award winning
  Pruitt-Igoe housing development
• Historical elements are evident

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Importance of Las Vegas

• Changes the existing environment rather then
  enhancing what is there
• Architecture through analogy, symbol and image
• Inventing and enforcing a vernacular of its own
• Architecture in this landscape becomes symbol in
  space rather than form in space
• New spatial order relating the automobile and
  highway communication in an architecture

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Importance of Las Vegas

• Phenomenon of architectural communication
• Communication dominates space as an element in
  the architecture and the landscape
• Roadside eclecticism of representational
  architecture along highways
• Bold impact in the vast and complex setting of a
  new landscape of big spaces based on high speeds
• Styles and signs are seen fast
• the message is commercial and context is
  basically new
• Speed is determinant for focal angles
• Actual buildings and merchandize are often
  disconnected from the road

25
Importance of Las Vegas

• Creating the new may mean choosing the old or the
  existing
• Pop artists have relearned this
• Buildings are neither contained/enclosed,
  balanced/proportioned, or rhythmically ordered
• Imitations of historic or classic buildings with
  a playfulness
• Abandons pure form in favor of mixed media

26
Postmodern Townscapes (since 1970)

• Distinguished from the old urbanism by its
  eclecticism
• More detailed, handcrafted and intricate
• Celebrate difference, polyculturism, variety and
  stylishness
• Elements
• Quaintspace, a deliberate cuteness
• Textured facades, aimed at pedestrians, rich in
  detail, often with an aged appearance
• Stylishness, appealing to the fashionable, chic
  and affluent
• Reconnection with the local, involving deliberate
  historical geographical reconstructions
• Pedestrian automobile split, to address the
  modernist bias toward the car

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Postmodern Urbanism

• New terms for a new urbanism
• Elements of a Postmodern Urbanism
• Holsteinization
• Flexism
• Citistat
• Commundities
• New World Bi-Polar Disorder
• Keno Capitalism
• Cyburbia Cyberia
• In-Beyond
• Pollyannarchy
• Disinformation Superhighway

28
Postmodern Urbanism

• Cities no longer develop as concentrated
  population and economic activity, but as
  fragmented pieces
• The Citistat (collective world city) consists of
  commudities (commodified communities) and the
  in-beyond (the permanently marginalized)
• The Citistat is composed of Cyburbia (those
  hooked into the electronic world) and cyberia
  (those who are not)
• Keno Capitalism describes the spatial
  manifestations of the postmodern condition
• Urbanization is occurring on a quasi-random field
  of opportunities
• Capital touches down as if by chance
• The development of different spaces is unrelated
  to each other
• Consumption-oriented landscapes devoid of
  conventional centers, yet unified by the
  disinformation superhighway
• Los Angeles is mature form and Las Vegas is the
  young

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Model of Postmodern Urbanism
30
Case Study

• Tucker House- Katonah, New York
• Robert Venturi, 1975
• An American architect who protested against the
  predictability of modern architecture in the
  post- war period. He argued instead for a more
  inclusive, contextual approach that summed up
  postmodernism.
• Pyramid roof (classical Egyptian form)

31
Case Study

• Pennzoil Place, Houston, Texas
• Philip Johnson, 1976
• He coined the term International Style and
  introduced the work of European architects such
  as Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier to America.
  His buildings were luxurious in scale and
  materials. Featuring expansive interior space and
  a classical sense of symmetry.
• Twin 36-story towers, mirror images of each
  other, related at ground level by triangular
  shaped plazas 8-stories high.
• Clad in bronze-tinted glass and a dark brown
  anodized aluminum curtain wall.

32
Case Study

• ATT Building (now Sony), New York, New York
• Philip Johnson, 1984
• Baroque pediment described as the Chippendale
  Top (furniture)
• Rests on classical base, modern body, and
  ornamental top.
• Empire State Building, Chrysler Building

33
Case Study

• Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts
• Philip Johnson, 1973

34
Case Study

• Portland Public Service Building, Portland,
  Oregon
• Michael Graves, 1982
• Often credited with moving American architectural
  thought from abstract modernism to postmodernism.
  Borrowing from the past he uses columns,
  pediments, arches, and other historic details.
  His style can be defined as sophisticated
  playfulness.
• Colorful, decorative, buildings mark a return to
  historicism
• Box windows in perfect symmetry reflect classical
  design.