THE CRISIS OF MODERNISM: THE AUTONOMY PROJECT

THE DAY MODERNISM DIED: MARCH 16TH, 1972 @ 3:00PM

AN OBSESSION WITH FORM AND LANGUAGE...

AN OBSESSION WITH FORM AND LANGUAGE... OR SOCIO-PSYCHO DESIRE?

AUTONOMY:

AUTONOMY: + THE STATE OF EXISTING OR ACTING SEPARATELY FROM OTHERS + THE POWER OR RIGHT OF A COUNTRY, GROUP, ETC., TO GOVERN ITSELF

K. MICHAEL HAYS One should not ask whether architecture is autonomous, or whether it can willfully be made so, but rather how it can be that the question arises in the first place, what kind of situation allows for architecture to worry about itself to this degree.

1966

VS U.S ROBERT VENTURI CAPITALISM CONTINGENT IMAGE SYMBOLISM POP ART LONDON/CAMBRIDGE PHILADELPHIA YALE/PENN PRAGMATIC INCLUSIVE NEO-REALISM EUROPE ALDO ROSSI SOCIALISM IDEAL TYPE ESSENCE CONCEPTUAL ART MILAN/VENICE NEW YORK CITY COLUMBIA/PRINCETON CRITICAL EXCLUSIVE NEO-RATIONALISM

ROBERT VENTURI I like complexity and contradiction in architecture - not the incoherence or arbitrariness of incompetent architecture and not the precious intricacies of picturesqueness. I speak of a wider and solider matter: a kind of complexity and contradiction based on the need to consider the richness of experience within the limitations of the medium.

I like complexity and contradiction in architecture - not the incoherence or arbitrariness of incompetent architecture and not the precious intricacies of picturesqueness. I speak of a wider and solider matter: a kind of complexity and contradiction based on the need to consider the richness of experience within the limitations of the medium. ROBERT VENTURI I am not intimidated by the puritanical, moral language of modern architecture. I like forms that are impure rather than pure, compromising rather than clean, distorted rather than straightforward, ambiguous rather than articulated, allusive rather than simple, perverse rather than impersonal, accommodating rather than excluding.

LESS IS A BORE

ROBERT VENTURI Mies makes wonderful buildings only because he ignores many aspects of a building. If he solved more problems, his buildings would be far less potent.

Mies makes wonderful buildings only because he ignores many aspects of a building. If he solved more problems, his buildings would be far less potent. The doctrine less is more bemoans complexity and justifies exclusion for expressive purposes...he [the architect] can exclude important problems only at the risk of separating his architecture from the experience of life and the needs of society. ROBERT VENTURI

COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION CRITIQUES MODERNISM S FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION.

COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION CRITIQUES MODERNISM S FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION. COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION CRITIQUES MODERNISM S OBSESSION WITH FLOWING SPACE.

COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION CRITIQUES MODERNISM S FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION. COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION CRITIQUES MODERNISM S OBSESSION WITH FLOWING SPACE. COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION ARTICULATES DIFFERENCE AND SEPARATION (BETWEEN INSIDE AND OUTSIDE) ON THE FACADE.

RATHER THAN PROJECT ITS SOCIAL, MORAL, AND POLITICAL PROGRAMS OUTWARD, SUCH AN ARCHITECTURE ABSORBS AND SUBSUMES SOCIO-CULTURAL DIFFERENCE INTO ITS DISCIPLINARY CODES (HISTORY) AND MODES OF OPERATION ONLY TO PROJECT IT BACK SYMBOLICALLY AS IMAGE.

ALDO ROSSI SEEKS THE FIXED LAWS OF A TIMELESS TYPOLOGY (PARTICULARLY WITHIN THE EUROPEAN CITY).

SEEKS THE FIXED LAWS OF A TIMELESS TYPOLOGY (PARTICULARLY WITHIN THE EUROPEAN CITY). DEFINES THE (EUROPEAN) CITY BY ITS ARCHITECTONIC ELEMENTS OR CULTURAL PHYSIOGNOMY. ALDO ROSSI

ALDO ROSSI SEEKS THE FIXED LAWS OF A TIMELESS TYPOLOGY (PARTICULARLY WITHIN THE EUROPEAN CITY). DEFINES THE (EUROPEAN) CITY BY ITS ARCHITECTONIC ELEMENTS OR CULTURAL PHYSIOGNOMY. CRITICAL TERMS THAT ENDOW THE CITY WITH ITS COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS INCLUDE:ARTIFACTS, PERMANENCES, MONUMENTS, MEMORY,AND LOCUS. ARGUES THAT ARCHITECTURAL TYPOLOGIES RESIST THE NAIVE FUNCTIONALISM OF MODERNISM AND HENCE ITS TENDENCY TO REDUCE ARCHITECTURE TO PROGRAM AND CIRCULATION IN ITS QUEST FOR COMMER- CIALIZATION AND PROFIT.

