Complexity? Contradiction?
What is Post-Modernism?

Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, Pompidou Center, Paris, 1977

Pruitt-Igoe demolition, July 1972

Mies van der Rohe, TD Centre, Toronto, 1967

Philip Johnson, AT&T Building, NYC, 1984

McKim, Mead & White, Municipal Building, NYC, 1908 and JohnsonÕs AT&T

already vastly quotedÉClevelandÕs Terminal Tower (1930), ChicagoÕs Wrigley Building (1920s), JohnsonÕs AT&T (1984)

AT&T Building: Sources

Philip Johnson, PPG Place, Pittsburgh, PA, 1981-84

Philip Johnson and John Burgee, PPG Plan

Johnson and Burgee, PPG Place, Pittsburgh, 1981-84

Cathedral of Learning, U of Pittsburgh, 1926-37

Philip Johnson and John Burgee, Lipstick Building, NYC, 1986

Robert Venturi, b.1925, Philadelphia

Vanna Venturi House, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1959-64

My mother's house was designed for her as an elderly widow with her bedroom on the ground floor, with no garage because she didn't drive, and for a maidservant and the possibility of a nurse - and also as appropriate for her beautiful furniture which I had grown up with...

I have written of the house as modern but also as referential/imageful - as a generic/iconic house - as not striving to be original as architecture, but to be good. It connects with ideas of mine of the time involving complexity and contradiction, of accommodation to its particular Chestnut Hill suburban context, to aesthetic layering I learned from the Villa Savoye, its pedimented roof configuration derived from the Low House of Bristol, Rhode Island, its split pediment derived from the upper pediment of Blenheim Palace, and the duality-composition derived from the Casa Girasole in Rome, and involving explicit applied elements of ornament.

Colonial Philadelphia

Vanna Venturi House: Plans of 2 levels

Vanna Venturi House: Drawings

Vanna Venturi House, views

Venturi House: Views

Venturi & Rauch, Guild House, Philadelphia, 1960-65

A vernacular neighbourhood

Venturi and Rauch, Guild House: granite column and glazed brick

Venturi and Rauch, Guild House, Plan: Avoids monolithic form

Venturi and Rauch, Guild House, view from rear

Venturi & Rauch, Guild House, Philadelphia, 1960-65

Venturi and Rauch, Guild House, Common room

Venturi & Rauch, Guild House, Philadelphia, 1960-65

Robert Venturi: theorist

Duck or Shed

ÒDuckÓ

Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977):
Modes of Architectural Communication: Words

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 1966

Complexity and Contradiction, 1966

Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 1966

Charles Jencks, b.1939

Charles Jencks, theorist

Charles Jencks, What is Post-Modernism? (1986)
Cover: Peter Blake, ÔThe MeetingÕ or ÔHave a Nice Day, Mr HockneyÕ, 1981-83
(Ô60s Pop meets Ô80s post-modernism; monumentality and banality; timeless and transient; Courbet and Pop)

Charles Jencks on Post-Modernism

Jencks, Three types of society

Jencks, Evolutionary Tree of Post-Modern Architecture

Charles Moore, 1925-1993

Charles Moore, Piazza dÕItalia, New Orleans, 1978

Charles Moore, Piazza dÕItalia, 1978

Charles Moore, Piazza dÕItalia, New Orleans, 1978

Charles Moore, Piazza dÕItalia, New Orleans,

Michael Graves, Portland Building, Portland, Oregon, 1980
(government offices)

Slide 53

Urban context: Whidden and Lewis, Multnomah County Courthouse (1909-13) and Portland City Hall (1895)