Robert A. M.

Stern, “Grey Architecture as Postmodernism or Up

and Down from Othodoxy,” 38-42 in Architecture on the Edge of
Postmodernism, Collected Essays, 1964-1988, Edited by Cynthia
Davidson, Yale University Press, 2009.

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 6
Gray Architecture as
Post-Modernism, or, Up and
Down from Orthodoxy
1976

At the outset of this brief essay, I would like to suggest t hat the "White and Gra/'
debate is not (as has been suggested in the press) an encounter between polarities
such as might have occurred in 1927 bet ween advocates of the Beaux-Arts and
apostles of International Style modernism. Rather, this debate, beginning at the
University of California at Los Angeles in May 1974, has grown into an ongoing
dialogue between two groups ofarchitects who, in their built work and theoretical
investigations, chart out and clarify a direction which architecture can take now
that the orthodox Modernist Movement has drawn to a close.
Peter Eisenman, to my mind the principal theorist among the "White" architects,
sees this new direction in a particular way, which he labels "Post-Functionalism."
Eisenman seeks to free architecture from explicit cultural associations ofany kind. My
view of this new direction differs from Eiscnman's: I call it "Post-Modernism," and I
sec it as a kind of philosophical pragmatism or pluralism which builds upon messages
from "orthodox modernism" as well as from other defined historical trends.
For "Post-Modernism," and probably for "Post-Functionalism" as well, it is
safe to say that the orthodox Modernist Movement is a closed issue, an historical
fact of no greater contemporaneity than that of nineteenth-century aeademi-
cism; and though messages can be received from both these historical periods,
as from the past in general, nostalgia for either cannot be substituted for a fresh,
realistic assessment of the issues as they are now. The struggle for both groups,
then, is to return to our architecture that vitality of intention and form which
seems so absent from the work of the late Modernists.
"Post-Nlodernism" and "Post-Funeti.onalism" can both be seen as attempts to
get out of the trap of orthodox Modernism now devoid of philosophic meaning
and tcmnal energy, and both are similar in their emphasis on the development of a
strong formal basis for design. Beyond this, however, they are widely divergent, in
that "Post-Functionalism" seeks to develop formal compositional the mes as inde-
pendent entities freed from cultural connotations, whereas "Post-Modernism"
embodies a search for strategies that will make architecture more responsive to and
visually cognizant of its own hisrory, the physical context in which a given work of
architecture is set, and the social, cultural, and political milieu which calls it into
being. Contrary to what was said at the end of the 1960s, "Post-Modernism" is
neither a sociology of the constructed nor the techno-socio -professional deter-
minism of the orthodox Modern Movement; it affirms that architecture is made
for the eye as well as for the mind, and that it includes both a conceptualized
formation of space and the circumstantial modifications that a program can make
this space undergo.
Implicit in t his emergent Post-Modernist position is a recognition that the
more than fifty-year histor y of the Modernist movement has been accompanied
by no notable increase in affoction 0 11 the part of the public for the design vocabu-
lary that has been evolved . This is partially so because that movement has been
obsessively concerned with abstraction and has eschewed explicit con nections
with fa miliar ideas and things. (Even the pipe railings of the 1920s arc by now, for
most of us, cut off from everyday refere nce; who among us has been o n an ocean
liner in the last twenty-five years?) For a I)ost-Modernist attitude to take root in
a meaningful way, an effort must be made toward recapturing the affection of
architecture's very disaffected constituency, the public.
T he exhibition of drawings of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts which was presented
in 1975 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the discussion of t he
significance of that exhibit io n in the press, at the Institute for Architecture and
Urban Studies, at the Architectural League of New York, and within the frame of
seminars at the School o f Architecture at Columbia University, made it possible
for architects of New York- many of the "Whites" and "Grays," in particular-
to begin to reweave the fabric of the Modern period, which was so badly rent
by t he puritan revolution of the Modern Movement. It is not surprising that
the tradition represented by the Ecole des Beaux-Arts-the poetic tradition
of design-should be examined with re newed sympathy, and that one of the
hallmarks of t he Ecole's design methodology, the beautiful drawing, should be
restored to a position of influe nce. A large part of the work of the "Grays" tends
to establish connections with the formal, spatial, and decorative invention of the
nineteenth century.
For the "Grays," at least, Venturi and Moore have laid the foundation for
the philosophical structure of Post-Modernism. In the search for an architec-
tural positio n able to draw on historic issues, including both Modernism and
nineteenth-century eclecticism, they have reminded us of the power to achieve
S)•mbolic meaning through allusion-not only allusion tO other movements in
architectural history, but to historical and contemporary events of a social, politi-
cal, and cultural nature as well. In organizing the Beaux-Ar ts exhibit, Arthur
D rexler, long associated with the position of orthodox Modernism, has also made
a contribution to the philosophical structure of Post-Modernism. The Beaux-Arts
exhibit suggests that Modern architecture might find a wa)• out of the dilemma of
the late Modern Movement by entering a period where symbolism and allusio n

