POSTMODERNISM 1960-2014

Portland Building, Oregon-Michael Graves

1 Poultry-Sir James Stirling Architect This is one of London’s most striking and iconic buildings, clad in a pale red Jurassic limestone and decorated in the late Sir James Stirling’s trademark primary colour palette.

1 Poultry-Sir James Stirling Architect

The critic Charles Jencks, father of the Anglo-American strain of Postmodernism, asserted that 'Modern architecture died in St Louis, Missouri, on July 15,1972 at J32pm', when the unloved Pruitt -Igoe slab-housing blocks were demolished. Postmodernism should be deemed more a sensibility than an individual style or movement, as it comprises various movements, including Pluralism and Deconstructivism, all of which are resistant to Modernist dogma. The height of Postmodern architecture was 1977-92, when it was mainly concerned with questions of taste and architecture's ability to communicate with the general public, as well as an architectural elite (its so-called 'double-coding') Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in Learning from Las Vegas (1972) discuss this at length in an attempt to show that the advertising of Las Vegas Strip was 'almost all right'. Other communication devices are the use of historical references, often in irony or as parody, and a reliance on the fascade to communicate with no reference to a building's internal layout Seminal Postmodern works include Michael Graves's Portland Building, Portland, Oregon (1982), Philip Johnson's AT&. T Building, New York (1984) and James Stirling's Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (1984). The New Urbanism of Leon Krier at Seaside, Florida, and Poundbury, in Dorset, are also considered Postmodern. Postmodernism was a direct response to the alienation and growing disillusionment with modern architecture that both architects and the public felt in the late 1960s.

Postmodern architecture is considered by purists as lacking taste, two dimensional, regressive, or even downright dishonest. However, the recent popularity of iconic buildings can be seen as a continuation of a Postmodern desire to communicate. Throughout the 1980s, Postmodernism quickly became associated with the interests of big business, such as Michael Graves's work at Disneyland, Paris, and Cesar Pelli at Docklands, London, so the label was disowned for selling out to commercialism. BIOGRAPHIES: ROBERT VENTURI & DENISE SCOTT BROWN 1925- & 1931- American architects who studied and wrote on architectural coding MICHAEL GRAVES1934 American architect deemed to be associated with architectural 'Disneyfication' CHARLES JENCKS 1939- Anglo-American architectural critic, author of The Language of Post-Modern Architecture The AT& T (now Sony) Building, New York and the Portland Building, Oregon, are seminal Postmodern buildings.

ZAHA HADID Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park's stunning London Aquatics Centre ZAHA HADID Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park's stunning London Aquatics Centre has been shortlisted by the Royal Institute of British Architects for The Riba Stirling Prize which is awarded annually to the best new building. Judges praised architect Zaha Hadid's building, which was inspired by the 'fluid geometry of water in motion', as "very beautiful" and "conceptually flawless". Vilnius Guggenheim Hermitage Museum was a proposed art museum in the city of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania International Culture and Arts Centre-Changsha, China Museum Miami USA Zaha Hadid, at the Serpentine Sackler gallery she designed in Kensington Gardens . During the year her design for an egg-shaped luxury mall in Beijing called Galaxy Soho was built and she won the pitch to create the new Iraqi parliament site in Baghdad. Hadid is now working on the Al Wakrah stadium for the football World Cup in Qatar in 2022 and Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic arena.

Born in Baghdad in 1950, Hadid studied at London's Architectural Association from 1972. She later taught there with Rem Koolhaas, leading her own studio from 1 987. She set up her own practice in 1979, and is renowned for her stunning architectural drawings and plans, winning first prize for designs in competitions for the Kufurstendamm, Berlin (1986), for an Art and Media Centre in Dusseldorf (1989), and for the Cardiff Opera House (1994). Her work also includes two projects in Tokyo (1988) and a folly in Osaka (1990). Hadid has had several exhibitions of her paintings and drawings, notably for the Hong Kong Peak. These fused the dynamic geometry of Russian Constructivists with the new intellectual and aesthetic sensibilities of Deconstructivists. Hadid's first building was a fire station for the Vitra furniture factory at Weil-am-Rhein (1991), a thing of dramatically elongated horizontals and angular projections. In 1999 she completed an exhibition building close by for the Weil-am-Rhein landscape and gardening show which incorporates an environmental research centre dug into the ground. She has also taught at Harvard and Columbia.

The Heydar Aliyev Center is a 619,000-square-foot building complex in Baku, Azerbaijan designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid and noted for its distinctive architecture and flowing, curved style that eschews sharp angles. The Heydar Aliyev Center is a 619,000-square-foot building complex in Baku, Azerbaijan designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid and noted for its distinctive architecture and flowing, curved style that eschews sharp angles.

International Culture and Arts Centre-Changsha, China

Museum Miami USA Museum Miami USA