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3.2 Postmodernism in architecture and design
This ‘insight’ is an example of the consequences of exaggeration and confusion that are inherent in the loose frameworks of postmodernism. Indeed, the social reality in which people live is to a large extent manmade, but this is not true of the physical, scientific reality. Also, to individuals the social environment is most certainly an objective fact that they cannot alter at will.
In structuralism, with Derrida and Foucault as most important representatives, even the ‘subject’ is disposed of as a source of knowledge, since even a person’s individuality is a fabrication. Structuralism regards ‘reality’ as a construct of communication created in specific contexts – either codified in text or not. In fact, there is nothing but text, with no distinction between fact and fiction. Science too is nothing but a collection of texts. Still, texts may be interpreted differently. And this shows an inconsistency, because if mankind as the object of knowing has no reason for existence of its own – because mankind is a construct – then neither has mankind as the knowing subject.
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3.2 POSTMODERNISM IN ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN Architecture and design are the arenas of the direct confrontations between designer and user and these do not always end favourably for the designers: many modernist buildings were abhorred by ‘ordinary’ people and were subsequently torn down. A well-known example (Ex. 65) Ex. 65: Maupoleum in Amsterdam, designed by Piet Zandstra.
in the Netherlands was the so-called Maupoleum in Amsterdam, designed by Piet Zandstra. Although the building was internationally famous among architecture students, it was demolished in 1994, to the great relief of many in Amsterdam.
The Modernist style in architecture was greatly influenced by Bauhaus. Bauhaus was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. Bauhaus style later became one of the most influential ones in modern design, Modernist architecture and art, design and architectural education. Bauhaus had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography.
Most important characteristics of Bauhaus: 1. An international style, dominated by the appliance of steel, glass, and concrete. 2. Anti-ornament (as the Viennese architect Alfred Loos stated: ornament ist Verbrechen [ornamentation is a crime]). 3. Constructivism. The look of a building is defined to a large extent by its construction. An example of this is the Centre Pompidou in Paris, where the air vents are placed on the outside of the building, visible to everyone. 4. There is no interaction with the environment or history of a place. The building only refers to itself. This is one dogma that met with a lot of resistance. To the dismay of the general public, a concrete, modernist extension was added to a carefully restored seventeenth-century branch of the town hall in The Hague. It has since been torn down and replaced by a post-modernist building. See Ex. 66 and 67. Ex. 66: The first extension to the ‘old’ town hall, The Hague. The historical building is hidden by the modernist building, which was later torn down. (Colour page XVI, top.) Ex. 67: The post-modernist alternative, which dominates the old town hall even more. (Colour page XVI, bottom.) The postmodernist responses to Bauhaus were: 1. Applying a mix of various materials (see: buildings designed by Rem Koolhaas). 2. Making use of local visual icons (the Port House in Antwerp quotes shipping. The neo-classicist building over which it is placed is much older. See Ex. 68.