“Most people who have heard of post

modernism have no clear idea of what it

means … they can be forgiven for this
condition because post modernists do not
always know and even when they do …
they often find themselves disagreeing “

- Charles Jencks , ‘what is post modernism?’

 Charles Jencks
coined “Post
modernism “ in
Architecture in
1970

• It was later picked in other fields such

as philosophy , art , literature ,
sciences

• Acoording to Jencks –

“People disagree on what it means

because often it means so many
different things “

post modernism
 REACTION
To modernism in Architecture

Architectural tendencies that sprang

up in the 1960s in opposition to
the dictates of modernism .

post modernism
Modernism

Functionalism
Singular theme
Rationality

Universality
Minimalism Innovation

Technology
post modernism
MODERNISM
VICTIM OF ITS
PHASE I Robert Venturi

PHASE II CLASSICAL REVIVALISM

OWN SUCCESS
PHASE III
Charles Moore and Michael Graves

POST STRUCTURALIST POST MODERNISM

DECONSTRUCTIVISM

? Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, Richard

Meier, Zaha Hadid, BernardTschumi and Gehry.
 In the 50s and 60’s modern architecture remained the dominant style worldwide
Housing Demand rose emphatically during that period
Local authorities desperately needed housing for 1000’s of citizens
EMERGENCE OF COPY CAT MODERNISM : NO INNOVATION , ABSENCE OF NEW IDEAS
DEATH OF MODERNISM ?

According to Jencks the Precise Date of 15th

July 1972

The housing project which belonged to the

Le corbusier Tradition was Demolished after
years of abandonments and vandalism
It left a feeling of FAILING AMONG MODERN
ARCHITECTS

Demolision of Pruitt-Igoe public housing project in inner

post modernism city St Louis
 UNIVERSALITY

TECHNOLOGY AND
INNOVATION

PLURALIST /DIVERSE SOCIETY &

TASTES

CONTRADICTION

Modernism
IDENTITY

Post modernism
 RATIONAL
PUREIST

A DOMINANT THEME

PURE ABSOLUTE FORMS

NO DOMINANT THEME
UNIVERSAL LAW -
HETEROGENOUS PRINCIPLES

COMPLEXITY IN MEANING

MIX OF IMAGES AND SYMBOLS

Modernism
IMAGE DETERMINING FORM

REINTERPRETING TRADITION

POST modernism
post modernism
PHASE I Robert Venturi

PHASE II CLASSICAL REVIVALISM

Charles Moore and Michael Graves

PHASE III POST STRUCTURALIST POST MODERNISM

DECONSTRUCTIVISM
Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, Richard
Meier, Zaha Hadid, BernardTschumi and Gehry.
 ROBERT VENTURI
Robert Charles Venturi, Jr. is an American architect,
founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and
Associates, and one of the major architectural figures in
the twentieth century

Born: June 25, 1925 in Philadelphia, PA

Education:
1947: A.B., summa cum laude, Princeton University, New
Jersey
1950: MFA, Princeton University
1954-1956: Rome Prize Fellow, American Academy in
Rome, Italy

BOOKS

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture

In this groundbreaking book, published in 1966, Robert
Venturi challenged modernism and celebrated the mix
of historic styles in great cities like Rome.

Learning from Las Vegas

Subtitled The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form
this postmodernist classic called the "vulgar billboards"
of the Vegas Strip emblems for a new architecture.
Published in 1972, the book was written by Robert
Venturi, Steven Izenour, and Denise Scott Brown.

post modernism
“less is a bore…”
Story BEHIND THE HOUSE
• Robert Venturi’s fater dies in 1959 , after which his mother decides to
move out of their family house and build a new one at Chestnut Hill,
Pennsylvania.
• Asks her son to come up with a design in an attempt to ‘give him a
chance to build his career’.
• Venturi , 34 at this point is teaching at University of Pennsylvania
• He is working as teaching assistant to LOUIS KAHN

VANNA
VENTURI
HOUSE
 12
Story BEHIND THE HOUSE

“it took 6 yers making a

kind of odyssey by
designing his mothers
house . The students used
to laugh at him “Bob
Venturi , there he is
designing his mothers
house again”-

