See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/342084027

Comparison Between Modern And Postmodern Architecture

Technical Report · June 2020

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15014.34882

CITATIONS READS
0 6,744

1 author:

Zaid.M. Al-Zrigat
Hashemite University
9 PUBLICATIONS   1 CITATION   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Refugee camps in Zaatari camp, Jordan View project

Architectural Book Criticism View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Zaid.M. Al-Zrigat on 10 June 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 The Hashemite University
Faculty of Engineering
Department of Architecture
Main Title:

Theories and Criticism in Architecture

Program & Level

Master Programmed

Subject:

Comparison Between Modern And Postmodern Architecture

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Done By:

Arch. Zaid Zreqat

11 – June – 2002

Contact :

Zadez6040@yahoo.com
  Comparison between Modern and Postmodern Architecture:
Comparison Elements Modern Architecture
-Time Frame: Late 19th and early 20th
century.
-Predecessor: Nordic Classicism.
- The depart significantly from
Earlier Styles: classical and traditional forms.
- The duration of the Influenced by first world war.
war:
-Rational and Logical Based on using rational and Sensitivity to the challenges and ethical
Thinking: logical means to gain knowledge issues of gathering information face-to-
since it rejected realism.
1- One international style or “no
style”
2- Utopian and idealist
3- Deterministic form-functional
-Ideological: 4- Zeitgeist
5- Elitist/for everyman
6- Wholistic, comprehensive
redevelopment
7- Architect as saviour/doctor
1-Straightforwardness
2-Simplicity
3-Isotropic space (chicago
frame,domino)
-Stylistic: 4-Abstract form
5-Purist
6-Inarticulate dumb box
7-Machine aesthetic
,straightforward logic,
circulation,
Postmodern Architecture
Began in the mid-20th century.
Neoliberalism Architecture.
The reaction against modernism
(characterized by the deliberate use of
earlier styles and conventions, a mixing
of different styles and forms).
Influenced by the second world war.
face, in people’s homes.
1-Double-coding of style
2-Popular and pluralist
3-Semiotic form
4-Tradittions and choice
5-Elitist and participative
6-Piecemeal
7-Architect as representative and activist
1-Hybrid expression
2-Complexity
3-Variable space with surprise
4-Conventional and abstract form
5-Eclectic
6-Semiotic articulation
7-Variable mixed aesthetic depending on
context, expression of content and
semantic appropriateness toward function
 Mechanical, technology, and 8-Pro-organic and applied ornament
structure. 9-Pro-historical reference
8-Anti-ornament 10-Pro-humour
9-Anti-representational 11-Pro-symbolic
10-Anti-metaphor
11-Anti-historical memory
12-Anti-humour
13-Anti-symbolic

1-City park 1-Contextual urbanism and rehabilitation

2-Functional separation
3-Skin and bones
4-Volum not mass
-Design Ideas: 5-Slab,point block
6-Transparency
7-Asymmetry and regularity
8-Harmonious integration
2-Functional mixing
3-All rhetorical means
4-Skew space and extensions
5-Street building
6-Ambiguity
7-Tends to asymmetrical symmetry
(queen anne revival)

- Efforts to reconcile the Refers to the functional and formalized

principles underlying
Design Aims: architectural design with rapid
the technological advancement
and the modernization of
society.
shapes and spaces of the modernist
style are replaced by diverse
aesthetics.

Form follows function Pluralism, Double coding, Flying

-Major Concept: buttresses and High ceilings, Irony and
Paradox, and Contextualize.

• Order • Fluidity
• Clear Distinctions • Negotiable Meaning
-versus: • Predictability • Uncertainty
• Control • Uncertainty
• Future-orientation • Present-orientation
• Production • Consumption
 -Structure: Rigid bureaucracies Flexible networks

-Technology: Technological determinism Technological choice

-Jobs: Differentiated, demarcated and Highly de- differentiated, de- demarcated,

deskilled and multi skilled

Centralized and standardized Complex and fragmentary

-Employment
relations:

Modernist architects may regard Postmodern architects may regard many

-The view of modern buildings as soulless and bland,
postmodern buildings as vulgar,
architects: overly simplistic and abstract.
associated with a populist ethic

Is rooted in minimal and true Is seeks meaning and expression in the

-Main Goals: use of building techniques, forms, and
use of material as well as
absence of ornament. stylistic references.

Sense of unified, centered self; Sense of fragmentation and decentered

-Identity: self; multiple, conflicting identities.
"individualism," unified identity

Faith and personal investment in Trust and investment in micro politics,

-Effect politics: identity politics, local politics
big politics (Nation-State, party)

Dichotomy of high and low Mixing of popular and high cultures.