Gray Architecture as Post-Modernism

39
would take their place alongside issues of formal composition, functional fit, and
constructional logic. In his introduction to the Beaux-Arts show's catalogue,
Drexler admonished that "we could be well advised to examine our archfrectural
pieties 'in the light of an increased awareness and appreciation of the nature of
architecture' as ir was understood in the nineTeenth century."
The Beaux-Arts exhibition reminded us of the poverty of orthodox Modern
architecture: trapped in the narcissism of its obsession with the process of its own
making, scaled off from everyday experience and from high culture alike by its
abstraction and the narrowing of its frame of reference within the Modern period
to the cano nical succession of events and images and personalities delimited by
Giedion and Pevsner, and drained of energy as a result of a confusion between the
values assigned to minimalism by a Mies van der Rohe with those assigned by an
Emer y Roth.
The work of the "Grays" presents certain strategies and attitudes that dis-
tinguish it from that of the "Whites." These strategics include (in no particular
order): II

171e 1tse ofor11a111e11t. Though ornament is often the handmaiden of historical allu-
sion, the decoration of the venical plane need not be justified in historical or cul-
tural terms; the decorated wall responds to an innate human need for elaboration
and for the articulation of the building's elements in relation to human scale.

17,c mr111ip11/atio11 offorms to i11tl'od11cc au explicit· /Jistoricnl reference. This is not

to be confused with the simplistic eclecticism that has too often in the past substi-
tuted pat, predigested typological imagery for more incisive analysis. The principle
is rather that there are lessons to be learned from history as well as from techno -
logical innovation and behavioral science, that the history o f buildings is the his-
tory of meaning in architecture. Moreover, for the Post-Modernist these lessons
from histoq r go be}1ond modes of spa rial organization or structural expression tO
the heart of architecture itself: the relationship between form and shape and the
meanings that particular shapes have assumed over t he course of time. T his Post-
Modernist examination of historical precedent grows out of the conviction that
appropriate refere nces to historical architecture can enrich new work and thereby
make it more familiar, accessible, and possibly even meaningful tor the people who
use buildings. It is, in short, a cue system t hat helps architects and users commu-
nicate better about their intentions.

The conscious aud eclectic 11tilizntio11 ofthe fonunl strntegies ofortbodox Modem ism,
together 1vit/J t/Jc strntegies of t/Je pre-Modem period. Borrowing from forms and
strategics of both orthodox Modernism and the architecture that preceded it,
Post-Modernism declares the pasr-ness of both; as such it makes a clear distinction
between the architecture of the Modern period, which emerged in the middle
of the eighteenth ccntur}' in western Europe, and that puritanical phase of the
Modern period which we call the Modern Movement.