Denise Scott

VANNA
VENTURI
HOUSE 12
 The interior is centered around the fireplace, the hearth of the home, but still
Venturi's design is a "generic" house with unusual twists. The plan contains only

VANNA
five functional rooms, and on the outside it relates to public scale, seeming much
larger than it actually is. The "generic" fireplace is actually placed next to a stair
VENTURI that competes with the fireplace to be the core of the house. The fireplace is
void, the stair is solid and both vertical elements contort in shape to make room
HOUSE for the other.
 floor contains another bedroom, storage space, and a terrace. A
"nowhere stair" on the second floor also integrates itself into the core
VANNA space. It rises up at an awkward angle, and its function on one level is
completely useless due to its steep slope, while on the other level it
VENTURI serves as a ladder to clean the high window on the second level.
HOUSE
I like complexity and contradiction in 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,” inconsistent and
equivocal rather than direct and clear. I am for messy vitality over
obvious unity.”6

• His design for the Vanna Venturi house, which is at once

ordered and unordered, classical and modern, designed
and coincidental, is the epitome of an actualization of his
vision of a postmodern architecture.
 “The house liberates architecture in America
and elsewhere”- Aldo Rossi

“First American building to propse an

ideological break with modern
abstraction at the same that is rooted in
this tradition”
- Peter Eisenmann

VANNA
VENTURI
HOUSE
 Learning from Las Vegas
• OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES BASED ON
LAS VEGAS STRIP
• HOW ARCHITECTURE / ADVERTISING
WORK ON THE STRECH
• SIGNAGES
• ARCHITECTURE BECOMING
ADVERTiseMENT
• THE DESIGN OF THE SRETCH , AND
PLACEMENT OF SIGNS AND BUILDINGS ,
DONE FOR THE DRIVING CARS
• HIDDEN ORDER WITHIN CHAOS
• TREMENDOUS DIVERSITY

LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS

 • CONTEMPOARY URBANSCAPES WERE NO
LONGER ABLE TO BE ANALYSED WITH
TRADITIONAL MORPHOLOGICAL NALYSIS
• CAPTURING SIGNAGE AND DENSITY OF
INFORMATION IS IMPOSSIBLE IN TRADITION
MODELS

LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS

 SEMIOTICS
STUDY OF SIGNS AND
SYMBOLS AND HOW THEY
CREATE MEANING THROUGH
SYSTEMS
VENTURI AND DENISE SOUGHT TO EXTEND THIS METHOD
OF NALYISS TO ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM

THEY OFFERED A METHOD TO ANALYSE URBAN

LANDSCAPE BASED ON SIGNS AND MEANINGS RATHER
THAN PHYSICAL MAKE UP THE URBAN AREA

ARCHITECTURE IS PERCEIVED
AND REPRESENTED AS WHAT IT
MEANS RATHER THAN WHAT IT IS

LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS

 BUILDINGS REPRESENT

MEANINGS IN
DIFFERENT WAYS

THEY FORMULATED TWO

CATEGORIES:

LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS

 THE DUCK IS A BUILDING
THAT IS A SIGN

MEANING AND
MORPHOLOGY ARE ONE

THE SIGN AND THE BUILDING

ARE NOT SEPERATE BUT THE
BUILDING ITSELF REPRESENTS
ITS MEANING

POULTRY SHOP IN SHAPE OF

DUCK

LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS

 BUILDINGS REPRESENT

MEANINGS IN
DIFFERENT WAYS

THEY FORMULATED TWO

CATEGORIES:

LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS

 THE DECORATED SHED

IS A BUILDING WHERE SIGN

IS SEPERATED AND THE
MEANING IS APPLIED VIA
SIGN

MEANING IS CONTAINED IN
THE SIGN AND THE
ARCHITECTURE ITSELF
BCEOMES UNIMPORTANT

THE SAME BUILDING CAN BE

CHURCH OR A CASINO IT
DEPENDS ONLY ON THE SIGN

LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS

LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS
 HOW MEANING IS CREATED IN EVERYDAY ENVIRONMENT . THEY LOOKED
AT HOW EVERYDAY ARCHITECTURE CONTAINED SIGNS THAT POINT TO
MEANINGS

DIVERSITY AND PLURALISM

OF LAS VEGAS WAS THE TRUE ESSENCE
OF AMERICAN TRADITION

LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS