Modernism and postmodernism

Deconstructivism in contemporary architecture is opposed to the ordered rationality of Modernism

and Postmodernism. Though postmodernist and nascent deconstructivist architects both published
in the journal Oppositions (between 1973 and 1984), that journal's contents mark a decisive break
between the two movements. Deconstructivism took a confrontational stance to architectural
history, wanting to "disassemble" architecture.[2] While postmodernism returned to embrace the
historical references that modernism had shunned, possibly ironically, deconstructivism rejected the
postmodern acceptance of such references, as well as the idea of ornament as an after-thought or
decoration.[citation needed]
In addition to Oppositions, a defining text for both deconstructivism and postmodernism was Robert
Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction in architecture (1966). It argues against the purity, clarity
and simplicity of modernism. With its publication, functionalism and rationalism, the two main
branches of modernism, were overturned as paradigms. The reading of the postmodernist Venturi
was that ornament and historical allusion added a richness to architecture that modernism had
foregone. Some Postmodern architects endeavored to reapply ornament even to economical and
minimal buildings, described by Venturi as "the decorated shed." Rationalism of design was
dismissed but the functionalism of the building was still somewhat intact. This is close to the thesis
of Venturi's next major work,[3] that signs and ornament can be applied to a pragmatic architecture,
and instill the philosophic complexities of semiology.[citation needed]
The deconstructivist reading of Complexity and Contradiction is quite different. The basic building
was the subject of problematics and intricacies in deconstructivism, with no detachment for
ornament. Rather than separating ornament and function, like postmodernists such as Venturi, the
functional aspects of buildings were called into question. Geometry was to deconstructivists what
ornament was to postmodernists, the subject of complication, and this complication of geometry
was in turn, applied to the functional, structural, and spatial aspects of deconstructivist buildings.
One example of deconstructivist complexity is Frank Gehry's Vitra Design Museum in Weil-amRhein, which takes the typical unadorned white cube of modernist art galleries and deconstructs it,
using geometries reminiscent of cubism and abstract expressionism. This subverts the functional
aspects of modernist simplicity while taking modernism, particularly the international style, of
which its white stucco skin is reminiscent, as a starting point. Another example of the
deconstructivist reading of Complexity and Contradiction is Peter Eisenman's Wexner Center for
the Arts. The Wexner Center takes the archetypal form of the castle, which it then imbues with
complexity in a series of cuts and fragmentations. A three-dimensional grid, runs somewhat
arbitrarily through the building. The grid, as a reference to modernism, of which it is an
accoutrement, collides with the medieval antiquity of a castle. Some of the grid's columns
intentionally don't reach the ground, hovering over stairways creating a sense of neurotic unease
and contradicting the structural purpose of the column. The Wexner Center deconstructs the
archetype of the castle and renders its spaces and structure with conflict and difference.[citation
needed]

Deconstructivist philosophy
Some Deconstructivist architects were influenced by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.
Eisenman was a friend of Derrida, but even so his approach to architectural design was developed
long before he became a Deconstructivist. For him Deconstructivism should be considered an
extension of his interest in radical formalism. Some practitioners of deconstructivism were also
influenced by the formal experimentation and geometric imbalances of Russian constructivism.
There are additional references in deconstructivism to 20th-century movements: the modernism/

postmodernism interplay, expressionism, cubism, minimalism and contemporary art.

Deconstructivism attempts to move away from the supposedly constricting 'rules' of modernism
such as "form follows function," "purity of form," and "truth to materials."[citation needed]
The main channel from deconstructivist philosophy to architectural theory was through the
philosopher Jacques Derrida's influence with Peter Eisenman. Eisenman drew some philosophical
bases from the literary movement Deconstruction, and collaborated directly with Derrida on
projects including an entry for the Parc de la Villette competition, documented in Chora l Works.
Both Derrida and Eisenman, as well as Daniel Libeskind[4] were concerned with the "metaphysics
of presence," and this is the main subject of deconstructivist philosophy in architecture theory. The
presupposition is that architecture is a language capable of communicating meaning and of
receiving treatments by methods of linguistic philosophy.[5] The dialectic of presence and absence,
or solid and void occurs in much of Eisenman's projects, both built and unbuilt. Both Derrida and
Eisenman believe that the locus, or place of presence, is architecture, and the same dialectic of
presence and absence is found in construction and deconstructivism.[6]
According to Derrida, readings of texts are best carried out when working with classical narrative
structures. Any architectural deconstructivism requires the existence of a particular archetypal
construction, a strongly-established conventional expectation to play flexibly against.[7] The design
of Frank Gehrys own Santa Monica residence, (from 1978), has been cited as a prototypical
deconstructivist building. His starting point was a prototypical suburban house embodied with a
typical set of intended social meanings. Gehry altered its massing, spatial envelopes, planes and
other expectations in a playful subversion, an act of "de"construction"[8]
In addition to Derrida's concepts of the metaphysics of presence and deconstructivism, his notions
of trace and erasure, embodied in his philosophy of writing and arche-writing[9] found their way
into deconstructivist memorials. Daniel Libeskind envisioned many of his early projects as a form
of writing or discourse on writing and often works with a form of concrete poetry. He made
architectural sculptures out of books and often coated the models in texts, openly making his
architecture refer to writing. The notions of trace and erasure were taken up by Libeskind in essays
and in his project for the Jewish Museum Berlin. The museum is conceived as a trace of the erasure
of the Holocaust, intended to make its subject legible and poignant. Memorials such as Maya Lin's
Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Peter Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe are
also said to reflect themes of trace and erasure.

