Transcript REDEFINING DESIGN - Robert Gordon University

Design and Postmodernism
Reading – B.A.
Robert Venturi
Learning from Las Vegas: the
forgotten symbolism of architectural
form.
1972
CCS Tutorials
• 10.00am
• 11.00am
• First Year Studio
• This week:
• Groups 3 and 4
• Marks correlate directly with
seminar attendance
Design:
Raizman, D. A history of modern design. Graphics
and products since the industrial revolution.
London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd; 2004,
pp353-62. (See also: Chapter 14)
Woodham, J. M. Twentieth Century Design. Oxford:
Oxford University Press; 1997, pp183-203.
Fine Art:
Honour H, Fleming J. A World History of Art. 7th ed.
London: Laurence King Publishing; Edition, 2005.
N.B. Search Index on Postmodernism and
‘Modernism and Postmodernism’.
Website:
Robert Venturi biography on the
Pritzkerprize website
http://www.pritzkerprize.com/venturi.htm
Video
Culture Fix: Postmodernism
(videocassette).
London: BBC; 2001.
All books, videos…on Stage 1 CCS
Bibliographies, are on the
Academic Reserve
• Look up title in online Library
Catalogue: iLink
• Write down Shelf Number (eg 709 HON)
and take this to Staff at one-stop desk
on entry floor of Library
• On receipt of book etc, make sure you
check the deadline for return. Fines
are expensive !
Postmodernism in Design...
• rejects what were viewed as the Modernist dictates of the design
establishment
• built on 60s rejection of the values inherent in the Modern
Movement
• Acknowledges consumer culture; earliest manifestations in 60s
and 70s Pop and Italian Radical Design
• foregrounds the consumer and emphasises the idea of design as
communication
• stresses the importance of signs and symbols as a means of
reviving communication through design
• argues that the richness of historic and contemporary cultural
tradition must be acknowledged once more
• finds its signs and symbols in the international visual language of
history but equally in vernacular design and popular culture
• values irony and wit and often requires or assumes recognition of
its quotations to achieve this – communication through a universal
language
• is indebted to mid-century semiotic theory
• is indebted to 1970’s architectural theory
What is Postmodernism?
• it is an academic term applied within a wide
range of fields – philosophy, cultural studies,
linguistics, literature, art and design
history.........
• it identifies a new phase of social and cultural
development, citing as key factors; the
dominance of visual and mass media; the
development of digital technology and an
information society; the importance of
consumption and the consumer
To begin
In its simplest form
postmodernism is most clearly
understood in terms of its
rejection of the values, forms
and theories associated with
Modernism or Modernity
Modernism in design and
architecture
• rejected the forms and values of a previous age –
particularly the revival of historic styles, ornamentation
and decoration
• offered a democratic and utopian solution to the problems
of mass production – good design for all
• argued that aesthetic beauty would naturally arise out of
reason and “truth” – embodied in ideas such as form
follows function, truth to materials
• evolved a simple, pure and unifying aesthetic reflected in
Mies Van Der Rohe’s dictum, “less is more”
From design as solution
to
design as communication
60’s and 70’s
• Pop and Radical Design
• Semiotic theory
• Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture. Robert Venturi. 1966
• Learning from Las Vegas. Robert Venturi,
Denise Scott Brown..., 1972
• The Language of Postmodern Architecture,
1973, Charles Jencks
Semiotics
Roland Barthes
‘Mythologies’
1957 French
1972 English
"Every object in the world can pass from a closed,
silent existence to an oral state"
Barthes, R., Mythologies, New York, Hill and Wang, 1998, p.109
"We shall therefore take language, discourse,
speech etc., to mean any significant unit or
synthesis, whether verbal or visual: a photograph
will be a kind of speech for us in the same way as a
newspaper article; even objects will become
speech"
Ibid., p.109
Architectural theory
Robert Venturi
Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture. 1966
Learning from Las Vegas. 1972
“Blatant simplification means
bland architecture. Less is a
bore”
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. 1966
“Architecture can no longer afford to be intimidated by
the puritanically moral language of orthodox Modern
architecture. I like elements which are hybrid rather
than pure, compromising rather than clean, distorted
rather than straightforward, ambiguous rather than
articulated, perverse as well as impersonal, boring as
well as interesting, conventional rather than designed,
accommodating rather than excluding, redundant rather
than simple, vestigial as well as innovating, inconsistent
and equivocal rather than direct and clear. I am for
messy vitality over obvious unity”
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. 1966
“there are didactic images more important
than the images of recreation for us to take
home to New Jersey or Iowa: one is the Avis
with the Venus: another Jack Benny under a
classical pediment with Shell Oil beside
him...These show the vitality that may be
achieved by an architecture of inclusion, or,
by contrast the deadness that results from
too great a preoccupation with tastefulness
and total design
Learning from Las Vegas. 1972
Robert Venturi. Architect and theorist
Charles Jencks. Architect and theorist
Colosseum Chair and Stool. 1984
Memphis. Established late 1980
Group portrait. 1982
Memphis
• makes extensive use of plastic laminates –
formerly a metaphor for “bad taste”
• references popular culture and vernacular design
extensively
• adopts an anti-modernist use of colour, decoration
and surface design
• makes repeated ironic reference to modernism and
functionalism
• blurs the boundaries between art and design
• chaotic, riotous mixing of materials and forms –
anti-unity, maximum creativity
“Memphis. The new Made in
Italy, which draws from global
culture, from real time, from
computers and television by
satellite. Thus, Sottsass and his
associates have shown us the way
out of the cul-de-sac of the
Bauhaus”
Ettore Sottsass. Memphis Milano
Carlton Bookshelf. 1981
Ettore Sottsass. Memphis
Casablanca Buffet. 1981
Nathalie Du Pasquier. Memphis
Arizona carpet. 1983
Javier Mariscal. Memphis
Hilton Trolley. 1981
Memphis furniture. 1983
Culture Fix: Postmodernism.
(videocassette) BBC. 2001
Video to be placed on Academic
Reserve