MANFREDO TAFURI

MANFREDO TAFURI DRAWS A PARALLEL BETWEEN THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE 1920S AND CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT.

MANFREDO TAFURI CRITICIZES THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM ITSELF FOR BEING OPERATIVE.

MANFREDO TAFURI OPERATIVE CRITICISM MISREADS THE PAST THROUGH THE IDEOLOGICAL BIASES OF THE PRESENT.

MANFREDO TAFURI IDEOLOGY - IN MARXIST TERMS - SIGNIFIES THE FALSE CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE BOURGEOISIE THAT PREVENTS THE PROLETARIAT FROM ATTAINING A TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIS/HER REVOLUTIONARY POTENTIAL.

MANFREDO TAFURI BECAUSE ARCHITECTURE IS CRITICALLY IMPOTENT IN THE FACE OF ADVANCED CAPITALISM, TAFURI ULTIMATELY WANTS TO AFFIRM HISTORY S AUTONOMY AND THEORETICAL SEPARATION FROM CON- TEMPORARY PRACTICE.

+ ALDO ROSSI AUTONOMOUS TYPE TIMELESS PERMANENCES MANFREDO TAFURI AUTONOMOUS HISTORY IDEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE

ARCHITECTURE AS A THEORETICAL PROJECT; AS FORMALLY AND THEORETICALLY RESISTANCE TO CAPITALISM

AN OBSESSION WITH THE FAILURES OF MODERNISM

A NEW AVANT-GARDE THAT SHARED THE HISTORIC ONE S FORMAL CHARACTERISTICS BUT NOT ITS POLITICAL AGENDAS

THE WHITES VS. THE GRAYS

PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES

PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES FOUNDED THE CONFERENCE OF ARCHITECTS FOR THE STUDY OF THE ENVIRONMENT [CASE] IN 1964.

PETER EISENMAN FOUNDED THE INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN STUDIES [IAUS] IN 1967.

1 2 1.PETER EISENMAN 2.MICHAEL GRAVES 3.CHARLES GWATHMEY 4.JOHN HEDDIE RICHARD MEIER 3 4 5 NEW YORK FIVE (THE WHITES )

PETER EISENMAN

CASA DEL FACSIO, GUISEPPE TERRAGNI (1936)

COLIN ROWE

COLIN ROWE...there is now introduced a conception of transparency quite distinct from any physical quality of substance and almost equally remote from the idea of the transparent as the perfectly clear. In fact, by this definition, the transparent ceases to be that which is perfectly clear and becomes, instead, that which is clearly ambiguous.

COLIN ROWE Therefore, at the beginning of any inquiry into transparency, a basic distinction must be established. Transparency may be an inherent quality of substance - as in a wire mesh or glass curtain wall - or it may be an inherent quality of organization...and one might, for this reason distinguish between a real and a phenomenal or seeming transparency.

SIMULTANEOUS WINDOWS ROBERT DELAUNAY (1911) STILL LIFE JUAN GRIS (1912)

HOUSE II (1969)

HOUSE III (1971)

HOUSE VI (1975)

ARCHITECTURE AS PURE SYNTAX (NOT SEMANTICS)

ARCHITECTURE AS PURE SYNTAX (NOT SEMANTICS) ARCHITECTURE AS CONCEPTUAL ART (NOT POP ART)

ARCHITECTURE AS PURE SYNTAX (NOT SEMANTICS) ARCHITECTURE AS CONCEPTUAL ART (NOT POP ART) ARCHITECTURE AS DEEP STRUCTURE (NOT SURFACE AESTHETIC)

ARCHITECTURE AS PURE SYNTAX (NOT SEMANTICS) ARCHITECTURE AS CONCEPTUAL ART (NOT POP ART) ARCHITECTURE AS DEEP STRUCTURE (NOT SURFACE AESTHETIC) ARCHITECTURE AS POST-FUNCTIONALIST

PETER EISENMAN

PETER EISENMAN The critical establishment within architecture has told us that we have entered the era of post-modernism. The tone with which this news is delivered is invariably one of relief, similar to that which accompanies the advice that one is no longer an adolescent. Two indices of this supposed change are the quite different manifestations of the Architettura Razionale exhibition at the Milan Triennale of 1973, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1975.

PETER EISENMAN What is interesting is not the mutually exclusive character of these two diagnoses and hence their solutions, but rather the fact that both of these views enclose architecture within the same definition: one by which the terms continue to be function (or program) and form (and type). In so doing, an attitude toward architecture is maintained that differes in no significant way from the 500-year-old tradition of humanism.