Constructivism and Russian Futurism

Another major current in deconstructivist architecture takes inspiration from the Russian
Constructivist and Futurist movements of the early twentieth century, both in their graphics and in
their visionary architecture, little of which was actually constructed.
Artists Naum Gabo, El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, and Alexander Rodchenko, have influenced
the graphic sense of geometric forms of deconstructivist architects such as Zaha Hadid and Coop
Himmelb(l)au. Both Deconstructivism and Constructivism have been concerned with the tectonics
of making an abstract assemblage. Both were concerned with the radical simplicity of geometric
forms as the primary artistic content, expressed in graphics, sculpture and architecture. The
Constructivist tendency toward purism, though, is absent in Deconstructivism: form is often
deformed when construction is deconstructed. Also lessened or absent is the advocacy of socialist
and collectivist causes.
The primary graphic motifs of constructivism were the rectangular bar and the triangular wedge,
others were the more basic geometries of the square and the circle. In his series Prouns, El

Lizzitzky assembled collections of geometries at various angles floating free in space. They evoke
basic structural units such as bars of steel or sawn lumber loosely attached, piled, or scattered. They
were also often drafted and share aspects with technical drawing and engineering drawing. Similar
in composition is the deconstructivist series Micromegas by Daniel Libeskind.

Computer-aided design
Computer aided design is now an essential tool in most aspects of contemporary architecture, but
the particular nature of deconstructivism makes the use of computers especially pertinent. Threedimensional modelling and animation (virtual and physical) assists in the conception of very
complicated spaces, while the ability to link computer models to manufacturing jigs (CAM Computer-aided manufacturing) allows the mass production of subtly different modular elements to
be achieved at affordable costs. In retrospect many early deconstructivist works appear to have been
conceived with the aid of a computer, but were not; Zaha Hadid's sketches for instance. Also, Gehry
is noted for producing many physical models as well as computer models as part of his design
process. Though the computer has made the designing of complex shapes much easier, not
everything that looks odd is "deconstructivist."

Critical responses
Since the publication of Kenneth Frampton's Modern Architecture: A Critical History (first edition
1980) there has been a keen consciousness of the role of criticism within architectural theory.
Whilst referencing Derrida as a philosophical influence, deconstructivism can also be seen as
having as much a basis in critical theory as the other major offshoot of postmodernism, critical
regionalism. The two aspects of critical theory, urgency and analysis, are found in deconstructivism.
There is a tendency to re-examine and critique other works or precedents in deconstructivism, and
also a tendency to set aesthetic issues in the foreground. An example of this is the Wexner Center.
Critical Theory, however, had at its core a critique of capitalism and its excess, and from that
respect many of the works of the Deconstructivists would fail in that regard if only they are made
for an elite and are, as objects, highly expensive, despite whatever critique they may claim to impart
on the conventions of design.
The difference between criticality in deconstructivism and criticality in critical regionalism, is that
critical regionalism reduces the overall level of complexity involved and maintains a clearer
analysis while attempting to reconcile modernist architecture with local differences. In effect, this
leads to a modernist "vernacular." Critical regionalism displays a lack of self-criticism and a
utopianism of place. Deconstructivism, meanwhile, maintains a level of self-criticism, as well as
external criticism and tends towards maintaining a level of complexity. Some architects identified
with the movement, notably Frank Gehry, have actively rejected the classification of their work as
deconstructivist.[11]
Critics of deconstructivism see it as a purely formal exercise with little social significance. Kenneth
Frampton finds it "elitist and detached".[12] Nikos Salingaros calls deconstructivism a "viral
expression" that invades design thinking in order to build destroyed forms; while curiously similar
to both Derrida's and Philip Johnson's descriptions, this is meant as a harsh condemnation of the
entire movement.[13] Other criticisms are similar to those of deconstructivist philosophythat since
the act of deconstructivism is not an empirical process, it can result in whatever an architect wishes,
and it thus suffers from a lack of consistency. Today there is a sense that the philosophical
underpinnings of the beginning of the movement have been lost, and all that is left is the aesthetic
of deconstructivism.[14] Other criticisms reject the premise that architecture is a language capable
of being the subject of linguistic philosophy, or, if it was a language in the past, critics claim it is no

