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Comparison Between Modern And Postmodern Architecture

Technical Report · June 2020

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15014.34882

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 The Hashemite University
Faculty of Engineering
Department of Architecture
Main Title:

Theories and Criticism in Architecture

Program & Level

Master Programmed

Subject:

Comparison Between Modern And Postmodern Architecture

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Done By:

Arch. Zaid Zreqat

11 – June – 2002

Contact :

[email protected]
  Comparison between Modern and Postmodern Architecture:

Comparison Elements Modern Architecture Postmodern Architecture

-Time Frame: Late 19th and early 20th Began in the mid-20th century.
century.

-Predecessor: Nordic Classicism. Neoliberalism Architecture.

- The depart significantly from The reaction against modernism

Earlier Styles: classical and traditional forms. (characterized by the deliberate use of
earlier styles and conventions, a mixing
of different styles and forms).

- The duration of the Influenced by first world war. Influenced by the second world war.
war:

-Rational and Logical Based on using rational and Sensitivity to the challenges and ethical
Thinking: logical means to gain knowledge issues of gathering information face-to-
since it rejected realism. face, in people’s homes.

1- One international style or “no 1-Double-coding of style

style” 2-Popular and pluralist
2- Utopian and idealist 3-Semiotic form
3- Deterministic form-functional 4-Tradittions and choice
-Ideological: 4- Zeitgeist 5-Elitist and participative
5- Elitist/for everyman 6-Piecemeal
6- Wholistic, comprehensive 7-Architect as representative and activist
redevelopment
7- Architect as saviour/doctor

1-Straightforwardness 1-Hybrid expression

2-Simplicity 2-Complexity
3-Isotropic space (chicago 3-Variable space with surprise
frame,domino) 4-Conventional and abstract form
-Stylistic: 4-Abstract form 5-Eclectic
5-Purist 6-Semiotic articulation
6-Inarticulate dumb box 7-Variable mixed aesthetic depending on
7-Machine aesthetic context, expression of content and
,straightforward logic, semantic appropriateness toward function
circulation,
 Mechanical, technology, and 8-Pro-organic and applied ornament
structure. 9-Pro-historical reference
8-Anti-ornament 10-Pro-humour
9-Anti-representational 11-Pro-symbolic
10-Anti-metaphor
11-Anti-historical memory
12-Anti-humour
13-Anti-symbolic

1-City park 1-Contextual urbanism and rehabilitation

2-Functional separation 2-Functional mixing
3-Skin and bones 3-All rhetorical means
4-Volum not mass 4-Skew space and extensions
-Design Ideas: 5-Slab,point block 5-Street building
6-Transparency 6-Ambiguity
7-Asymmetry and regularity 7-Tends to asymmetrical symmetry
8-Harmonious integration (queen anne revival)

- Efforts to reconcile the Refers to the functional and formalized

principles underlying shapes and spaces of the modernist
Design Aims: architectural design with rapid style are replaced by diverse
the technological advancement aesthetics.
and the modernization of
society.

Form follows function Pluralism, Double coding, Flying

-Major Concept: buttresses and High ceilings, Irony and
Paradox, and Contextualize.

• Order • Fluidity
• Clear Distinctions • Negotiable Meaning
-versus: • Predictability • Uncertainty
• Control • Uncertainty
• Future-orientation • Present-orientation
• Production • Consumption
 -Structure: Rigid bureaucracies Flexible networks

-Technology: Technological determinism Technological choice

-Jobs: Differentiated, demarcated and Highly de- differentiated, de- demarcated,

deskilled and multi skilled

Centralized and standardized Complex and fragmentary

-Employment
relations:

Modernist architects may regard Postmodern architects may regard many

-The view of modern buildings as soulless and bland,
postmodern buildings as vulgar,
architects: overly simplistic and abstract.
associated with a populist ethic

Is rooted in minimal and true Is seeks meaning and expression in the

-Main Goals: use of building techniques, forms, and
use of material as well as
absence of ornament. stylistic references.

Sense of unified, centered self; Sense of fragmentation and decentered

-Identity: self; multiple, conflicting identities.
"individualism," unified identity

Faith and personal investment in Trust and investment in micro politics,

-Effect politics: identity politics, local politics
big politics (Nation-State, party)

Dichotomy of high and low Mixing of popular and high cultures.

-Effect cultures: Disruption of high culture’s dominance.
culture (official vs. popular
culture).