PETER EISENMAN It is true that sometime in the nineteenth century there was indeed a critical shift within western consciousness: one which can be characterized as a shift from humanism to modernism. But, for the most part, architecture, in its dogged adherence to the principles of function, did not participate in or understand the fundamental aspects of that change. It is the potential difference in the nature of modernist and humanist theory that seems to have gone unnoticed by those people who today speak of eclecticism, postmodernism, neo-modernism, or neo-functionalism.

PETER EISENMAN In brief, the modernist sensibility has to do with a changed mental attitude toward the artifacts of the physical world. This change has not only been manifested aesthetically, but also socially, philosophically, and technologically - in sum, it has been manifested in a new cultural attitude. This shift away from the dominant attitudes of humanism, that were pervasive in Western societies for some four hundred years, took place at various times in the nineteenth century in such disparate disciplines as mathematics, music, painting, literature, film, and photography.

PETER EISENMAN This new theoretical base changes the humanist balance of form/function to a dialectical relationship within the evolution of form itself.

1 2 1.PETER EISENMAN 2.MICHAEL GRAVES 3.CHARLES GWATHMEY 4.JOHN HEDDIE RICHARD MEIER 3 4 5 NEW YORK FIVE (THE WHITES )

SMITH HOUSE (1967)

DOUGLAS HOUSE (1973)

1 2 1.PETER EISENMAN 2.MICHAEL GRAVES 3.CHARLES GWATHMEY 4.JOHN HEDDIE RICHARD MEIER 3 4 5 NEW YORK FIVE (THE WHITES )

BENACERRAF HOUSE (1969)

1 2 1.PETER EISENMAN 2.MICHAEL GRAVES 3.CHARLES GWATHMEY 4.JOHN HEDDIE RICHARD MEIER 3 4 5 NEW YORK FIVE (THE WHITES )

GWATHMEY HOUSE (1965)

1 2 1.PETER EISENMAN 2.MICHAEL GRAVES 3.CHARLES GWATHMEY 4.JOHN HEDDIE RICHARD MEIER 3 4 5 NEW YORK FIVE (THE WHITES )

WALL HOUSE (1973)

COLIN ROWE For we are here in the presence of what, in terms of the orthodox theory of modern architecture, is heresy. We are in the presence of anachronism, nostalgia, and probably, frivolity. If modern architecture looked like this c.1930 then it should not look like this today; and, if the real political issue of the present is not the provision of the rich with cake but of the starving with bread, then not only formally but also programmatically these building are irrelevant.

VSB SCULLY KAHN YALE PENN STERN JR MOORE RG THE GRAYS POP CULTURE MIDDLE CLASS CAPITALISM COMMERCIALIZATION IMAGERY AMBIGUITY EVERYDAYNESS DIFFERENCE PLASTIC ULTERIOR SEMIOTICS

ROBERT A.M. STERN

ROBERT A.M. STERN Post-Modernism and Post-Functionalism can both be seen as attempts to get out of the trap of orthodox Modernism now devoid of philosophic meaning and formal energy, and both are similar in their emphasis on the development of a strong formal basis for design. Beyond this, however, they are widely divergent, in that Post-Functionalism seeks to develop formal compositional themes as independent entities freed from cultural connotations, whereas Post-Modernism embodies a search for strategies that will make architecture more responsive to and visually cognizant of its own history, the physical context in which a given work of architecture is set...

ROBERT A.M. STERN Implicit in this emergent Post-Modernist position is a recognition that the more than fifty-year history of the Modernist movement has been accompanied by no notable increase in affection on the part of the public for the design vocabulary that has been evolved.

ROBERT A.M. STERN A large part of the work of the Grays tends to establish connections with the formal, spatial, and decorative invention of the nineteenth century. For the Grays, at least, Venturi and Moore have laid the foundation for the philosophical structure of Post-Modernism.

ROBERT A.M. STERN The Beaux-Arts exhibition reminded us of the poverty of orthodox Modern architecture: trapped in the narcissism of its obsession with the process of its own making, sealed off from everyday experience and from high culture alike by its abstraction and the narrowing of its frame of reference within the Modern period...drained of energy as a result of a confusion between the values assigned to minimalism by a Mies van der Rohe...

ROBERT A.M. STERN The Work of the Grays presents certain strategies and attitudes that distinguish it from the Whites. These strategies include:

The use of ornament.

The manipulation of forms to introduce an explicit historical reference.

The conscious and eclectic utilization of the formal strategies of orthodox modernism, together with the strategies the pre-modern period.

The preference for incomplete or compromised geometries, voluntary distortion, and the recognition of growth of buildings over time.

The use of rich colors and various materials that effect a materialization of architecture s imagery and perceptible qualities.

The configuration of spaces in terms of light and view as well as use.

The adjustment of specific images charged with carrying the ideas of the building.

Gray buildings have facades which tell stories.