Analysis of Deconstructivism

DECONSTUCTiViSM

Diya Ahuja

CONTENTS What (Deconstruction: Introduction of the word) What (Deconstructivism: As a design movement) Deconstructivism in different fields When Analysis As a trend Synopsis

WHAT Deconstruction as a word Deconstruction, as a word is derived by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida in 1960s.

The term has come to mean a critical dismantling of tradition and traditional modes of thought questions the (staid literary analysis, arguing that no work can have a fixed meaning, based on the complexity of language and usage)

Jacques Derrida

WHAT Deconstructivism as a design movement •Deconstructivism is an artistic movement that started in architecture by the end of the 1980s.

•It criticizes the rational order, purity, and simplicity of modern design and devel oped a new aesthetic based on complex geometries.

•A 1988 exhibition at MOMA about deconstructivist architecture brought the term into larger consciousness.

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Spain (1991-1997)

DECONSTRUCTiViSM

Deconstructivism as a design movement •Emerged principally in Los Angeles, California, but also in Europe.

•The Canadian-American designer, Frank O. Gehry has worked on some of the best deconstructed architectures.

•His most famous buildings include: the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles etc.

Vitra Design Museum , Germany

DECONSTRUCTiViSM in different fields

Fashion Designers Yohji Yamamoto Rei Kawakubo Maison Margiela Dris Van Noten Anne Demeulemeester

Contemporary Art Architecture Architects Frank O. Gehry Daniel Libeskind Rem Koolhaas Peter Eisenmann Zaha Hadid

Artists Roman Cieślewicz Richard Kilroy Oleksandra Barysheva Lovi Jover Andrea Myers

WHEN •Deconstructivism is an artistic movement that started in architecture by the end of the 1980s.

•A 1988 exhibition at MOMA about deconstructivist architecture brought the term into larger consciousness.

•Emerged principally in Los Angeles, California, but also in Europe.

Theory: Deconstructivism is somewhat in between modernism and postmodernism. Modernism includes functionality and simplicity. Postmodernism adheres to the point of ornamenting designs and giving it a historical reference. The concept of deconstructivism extracts functionality from the modernism and then plays around its form and shape, using geometry and abstract expressionism.

Academy of Fine Arts, Munich

ANALYSIS Analysis:

Deconstructivism was not really an impactful architecture movement or an artistic style that took the world by storm and altered architecture as we know it. It was a mélange of Russian Constructivism and Modernism, with a little bit of influence from Post-modernism, expressionism, and Cubism.(Stouhi, 2020).

Deconstructivism as a whole movement wanted to challenge everyoe’s persception of the stereotypical image of what architecture could be. It wated to put forward the thought of how experimenting with different forms and shapes could keep the functionality in place.

There were people who believed this whole new perspective and therefore took it forward and it became very evident in their work as well. Deconstructivism wasn’t just a movement that people religiously followed just because it was out there. People who believed in change and transformation took this forward. That’s the reason why it is still followed by conteporary artists, architects or even by fashion designers.

Rei Kawakubo: Broken Bride AW05

CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY Controversial and contradictory opinions: Some critics evaluate this type of architecture as a purely formal exercise with little social significance with ambiguous meaning. Certain architects such as Charles Jencks the famous American theorist, architect and designer, claim Deconstructivism as a new paradigm, whereas others questioned the wisdom behind this type of architecture and the impact it might have on future generations of architects and the built environment. It has been described as fundamentally destructive, because of its rejection of all architectural rules, and its lack to provide clear values as replacements of those. (Deconstructivist Architecture Controversy, n.d.)

AS A TREND Deconstructivism as a trend: “While the ’60s and ’70s witnessed an interest in Sci-Fi futuristic clothing, at that time, another approach slowly made itself known, Punk fashion. Vivienne Westwood and her partner, Malcolm Maclaren are given the lion’s share of credit for punk fashion, which in its early years in the 1970s involved repurposed and recycled fashion, DIY techniques, and the incorporation of rips and tears, and the inclusion of a syntax of violence in the use of studs, spikes, and the like. In short, fashion was beginning to be deconstructed”.(View of Time, Cruelty and Destruction in Deconstructivist Fashion: Kawakubo, Margiela and Vetements | ZoneModa Journal, n.d.)

This was the beginning of deconstructivist fashion. It is generally agreed that deconstruction in fashion was ushered in by the first major collections of Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons) in the early 1980s.

Kawakubo, together with Vivienne Westwood and Martin Margiela revolutionised fashion by turning their back on finery and preciousness in favour of a fundamentally aberrant sartorial language that suggested impoverishment, discontinuity and discord.

SYNOPSIS

Deconstructivism does not follow “rules” or acquire specific aesthetics. It is about discovering different possibilities of playing around with forms and volumes keeping the functionality in mind.

It also challenges the viewer as to how they perceive things and how open they are to transformaton.

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