T/Je prcfereuce for incomplete or compromised geometries, vohmtmy distortion, and

the 1-ecognitio11 ofgrowth oflmildi11gs 011er time. This is manifest in a marked prefer-
ence for the Aalto of the fifties over the Corbusier of the twenties, for the plans
of Lut:ycns over those of Voysey, and for the long love affair with the American

Gray Architccrure as Post·Modcrnism

40
 Shingle Style of the nineteenth century. These preferences arc paired with an
architecture that appeals to Platonic geometry, particularly in its general compo-
sition. Thus, geometrically pure rooms are linked together in an unaccustomed
manner and create larger and frankly hybrid forms, tied together visually by the
envelope of the exterior walls. These hybrid forms arc rarely perceptible at first
glance. For lack of a more appropriate term, I would call this an "episodic com-
position," which must be distinguished from the determinist composition of

1 Modernist orthodoxy.

The use of rich co/ors and 11arious materials that effect a materinlization ofrwcbitec-
ture's imagery and perceptible q11alities, as opposed to the materialization of tech-
nology and constructional s~rstcms that remain so overtly significant in bnitalist
architecture.

l
I

l
The emp/J(l.sis 011 inter111ediate spaces, that is, tbe «poches)) ofcirwlatio11, rmd on the
borders, thnt is, 011 the thick11ess of tbe n>all. From this comes an architecture made
ofspaces whose configuration is much more neutral and supple, from a functional
point of view, than the so-called continuous spaces of the orthodox Modern
Movement.

The c01~fignmtio11 ofspaces in terms oflight and 11iew fl-S well ns ofuse.
J
The ndjust111e11t ofspecific imnges charged 111ith carrying the idem ofthe b11ildi11g. It
is thus possible for the architect to create simultaneously two premises or spatial
units within o ne building or two b11il<lings in a complex that <lo not resemble each
other even if their compositional elements arc the same. An attitude of this sort
permits 11s to see the work of Eero Saarinen in a new light.

To rctllrn to the philosophical intentions of "Gray" architecture, the importance

of the writings of Vincent Scully is evident: his vision of architecture as part of a
larger whole, which is at the heart of the cultural formation of the "Grays" (many
of whom were his students at Yale), often runs counter to ar·bitrary stylistic and
cultural catcgories and puts a particular emphasis o n the interrelationship of the
building, the landscape, and culture. Scully has begun to influence not only archi-
tects but also historians like Neil Levine, who, in his account of the Beaux-Arts,
assigns great importance to questions of communication and in particular to that
of an architecture par/ante. He has equally influenced George Hersey, whose stud-
ies on the association ism of mid-nineteenth-century English architecture make an
important contribut ion to the philosophical foundation of the eclecticism emerg-
ing in the "Grays."
Not surprising, then, that Hersey should have been a client for whom Venturi
achieved one of his most stunning ho11ses. One finds at the root of the "gray"
position a rejection of the anti-symbolic, anti-historical, hermetic, and highly
abstract architecture of orthodox Modernism. Grayness seeks to move toward an
acceptance of diversity; it preters hybrids to pure forms; it encourages multiple
and simultaneous readings in its effort to heighten expressive content. The layer-
ing of space characteristic of much "gray" architecture finds its complement in
the overlay of cultural and art-historical reterences in the elevations. For "gray"
architecture, "more is more."

Gm)' Architecture as Post-Modernism

41
 "Gray" buildings have facades which tell stories. These facades are not the
diaphanous veil of orthodox Modern architecture, nor are they the affirmation
of deep structural secrets. T hey are mediators between the building as a "real"
construct and those allusions and perceptions necessary to put the building in
closer touch with the place in which it is made and with the beliefs and dreams
of the architects who designed it, the clients who paid for it, and the civilization
which permitted it to be built; to make buildings, in short, landmarks of a cul-
ture capable of transcending transitory usefulness as functional accommodation.
"Gray" buildings are very much ofa time and place; they are not intended as ideal
constructs of perfected order; they select from the past in order to comment on
the present.

Gray Architectnre as Post-Modernism

42