Form (conjunctive, closed). Antiform (disjunctive, open)

-Form Architecture:

Neoliberalism architecture Deconstruction architecture

-Antithesis:

Objective, theoretical, analytical Subjective

-Approach in design:
 -The influence of Believes in “grand theory” -
combining explanations in
theories on design: Rejects the totalizing of theories.
history, science and culture to
represent all knowledge and
explain everything.

-Design orientation: Faith in ‘depth’ (meaning, value, Attention on superficial appearances,

content, the signified) over playing on the surfaces and show no
‘surface’ (appearances, the concern into depth of subjects.
superficial, the signifier).

Believes in learning from the Ignores any text narrating the past and
-The effect of the
past experiences and trusts the believes it is useless in the present time.
past:
texts that narrate the past.

- • Frank Lloyd Wright • Robert Venturi

• Ieoh Ming Pei • Michael Graves
• Zaha Hadid • Charles Moore
The most prominent • Philip Johnson • Philip Johnson
architects: • Tom Wright • Frank Gehry
• Ludwig Mies van der Rohe • Tadao Ando
• Renzo Piano • Kenzo Tange
• Jean Nouvel • Jørn Utzon
• Moshe Safdie • Hans Scharoun
• Frank Gehry • Jean Nouvel

- • The notion that "Form follows • Use of sculptural forms, ornaments,

function", a dictum originally anthropomorphism and materials which
expressed by Frank Lloyd perform trompe l'oeil.
Wright's early mentor Louis
Sullivan. • These physical characteristics are
combined with conceptual characteristics
Architectural • Simplicity and clarity of forms of meaning, including pluralism, double
characteristics: and elimination of "unnecessary coding, flying buttresses.
detail".
• The sculptural forms, not necessarily
• Materials at 90 degrees to each organic, each building’s forms are
other. nothing like the conforming rigid ones of
modernism. These forms are somewhat
playful.
 • Visual expression of structure • Particular specificity and complexity,
(as opposed to the hiding of
structural elements) • Sensitivity to the building’s context

• The related concept of "Truth • Diverse in spirit and in style, and the
to materials", meaning that the ways it defines itself-architects combine
true nature or natural appearance disparate elements from previous
of a material ought to be seen architectural eras and styles in the same
rather than concealed or altered building
to represent something else
• Rejects the notion of “pure” or “perfect”
• Use of industrially-produced detail, instead it draws from: all methods,
materials; adoption of the materials, forms, & colors available to
machine aesthetic architects

• Particularly in International • Moves away from the neutral white

Style modernism, a visual colours seen in modernism.
emphasis on horizontal and
vertical lines • Took past components of different
styles and melded them together to create
new means of design.

• The re- emergence of surface ornament,

reference to its surrounding buildings,
and historical references

-Materials used: Stone- Marble- Iron – Cement- Glass Reinforced Polyester and exterior
Reinforced Concrete- metal panel systems and polycarbonate
Steel and Glass. sheets and dupont’s Fabric Tensile
Structures-Reinforced Concrete- Steel
and Glass.

-Next Era: Neoliberalism era. Encounter the Parametric era.

-What is real? Naturalism. Industrialism-Advance.

-Synthesis: Parametric era. Parametric era.

 -Architectural • Frank Lloyd Wright • Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia,
Kaufman's home is known as USA,1962 -1964.
examples:
Falling water 1939.
• Piazza d'Italia, New Orleans, USA, in
• Walter Gropius, Overseas from 1978.
Pauhaus, Germany, 1925-1926.
• The Portland Building, Portland, USA
• International style: Gorden in 1982.
bunshaft, skidmore, owings
&merrill Supreme House, New • Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain in
York, 1952. 1997.

• Edward Dorell Stone, Embassy • James R. Thompson Center, Chicago,

of the United States of America, USA.
India, 1959-1960.

-Sameness Charactricties:
1. Rejecting boundaries between hig and low form of art

2. Rejecting rigid genre distinctions

3- Reflexivity and self-consciousness

-Difference Charactricties:
1. Modernism tends to present a fragmentated view of human subjectivity and history and
present it as something tragic. But, postmodernism instead doesn’t lament the idea of
fragmentation but chelebrates that.

2. Modernism is characterized by the radical break from the traditional forms of prose and verse
whereas; postmodernism is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and
conventions.

-Modernism: -postmodernism:

Life Stinks. Life Stinks.

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