4th video

Postmodernism

AT&T building in NY by Philip Johnson partnership with John Virgie, a building inspired by
Chippendale chest, reflecting it with the broken pediment on the top of gabled roof and the
circle in the middle, on the entrance a huge over scaled vault design can be seen, a showing off
which one the postmodernist factors.

Another example also by Philip and John in Chicago, modeled after the Burnham and roots
Masonic temple, also gabled roof with pediments, arched windows.
Again over scaled ground floor entrance and arched windows and neoclassical columns.
-Robert Venturi: famous with his saying less is a bore, In his opinion architecture can be more
fun and playful rather that a boring box, pointing to the modern design he said.
His architecture is a mix of international style and still slightly modernist, he doesn’t applied
ornaments but he does use playful shapes in his facades, for example the curved window on
the top floor, vertical slits (gaps) on the parapet wall, the different types of windows in the
façade, the wide, the square and the curved, no reason at all for that mix other than he thinks
it’s more interesting.

Another example of Venturi’s designs, a house he designed for his mother.

On the façade we can see a broken pediment, a gap in the gabled roof and a randomly added
arch form as an ornament, again the same technique in windows three types of windows on the
same façade.
-Michael Graves: originally a modernist architect that completely shifted out to postmodernism
at the 1980s, his breakout was with the Portland municipal building, a basic box with a grid of
windows a straight international style, but then colors, different materials and geometric
shapes are added irrelevantly to the function, pure ornamentation purposed.
Another design for Graves, the swan hotel: again ornamentation with some sort of waving pain
on the facades to the swans and oysters on top and different forms of windows on the façade.
Another design by Graves: Denver public library.
Different shapes and volumes that has no purpose at all other than breaking the mass of the
building, each painted differently to add some coloring and playfulness.

In Chicago, the Harold Washington library by Thomas Beeby.

decorations on the façade, the horses and the owls on top of the flames with different
ornaments on the pediments, over scaled arch windows and some sort of neoclassical
ornaments on the brick masonry.