longer.[5] Others question the wisdom and impact on future generations of an architecture that
rejects the past and presents no clear values as replacements and which often pursues strategies that
are intentionally aggressive to human senses.[5]

Peter Zumthor (born 26 April 1943) is a Swiss architect and winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize.
Zumthor was born in Basel, the son of a cabinet-maker. He apprenticed to a carpenter in 1958 and
studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in his native city starting in 1963.
In 1966, Zumthor studied industrial design and architecture as an exchange student at Pratt Institute
in New York. In 1968, he became conservationist architect for the Department for the Preservation
of Monuments of the canton of Graubnden. This work on historic restoration projects gave him a
further understanding of construction and the qualities of different rustic building materials. As his
practice developed, Zumthor was able to incorporate his knowledge of materials into Modernist
construction and detailing. His buildings explore the tactile and sensory qualities of spaces and
materials while retaining a minimalist feel.
Zumthor founded his own firm in 1979. His practice grew quickly and he accepted more
international projects.
Zumthor has taught at Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles (1988), the
Technical University of Munich (1989), Tulane University (1992), and the Harvard Graduate
School of Design (1999). Since 1996, he is professor at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio
His best known projects are the Kunsthaus Bregenz (1997), a shimmering glass and concrete cube
that overlooks Lake Constance (Bodensee) in Austria; the cave-like thermal baths in Vals,
Switzerland (1999); the Swiss Pavilion for Expo 2000 in Hannover, an all-timber structure intended
to be recycled after the event; the Kolumba Diocesan Museum (2007), in Cologne; and the Bruder
Klaus Field Chapel, on a farm near Wachendorf.
In 1993 Zumthor won the competition for a museum and documentation center on the horrors of
Nazism to be built on the site of Gestapo headquarters in Berlin. Mr. Zumthors submission called
for an extended three-story building with a framework consisting of concrete rods. The project,
called the Topography of Terror, was partly built and then abandoned when the government decided
not to go ahead for financial reasons. The unfinished building was demolished in 2004.[1] In 1999,
Zumthor was selected as the only foreign architect to participate in Norways National Tourist
Routes Project, with two projects, the Memorial in Memory of the Victims of the Witch Trials in
Varanger, a collaboration with Louise Bourgeois (completed in 2010), and a rest area/museum on
the site of an abandoned zinc mine.[2]
For the Dia Art Foundation in Beacon, New York, Zumthor designed a gallery that was to house the
360 I Ching sculpture by Walter de Maria; though the project was never completed. Zumthor is
the only foreign architect to participate, with two projects, the Memorial in Memory of the Victims
of the Witch Trials in Varanger, a collaboration with Louise Bourgeois (to be completed in June),
and a rest area/museum on the site of an abandoned zinc mine (completion date 2011). In
November 2009, it was revealed that Zumthor is working on a major redesign for the campus of the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art.[3] Recently, he turned down an opportunity to consider a new
library for Magdalen College, Oxford. He was selected to design the Serpentine Gallery's annual
summer pavilion with designer Piet Oudolf in 2011.[4]
Currently, Zumthor works out of his small studio with around 30 employees, in Haldenstein, near
the city of Chur, in Switzerland.[5]

Recognition

In 1994, he was elected to the Akademie der Knste in Berlin. In 1996, he was made an honorary
member of the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA). In 1998, Zumthor received the Carlsberg
Architecture Prize for his designs of the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Bregenz, Austria and the Thermal
Baths at Vals, Switzerland (see below). He won the Mies van der Rohe Award for European
Architecture in 1999. Recently, he was awarded Praemium Imperiale in (2008) and the Pritzker
Architecture Prize (2009).

