American Architecture: Postmodernism Takes Off

AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE: POSTMODERNISM TAKES OFF

Goodbye to Modern Architecture

American architects gained international stature in the 1950s and 1960s with their gleaming high-rise buildings of reflecting glass and steel. The generation of architects trained by Mies van der Rohe put modern architecture, the International Style as it was known, on the map. These building designs were simple, unadorned, and built with modern materials that expressed their structure. The cardinal rules of modernism were that less is more and form follows function. The International Style maintained that the same building could be built anywhere—New York, Lagos, or Stockholm. These buildings made no reference to history or to the cityscape around them.

Hello, Postmodernism

By the late 1960s a handful of innovative architects turned away from the cool distance of modern architectural design. Tired of glass-box monuments in the cityscape, younger architects wanted to break the rules of what they saw as a rigid and ahistorical style. They developed a new type of architecture called postmodernism. Postmodern architecture had several characteristics that distinguished it from modern architecture: historicism, an interest in the styles and adornments used in earlier eras; a fascination with everyday life and ordinary objects; a playfulness tied to the antiauthoritanism of the 1960s; and a willingness to consider buildings within their geographic and cultural context.

Philip Johnson

Oddly, the leader of the rebellious pack of young architects was none other than Philip Johnson, who earlier in his life had been an avid believer in modernist architecture. In the 1970s Johnson and his partner John Burgee gained notoriety for their unusual building designs: the IDS Center (1973) in Minneapolis and the Pennzoil Place (1976) in Houston. But it was not until Johnson and Burgee published their designs for the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) Building in downtown New York in 1978 that they put postmodernism in the headlines.

The Chippendale Skyrise

The AT&T Building was provocative because it mixed classical details with contemporary structures and, in so doing, broke free of modernist esthetics. Johnson and Burgee chose to build in granite, reminiscent of the 1930s, rather than the popular glass and steel of the 1950s. Equally unusual, the upper-level facade had a row of classical Greek-styled columns. Topping it off was Johnson's crowning glory: the building had what looked like the head of an antique grandfather clock rising off its broad shoulders. Soon called the Chippendale Skyrise, in reference to eighteenth-century English furniture design, the AT&T Building was a monument to postmodern architecture.

The New York Five

With the recession of the mid 1970s, construction of buildings and the need for architects suddenly nose-dived. Young architects were hit hardest, and many turned their new ideas to designing houses for the wealthy. Five of these younger architects drew attention to themselves through their postmodern house designs. Centered in New York, they became known as the New York Five. Michael Graves, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey, Richard Meier, and John Hejduk saw architecture as an art form, and soon they became known for their elevation of design over utilitarian concerns. Peter Eisenman, for instance, built a house whose front door opened into the kitchen and a stairway ran into a blank wall. The New York Five, along with a new generation of American architects, rejected the rule of formal design. In doing so they introduced a postmodern aesthetic to home design that valued symbolism, expression, and innovation.

Venturis Love for the Ordinary

In contrast to most modern architects, Robert Venturi and his partners did not attempt to build a coherent, unified style that could be repeated from one building to another. Rather, they sought to construct buildings that used local materials, forms, and building traditions. Like other postmodern architects, their interest in detail led them to mix and match historical forms and local traditions. More than any other architect in the 1970s, Venturi embraced the "messy vitality" of the ordinary street and strip mall. Venturi and his partners inspired both ridicule and admiration for their elevation of the ordinary to the level of art.

Wheelchair Accessibility

In 1968 the federal government passed the Architectural Barriers Act, which outlawed any architectural designs that barred wheelchair-bound and disabled citizens from gaining access to any federal or federally funded building. This legislation was strengthened in 1973 and 1974 as the country faced a new wave of disabled war veterans returning from Vietnam. These laws had important and immediate effects on American architects. Each building that used any governmental monies had to include wheelchair ramps, wider doors, new bathroom designs, lower water fountains and telephones, and easy parking. These standards were formally adopted in 1974 by the American Institute of Architects. The statement affirmed the rights of handicapped persons to "free and full development of their economic, social and personal potential through the use of man-made environments."

Sources:

Paul Goldberg, On the Rise: Architecture and Design in a Postmodern Age (New York: Penguin, 1983);

William Dudley Hunt, Jr., Encyclopedia of American Architecture (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980);

Diane Maddex, ed., Master Builders: A Guide to Famous American Architects (Washington, D.C.: Preservation Press, 1985).