-Effect cultures: Disruption of high culture’s dominance.
culture (official vs. popular
culture).

Form (conjunctive, closed). Antiform (disjunctive, open)

-Form Architecture:

Neoliberalism architecture Deconstruction architecture

-Antithesis:

Objective, theoretical, analytical Subjective

-Approach in design:
 -The influence of Believes in “grand theory” -
combining explanations in
theories on design:
history, science and culture to
represent all knowledge and
explain everything.
-Design orientation: Faith in ‘depth’ (meaning, value, Attention on superficial appearances,
content, the signified) over
‘surface’ (appearances, the
superficial, the signifier).
Believes in learning from the
-The effect of the
past experiences and trusts the
past:
texts that narrate the past.
- • Frank Lloyd Wright
• Ieoh Ming Pei
• Zaha Hadid
The most prominent • Philip Johnson
architects: • Tom Wright
• Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
• Renzo Piano
• Jean Nouvel
• Moshe Safdie
• Frank Gehry
- • The notion that "Form follows
function", a dictum originally
expressed by Frank Lloyd
Wright's early mentor Louis
Sullivan.
Architectural • Simplicity and clarity of forms
characteristics: and elimination of "unnecessary
detail".
• Materials at 90 degrees to each
other.
Rejects the totalizing of theories.
playing on the surfaces and show no
concern into depth of subjects.
Ignores any text narrating the past and
believes it is useless in the present time.
• Robert Venturi
• Michael Graves
• Charles Moore
• Philip Johnson
• Frank Gehry
• Tadao Ando
• Kenzo Tange
• Jørn Utzon
• Hans Scharoun
• Jean Nouvel
• Use of sculptural forms, ornaments,
anthropomorphism and materials which
perform trompe l'oeil.
• These physical characteristics are
combined with conceptual characteristics
of meaning, including pluralism, double
coding, flying buttresses.
• The sculptural forms, not necessarily
organic, each building’s forms are
nothing like the conforming rigid ones of
modernism. These forms are somewhat
playful.
 • Visual expression of structure
(as opposed to the hiding of
structural elements)
• The related concept of "Truth
to materials", meaning that the
true nature or natural appearance
of a material ought to be seen
rather than concealed or altered
to represent something else
• Use of industrially-produced
materials; adoption of the
machine aesthetic
• Particularly in International
Style modernism, a visual
emphasis on horizontal and
vertical lines
-Materials used: Stone- Marble- Iron – Cement-
Reinforced Concrete-
Steel and Glass.
-Next Era: Neoliberalism era.
-What is real? Naturalism.
-Synthesis: Parametric era.
• Particular specificity and complexity,
• Sensitivity to the building’s context
• Diverse in spirit and in style, and the
ways it defines itself-architects combine
disparate elements from previous
architectural eras and styles in the same
building
• Rejects the notion of “pure” or “perfect”
detail, instead it draws from: all methods,
materials, forms, & colors available to
architects
• Moves away from the neutral white
colours seen in modernism.
• Took past components of different
styles and melded them together to create
new means of design.
• The re- emergence of surface ornament,
reference to its surrounding buildings,
and historical references
Glass Reinforced Polyester and exterior
metal panel systems and polycarbonate
sheets and dupont’s Fabric Tensile
Structures-Reinforced Concrete- Steel
and Glass.
Encounter the Parametric era.
Industrialism-Advance.
Parametric era.
 -Architectural • Frank Lloyd Wright • Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia,
Kaufman's home is known as USA,1962 -1964.
examples:
Falling water 1939.
• Piazza d'Italia, New Orleans, USA, in
• Walter Gropius, Overseas from 1978.
Pauhaus, Germany, 1925-1926.
• The Portland Building, Portland, USA
• International style: Gorden in 1982.
bunshaft, skidmore, owings
&merrill Supreme House, New • Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain in
York, 1952. 1997.

• Edward Dorell Stone, Embassy • James R. Thompson Center, Chicago,

of the United States of America, USA.
India, 1959-1960.

-Sameness Charactricties:
1. Rejecting boundaries between hig and low form of art

2. Rejecting rigid genre distinctions

3- Reflexivity and self-consciousness

-Difference Charactricties:
1. Modernism tends to present a fragmentated view of human subjectivity and history and
present it as something tragic. But, postmodernism instead doesn’t lament the idea of
fragmentation but chelebrates that.

2. Modernism is characterized by the radical break from the traditional forms of prose and verse
whereas; postmodernism is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and
conventions.

-Modernism: -postmodernism:

Life Stinks. Life Stinks.

View publication stats