Zumthor and Heidegger

The Vals spafamed among architects for its evocative sequence of spaces and exquisite
construction detailspresents intriguing correspondences between Heideggers writing and
Zumthors architecture. Writing in his architectural manifesto, Thinking Architecture, Zumthor
mirrors Heideggers celebration of experience and emotion as measuring tools. A chapter entitled
A way of looking at things begins by describing a door handle:
I used to take hold of it when I went into my aunts garden. That door handle still seems to me
like a special sign of entry into a world of different moods and smells. I remember the sound
of gravel under my feet, the soft gleam of waxed oak staircase. I can hear the heavy front
door closing behind me as I walk along the dark corridor and enter the kitchen[...].(1998:9)
Zumthor always emphasises the sensory aspects of the architectural experience. To him, the
physicality of materials can involve an individual with the world, evoking experiences and texturing
horizons of place through memory. He recalls places he once measured out at his aunts house
through their sensual qualities. Zumthors Vals spa recounts the thinking he describes in his essay,
making appeals to all the senses. The architect choreographs materials according to their evocative
qualities. Flamed and polished stone, chrome, brass, leather and velvet were deployed with care to
enhance the inhabitants sense of embodiment when clothed and naked. The touch, smell, and
perhaps even taste of these materials were orchestrated obsessively. The theatricality of steaming
and bubbling water was enhanced by natural and artificial light, with murky darkness composed as
intensely as light. Materials were crafted and joined to enhance or suppress their apparent mass.
Their sensory potential was relentlessly exploited with these tactics, through which Zumthor aimed
to celebrate the liturgy of bathing by evoking emotions.

Literature
Zumthor's work is largely unpublished in part because of his philosophical belief that architecture
must be experienced first hand.[7] His published written work is mostly narrative and
phenomenological.

Thinking Architecture
In Thinking Architecture Peter Zumthor expresses his motivation in designing buildings that speak
to our feelings and understanding in so many ways and that possess a powerful and unmistakable
presence and personality. It is illustrated throughout with color photographs by Laura Padgett of
Zumthor's new home and studio in Haldenstein.
To me, buildings can have a beautiful silence that I associate with attributes such as composure,
self-evidence, durability, presence, and integrity, and with warmth and sensuousness as well; a
building that is being itself, being a building, not representing anything, just being. The sense that I
try to instil into materials is beyond all rules of composition, and their tangibility, smell, and
acoustic qualities are merely elements of the language we are obliged to use. Sense emerges when I

succeed in bringing out the specific meanings of certain materials in my buildings, meanings that
can only be perceived in just this way in this one building. When I concentrate on a specific site or
place for which I am going to design a building, when I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history,
and its sensuous qualities, images of other places start to invade this process of precise observation:
images of places I know and that once impressed me, images of ordinary or special places places
that I carry with me as inner visions of specific moods and qualities; images of architectural
situations, which emanate from the world of art, or films, theater or literature.
Atmospheres
Atmospheres is a poetics of architecture and a window into Zumthor's personal sources of
inspiration. In nine short, illustrated chapters framed as a process of self-observation, Zumthor
describes what he has on his mind as he sets about creating the atmosphere of his houses: Images of
spaces and buildings that affect him are every bit as important as particular pieces of music or
books that inspire him.
From the composition and presence of the materials to the handling of proportions and the effect
of light, this poetics of architecture enables the reader to recapitulate what really matters in the
process of house design. In conclusion, Peter Zumthor has described what really constitutes an
architectural atmosphere as "this singular density and mood, this feeling of presence, well-being,
harmony, beauty...under whose spell I experience what I otherwise would not experience in
precisely this way."
Peter Zumthor Therme Vals
Therme Vals is the only book-length study of this singular building, features the architects original
sketches and plans for its design as well as Hlne Binets striking photographs of the structure.
Architectural scholar Sigrid Hauser contributes an essay on such topics as Artemis/Diana,
Baptism, Mikvah, and Springdrawing out the connections between the elemental nature of
the spa and mythology, bathing, and purity.
Annotations by Peter Zumthor on his design concept and the building process elucidate the
structures symbiotic relationship to its natural surroundings, revealing, for example, why he
insisted on using locally quarried stone. Therme Valss scenic design elements, and Zumthors
contributions to this book, reflect the architects commitment to the essential and his disdain for
needless architectural flourishes.[8]
Seeing Zumthor
Seeing Zumthor represents a unique collaboration between Zumthor and Swiss photographer Hans
Danuser, containing Danusers images of buildings created by Zumthor. More than twenty years
ago, in a milestone event of twentieth-century architectural photography, Danuser photographed, at
Zumthors invitation, two buildings: the protective structure built for archaeological excavations in
Chur and St. Benedicts Chapel in Sumvitg. When first shown in exhibition, those photos ignited a
lively debate that has been revived with a recent exhibition of Danusers photographs of Zumthors
most famous work, the spa at Therme Vals. Seeing Zumthor collects these three important series of
Danusers pictures and includes essays by leading art historians exploring the relationship between
the two seemingly different disciplines or architecture and photography.[9]

