Postmodern Architecture and Design
Architecture and design of the 1970s and 1980s that brought back ornament, colour, historical quotation and irony after modernist austerity.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
No open-access works for Postmodern Architecture and Design are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
About
In The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977), the critic Charles Jencks declared that modern architecture had died with the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing blocks in St Louis. Many architects were already seeking buildings that spoke to ordinary people through familiar signs, an argument Robert Venturi had opened in the 1960s. A wave followed: Charles Moore's Piazza d'Italia in New Orleans (1978), Michael Graves's Portland Building (1982), James Stirling's Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart (1984) and Philip Johnson's AT&T Building in New York (1984), crowned with a broken pediment.
Look for columns, arches and keystones rendered as flat, oversized or brightly coloured signs, and for materials that imitate others. The same thinking reached objects: Alessi invited architects to design tea and coffee services, Graves's kettle with a bird-shaped whistle (1985) became a kitchen fixture, and Alessandro Mendini, Andrea Branzi and Hans Hollein made furniture as cultural commentary.
Related artists
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