Contemporary Design TheoryARCH 2021

James Nuangki 110046104Rhiannon Lawrenson 110040477

Tutorial Question #1

• Beginning with Charles Moore, Piazza d’Italia and using the list of readings and other projects, explain the role of semiotics and signs in the emergence of post-modernism.

Defining Semiotics and Signs

• Semiotics are a study of symbols and signs which have significant meaning, it focuses on how meaning is generated by a sign or symbol and what it represents, it is not just there for what it is.

• In semiotics, signs can be defined as symbols that contain meaning. “They also advance claims of their greater tectonic logic of their design, more honesty in the expression of structure, and greater faithfulness to the imperative of contemporary materials and technologies”. (Chirardo, D, p.28)

Defining Post-modernism

• To define Post-modernism, modernism must first be understood.

• “Modernism, as the story goes refused history in favour of abstraction; its functional promises and technological fetishism were nothing but failed utopias of progress; its ideological was out of touch with the people, if not anthihumanistic. Its formal vocabularies were sterile and uncommunicative”. (Vidler, A. p191)

• Post-modernism rejected the values, ideas and architectural forms that were related to modernism. It incorporated a language that included historical styles , regionalism, decoration and urban contextualism.

• “Post-modernism welcome history back as a counter to abstraction” (Vidler, A. p191)

List of Buildings that display a role of Signs and Semiotics

• Piazza d’ItaliaCharlies Moore, New Orleans, 1978

• The Portland BuildingMichael Graves, Portland, Oregon 1980

• AT&T BuildingJohnson/Burgee, New York 1978-1984

• Vanna Venturi House Robert Venturi, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1964

Piazza d’ItaliaCharlies Moore, New Orleans, 1978

• Piazza d’Italia was built to give an identity to to a community in New Orleans , that was made up of a majority of ethnic groups such as French, Spanish and Italian.

• The forms of the Piazza contrast with the ordinary surroundings outside.

• The Piazza responds to its surroundings, for example a modern skyscraper nearby.

• The centre of the rings form the essence of the building, and where the majority of the symbolism occurs

Piazza d’ItaliaCharlies Moore, New Orleans, 1978

So what does all of this mean? Italianness?

• The fountain resembles that of Rome’s Trevi Fountain

• The five orders of the columns, rather than the original three

• The plan of Italy at the heart of the Piazza, with the fountain either side representing the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Seas.

• The podium in the very centre of the bull’s eye that depicts Sicily

The Portland BuildingMichael Graves, Portland, Oregon 1980

• The Portland Building was the first example of post-modernism in the American architectural mainstream.

• It is essentially a cubic block, sat on a high podium, littered with small square windows.

• Decoration is added in the form of swags, enlarged keystones and a figure of Portlandia, moulded from plaster, across the entrance.

• The richly ornamental building clearly referred to historical Italian architecture.

AT&T BuildingJohnson/Burgee, New York 1978-1984

• The first instance of a large corporation commissioning a Post-modern building for the center of a major city. (Jencks 1988, p.125)

• The base was a basic construction of Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel located in Florence (1442-1461)

• The shaft structure is constructed in the same way of Louis Sullivan turn-of-the century in its distinguished between coloured piers and anonymous infill.

• The top could be referenced based on 3 sources:

- Ledoux, the Iconic Architecture - Chippendale highboy of the uptured crown - Vanna Venturi House 1962

Vanna Venturi House Robert Venturi, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1964

• The house was designed for his mother Vanna Venturi

• The designed was based on a complexity and contradiction in architecture

• The plan is based on a symbolic coneption

• Front façade display great example of classical pediment

• Punctuated small square window

How does all this relates to Post-modernism?

• Architecture is an ongoing cycle

• Architects began to reject the modernist movement and began to produce buildings that were deliberate in their attempt to inscribe recognisable historical themes.

• Buildings were designed to deliver meaning, and architects used signs and semiotics to convey that meaning, in the way of architectural features.

• The symbols were not to be understood by the user of the space or the general society, but by the architects themselves

Questions!

References

Vidler, Anthony. “Postmodern or Posthistorie?” In histories of the Immediate Present, 191-200. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2008

Ghirado, Diane. “Introduction.” In Architecture after Modernism, 28-40. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1996

Jencks, Charles. Architecture Today. London: Academy Editions, 1988.

IMAGES:New Orleans: Piazza d'Italia: partial view, Moore Charles Willard, 1925-1975-78 http://library.artstor.org/library/iv2.html?parent=true accessed on 9 August 2013

New York: AT&T Building: street view, Johnson/ Burgee, 1978-1984 http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21249&page=16 accessed on 10 August 2013

Santa Monica, California: Frank Gehry House, North façade, Frank Gehry, 1978, http://www.flickr.com/photos/mchavs/1961346049/ accessed on 10 August 2013

Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Vanna Venturi House, front view, Robert Venturi, 1964http://www.archdaily.com/62743/ad-classics-vanna-venturi-house-robert-venturi/ accessed on 10 August 2013