Frank Owen Gehry (born Frank Owen Goldberg; February 28, 1929)
His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions. His works are cited
as being among the most important works of contemporary architecture in the 2010 World
Architecture Survey, which led Vanity Fair to label him as "the most important architect of our
age".[2]
Gehry's best-known works include the titanium-covered Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain;
MIT Ray and Maria Stata Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Walt Disney Concert Hall in
downtown Los Angeles; Experience Music Project in Seattle; Weisman Art Museum in
Minneapolis; Dancing House in Prague; the Vitra Design Museum and MARTa Museum in
Germany; the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto; the Cinmathque franaise in Paris; and 8 Spruce
Street in New York City. But it was his private residence in Santa Monica, California, which jumpstarted his career, lifting it from the status of "paper architecture"a phenomenon that many
famous architects have experienced in their formative decades through experimentation almost
exclusively on paper before receiving their first major commission in later years. Gehry is also the
designer of the future Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial.[3]
Much of Gehry's work falls within the style of Deconstructivism, which is often referred to as poststructuralist in nature for its ability to go beyond current modalities of structural definition. In
architecture, its application tends to depart from modernism in its inherent criticism of culturally
inherited givens such as societal goals and functional necessity. Because of this, unlike early
modernist structures, Deconstructivist structures are not required to reflect specific social or
universal ideas, such as speed or universality of form, and they do not reflect a belief that form
follows function. Gehry's own Santa Monica residence is a commonly cited example of
deconstructivist architecture, as it was so drastically divorced from its original context, and in such
a manner as to subvert its original spatial intention.

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain

Gehry is sometimes associated with what is known as the "Los Angeles School" or the "Santa
Monica School" of architecture. The appropriateness of this designation and the existence of such a
school, however, remains controversial due to the lack of a unifying philosophy or theory. This
designation stems from the Los Angeles area's producing a group of the most influential postmodern
architects, including such notable Gehry contemporaries as Eric Owen Moss and Pritzker Prizewinner Thom Mayne of Morphosis, as well as the famous schools of architecture at the Southern
California Institute of Architecture (cofounded by Mayne), UCLA, and USC where Gehry is a
member of the Board of Directors.
Gehrys style at times seems unfinished or even crude, but his work is consistent with the California
"funk" art movement in the 1960s and early 1970s, which featured the use of inexpensive found
objects and non-traditional media such as clay to make serious art[citation needed]. Gehry has been
called "the apostle of chain-link fencing and corrugated metal siding".[9] However, a retrospective
exhibit at New York's Whitney Museum in 1988 revealed that he is also a sophisticated classical
artist, who knows European art history and contemporary sculpture and painting[citation needed].

The Gehry Residence is Frank Gehry's own house. It was originally an extension, designed by
Gehry built around an existing house. It makes use of unconventional materials, such as chain link
fences and corrugated steel. It is sometimes considered one of the earliest deconstructivist
buildings, although Gehry himself denies that it was deconstructivism.
The Gehry Residence is located in Santa Monica, California. In 1977, Frank and Berta Gehry
bought a pink bungalow that was originally built in 1920.[citation needed] Gehry wanted to explore
with the materials he was already using: metal, plywood, chain link fencing, and wood framing.
[citation needed] In 1978, he chose to wrap the outside of the house with a new exterior while still
leaving the old exterior visible.[1] He hardly touched the rear and south facades and to the other
sides of the house he wedged in titled glass cubes. Then, in the fall of 1991, they chose to remodel
due to the needs of their growing family including two teenage boys.[citation needed] Many of Gehry's
neighbors were not happy at the unusual building being built in their neighbourhood. It's rumoured
that one neighbor used to regularly bring his dog to defecate on Gehry's lawn, in protest

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art, designed by
Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, built by Ferrovial,[3] and located in Bilbao, Basque
Country, Spain.
It is built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Atlantic Coast.
The Guggenheim is one of several museums belonging to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
The museum features permanent and visiting exhibits of works by Spanish and international artists.
One of the most admired works of contemporary architecture, the building has been hailed as a
"signal moment in the architectural culture", because it represents "one of those rare moments when
critics, academics, and the general public were all completely united about something."[4] The
museum was the building most frequently named as one of the most important works completed
since 1980 in the 2010 World Architecture Survey among architecture experts.[4]
In 1991, the Basque government suggested to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation that it
would fund a Guggenheim museum to be built in Bilbao's decrepit port area, once the city's main
source of income.[5][6][7] The Basque government agreed to cover the US$100 million construction
cost, to create a US$50 million acquisitions fund, to pay a one-time US$20 million fee to the
Guggenheim and to subsidize the museum's US$12 million annual budget. In exchange, the
Foundation agreed to manage the institution, rotate parts of its permanent collection through the
Bilbao museum and organize temporary exhibitions.[8]
The museum was eventually built at a cost of US$89 million.[9] About 5,000 residents of Bilbao
attended a preopening extravaganza outside the museum on the night preceding the official opening,
featuring an outdoor light show and concerts. On October 18, 1997, the museum was opened

The museum is clad in glass, titanium, and limestone

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation selected Frank Gehry as the architect, and its director,
Thomas Krens, encouraged him to design something daring and innovative.[10] The curves on the
exterior of the building were intended to appear random; the architect said that "the randomness of
the curves are designed to catch the light".[11] The interior "is designed around a large, light-filled
atrium with views of Bilbao's estuary and the surrounding hills of the Basque country."[12] The
atrium, which Gehry nicknamed The Flower because of its shape, serves as the organizing center of
the museum.[8]

When the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened to the public in 1997, it was immediately hailed as
one of the world's most spectacular buildings in the style of Deconstructivism (although Gehry does
not associate himself with that architectural movement),[13] a masterpiece of the 20th century.[14]
Architect Philip Johnson described it as "the greatest building of our time",[15] while critic Calvin
Tomkins, in The New Yorker, characterized it as "a fantastic dream ship of undulating form in a
cloak of titanium," its brilliantly reflective panels also reminiscent of fish scales.[14] Herbert
Muschamp praised its "mercurial brilliance" in The New York Times Magazine.[16] The Independent
calls the museum "an astonishing architectural feat".[12] The building inspired other structures of
similar design across the globe, such as the Cerritos Millennium Library in Cerritos, California.
[citation

needed]

The museum is seamlessly integrated into the urban context, unfolding its interconnecting shapes of
stone, glass and titanium on a 32,500-square-meter site along the Nervin River in the old industrial
heart of the city; while modest from street level, it is most impressive when viewed from the river.
[5][16] With a total 256,000 square feet, it had more exhibition space than the three Guggenheim
collections in New York and Venice combined at that time.[7] Eleven thousand square meters of
exhibition space are distributed over nineteen galleries, ten of which follow a classic orthogonal
plan that can be identified from the exterior by their stone finishes. The remaining nine galleries are
irregularly shaped and can be identified from the outside by their swirling organic forms and
titanium cladding. The largest gallery, measures 30 meters wide and 130 meters long.[6][16] In 2005,
it housed Richard Serra's monumental installation "The Matter of Time",[17] which Robert Hughes
dubbed "courageous and sublime".[18]
The building was constructed on time and budget, which is rare for architecture of this type. In an
interview in Harvard Design Magazine, Gehry explained how he did it. First, he ensured that what
he calls the "organization of the artist" prevailed during construction, to prevent political and
business interests from interfering with the design. Second, he made sure he had a detailed and
realistic cost estimate before proceeding. Third, he used computer visualizations and collaborated
closely with the individual building trades to control costs during construction.[19] Computer
simulations of the building's structure made it feasible to build shapes that architects of earlier eras
would have found nearly impossible to construct.[

Renzo Piano, Ufficiale OMRI (Italian:[rntso pjano]; born 14 September 1937 in Genoa) is an Italian
Pritzker Prize-winning architect. Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff said of Piano's works that
the "...serenity of his best buildings can almost make you believe that we live in a civilized
world."[1]
In 2006, Piano was selected by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.[2] He
was selected as the 10th most influential person in the "Arts and Entertainment" category of the
2006 Time 100.
Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1937 into a family of builders. He was educated and
subsequently taught at the Politecnico di Milano. He graduated from the University in 1964 and
began working with experimental lightweight structures and basic shelters.[3] From 1965 to 1970 he
worked with Louis Kahn and Z.S. Makowsky. He worked together with Richard Rogers from 1971
to 1977; their most famous joint project, together with the Italian architect Gianfranco Franchini (it)
is the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1971). He also had a long collaboration with the engineer
Peter Rice, with whom he shared a practice (L'Atelier Piano and Rice) between 1977 and 1981.
In 1981, Piano founded the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, which today employs 150 people and
maintains offices in Paris, Genoa, and New York City.[4]
In 1994, Renzo Piano won the international competition for the new Auditorium in Rome. The
Auditorium Parco della Musica, a large multi-functional public music complex situated in the north
of city, was inaugurated in 2002.
In 1999, Piano designed a watch entitled "Jelly Piano (GZ159)" for the Swatch Summer Collection.
The watch design is clear and the exposed inner workings were influenced by his Centre Georges
Pompidou design.[5]
On 18 March 2008, he became an honorary citizen of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.[6]
Piano's recent expansion of the Art Institute of Chicago includes a 264,000-square-foot (24,500m2)
wing with 60,000 square feet (5,600m2) of gallery space[7] called the Modern Wing, which opened
on 16 May 2009.[1][8] It includes a "flying carpet", a sunscreen that hovers above the roof and a
620-foot (190m) steel bridge connecting Millennium Park to a sculpture terrace that leads into a
restaurant on the wings third floor.[9]
His current projects include the The Shard, Europe's tallest skyscraper which was opened on July 6,
2012, and the Centro de Arte Botn. The Botin Foundation,[10] the largest private foundation in
Spain, will invest over US $150 million for the construction and programming of a new Botn
Center that will become an international reference in culture and education for the development of
creativity through art.[

Yoshio Taniguchi ( , Taniguchi Yoshio; born 1937)

Biography
Taniguchi is the son of architect Yoshir Taniguchi (1904-1979). He studied engineering at Keio
University, graduating in 1960, and studied architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of
Design, graduating in 1964. He worked briefly for architect Walter Gropius, who became an
important influence.
From 1964 to 1972, Taniguchi worked for the studio of architect Kenzo Tange, who was perhaps
the most important Japanese modernist architect, at Tokyo University. While in the Tange office,
Taniguchi also worked on projects in Skopje, Yugoslavia and San Francisco, California (Yerba
Buena), living on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley while involved in the latter project. Important later
collaborators include Isamu Noguchi, American landscape architect Peter Walker, and artist
Genichiro Inokuma. Taniguchi is best known for designing a number of Japanese museums,
including the Nagano Prefectural Museum, the Marugame Genichiro Inokuma Museum of
Contemporary Art, the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, and the Gallery of the Hry-ji Treasures
at the Tokyo National Museum.
Taniguchi won a competition in 1997 to redesign the Museum of Modern Art, beating out ten other
internationally renowned architects, including Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, and Jacques
Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. The MoMA commission was Taniguchi's first work outside Japan.
Taniguchi has since won a commission to design the Asia House for the Texas branch of the Asia
Society. This $40 million project will be located in Houston's museum district and will be
Taniguchi's first free-standing new building in the United States.

Steven Holl (born December 9, 1947) is an American architect and watercolorist, perhaps best
known for the 1998 Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland, the 2003 Simmons
Hall at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the celebrated 2007 Bloch Building addition to the
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri,[1] and the praised 2009 Linked Hybrid
mixed-use complex in Beijing, China.[1]

Early works
Kiasma, Helsinki, 1993-1998
Holl won first prize in the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek International Library Design Competition in
1988, an expansion and renovation of the American Memorial Library in Berlin. In February, 1989
Holl's work was exhibited in a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.
MoMA later purchased twenty-five works by Holl for the museum's permanent collection. In the
1992 competition for a new contemporary arts museum in Helsinki, Finland, Holl's entry, entitled
"Chiasma," won first prize out of more than five hundred international entries. The museum opened
to the public in 1998, having permanently adopted the name "Kiasma," the Finnish translation of
"chiasma."

Career
Holl graduated from the University of Washington and pursued architecture studies in Rome in
1970. In 1976, he attended graduate school at the Architectural Association School of Architecture
in London and established his offices New York City. Holl has taught at Columbia University since
1981.
Holl's architecture has undergone a shift in emphasis, from his earlier concern with typology to his
current concern with a phenomenological approach; that is, with a concern for man's existentialist,
bodily engagement with his surroundings. The shift came about partly due to his interest in the
writings of philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty and architect-theorist Juhani Pallasmaa.

Recognition and awards

In 1998, Holl was awarded the prestigious Alvar Aalto Medal. In 2000, Holl was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. In July 2001, Time named Holl Americas Best Architect,
for "buildings that satisfy the spirit as well as the eye." Other awards and distinctions include the
New York American Institute of Architects Medal of Honor (1997), the French Grande Mdaille
dOr (2001), the Smithsonian Institutions Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture
(2002), Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (2003), the Arnold W. Brunner
Prize in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2008 BBVA
Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Arts category.[2] In 2007, Steven Holl Architects
received the AIA Institute Honor Award and the AIA New York Chapter Architecture Merit Award
for Art Building West for the School of Art and Art History (University of Iowa, Iowa City). The
Higgins Hall Insertion at Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, New York) and the New Residence at the Swiss
Embassy both received the AIA New York Chapter Architecture Honor Award in 2007. In 2010,
Herning Museum of Contemporary Art (Herning, Denmark) was awarded the RIBA International
Award. The Horizontal Skyscraper-Vanke Center received the 2011 AIA Institute National Honor
Award, as well as the AIA NY Honor Award. In 2011, he was named a Senior Fellow of the Design
Futures Council.,[3] and Holl was named the 2012 AIA Gold Medal winner.

Architecture in
English II
Lecture 13: Recent Movements
Fall 2012

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Where is Architecture Going?

Creative Uses of Material

Deconstruction
Regionalism
Uses of Technology

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Peter Zumthor
Frank Gehry
Renzo Piano
Yoshio Taniguchi
Steven Holl

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Thermal Baths - Basel, Switzerland

Date: 1990 -96 Architect: Peter Zumthor
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Thermal Baths - Basel, Switzerland

Date: 1990 -96 Architect: Peter Zumthor
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Thermal Baths - Basel, Switzerland

Date: 1990 -96 Architect: Peter Zumthor
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Thermal Baths - Basel, Switzerland

Date: 1990 -96 Architect: Peter Zumthor
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Thermal Baths - Basel, Switzerland

Date: 1990 -96 Architect: Peter Zumthor
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Thermal Baths - Basel, Switzerland

Date: 1990 -96 Architect: Peter Zumthor
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Thermal Baths - Basel, Switzerland

Date: 1990 -96 Architect: Peter Zumthor
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Thermal Baths - Basel, Switzerland

Date: 1990 -96 Architect: Peter Zumthor
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Gehry Residence - Santa Monica, California

Date: 1991 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Gehry Residence - Santa Monica, California

Date: 1991 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Gehry Residence - Santa Monica, California

Date: 1991 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, Spain

Date: 1997 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, Spain

Date: 1997 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, Spain

Date: 1997 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, Spain

Date: 1997 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, Spain

Date: 1997 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, Spain

Date: 1997 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, Spain

Date: 1997 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, Spain

Date: 1997 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, Spain

Date: 1997 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, Spain

Date: 1997 Architect: Frank Gehry
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Kansai International Airport - Osaka, Japan

Date: 1994 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Kansai International Airport - Osaka, Japan

Date: 1994 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Kansai International Airport - Osaka, Japan

Date: 1994 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Kansai International Airport - Osaka, Japan

Date: 1994 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Tjibaou Cultural Center - Noumea, New Caledonia

Date: 1993 - 98 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Tjibaou Cultural Center - Noumea, New Caledonia

Date: 1993 - 98 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Tjibaou Cultural Center - Noumea, New Caledonia

Date: 1993 - 98 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Tjibaou Cultural Center - Noumea, New Caledonia

Date: 1993 - 98 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Tjibaou Cultural Center - Noumea, New Caledonia

Date: 1993 - 98 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York

Date: 2002 - 04 Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Tjibaou Cultural Center - Noumea, New Caledonia

Date: 1993 - 98 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Tjibaou Cultural Center - Noumea, New Caledonia

Date: 1993 - 98 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Tjibaou Cultural Center - Noumea, New Caledonia

Date: 1993 - 98 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Tjibaou Cultural Center - Noumea, New Caledonia

Date: 1993 - 98 Architect: Renzo Piano
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saint Ignatius Chapel - Seattle, Washington

Date: 1994 - 97 Architect: Steven Holl
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saint Ignatius Chapel - Seattle, Washington

Date: 1994 - 97 Architect: Steven Holl
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saint Ignatius Chapel - Seattle, Washington

Date: 1994 - 97 Architect: Steven Holl
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saint Ignatius Chapel - Seattle, Washington

Date: 1994 - 97 Architect: Steven Holl
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saint Ignatius Chapel - Seattle, Washington

Date: 1994 - 97 Architect: Steven Holl
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saint Ignatius Chapel - Seattle, Washington

Date: 1994 - 97 Architect: Steven Holl
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saint Ignatius Chapel - Seattle, Washington

Date: 1994 - 97 Architect: Steven Holl
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saint Ignatius Chapel - Seattle, Washington

Date: 1994 - 97 Architect: Steven Holl
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saint Ignatius Chapel - Seattle, Washington

Date: 1994 - 97 Architect: Steven Holl
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saint Ignatius Chapel - Seattle, Washington

Date: 1994 - 97 Architect: Steven Holl
Wednesday, January 9, 2013