Post Modern, Modern What 's next ?!

      Language is the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional. Representation is the way the language represent itself.  You cannot said that this language is bad or good. Meaning change and transform of language from one meaning to other meaning is occurred through time. Architecture is like a language. It could transformable and adaptable. Change in architecture From Egyptian to Greek and Roman, Post modern to Modern. It is like a change in language. It is still language with try to communicate to people in different way and different element.


     Post-modern being from the 1950s, however it is not yet a style until 1970s. 
"Postmodern architecture has also been described as "neo-eclectic", where reference and ornament have returned to the facade, replacing the aggressively unornamented modern styles." In Post-modern, according to Venturi "Architects can bemoan or try to ignore them (referring to the ornamental and decorative elements in buildings) or even try to abolish them, but they will not go away. Or they will not go away for a long time, because architects do not have the power to replace them (nor do they know what to replace them with)."


     Ornamental and decorative is necessary for communication. It give the meaning of the building to the public There is no one meaning. Communication can be interpreted in many way so does architecture. The good architecture for post-modern should have many dimensions and layering of meanings.

Front facade of the Vanna Venturi house, one of the first major works of post modern architecture, known especially for the facade and its split gable. The signs tell the function of the house

House VI / Peter Eisenman

Peter Eisenman said "Loss in Integrity" of nowadays architecture". 

Modernism try to present function.
On the other hand, according to Modernists Post modern is "the democratization of the culture under industrialism" "Post-Modern is aimless, anarchic, amorphous, self-indulgent, inclusive, horizontally structured and aims for popular".

QUESTIONING WHETHER MODERNISM A GOOD LIVING PLACE?

Mies said "LESS IS MORE" OR "LESS IS BORE"

(1951 Mies van der Rohe designed Farnsworth House)

The simplicity is the best?

May be, when the architect force his architecture to be what he want so much, in this case force himself  with phrase "Less is more".  Is it good for living? Is it comfortable? Personally, I feel that Modern house is not lively.  In the movie in 1967, Play time. It is a mock-modernism film which show how modernism affect and force people to be the way they were.  People are dress the same way in the same color tone. It is story of a man who unfamiliar with the place and how he react to them. His behavior create compare and contrast between one who knows the place and one who did not. The building use glass facade and in rectangular shape.All the geometry shape of the building, the rectangular interior decoration with concrete, all place looks rigid and not lively. Even though the building look manifest but undoubtedly not comfortable to live as if you live in your non-modern house. On the other hand, and I would feel more comfort live in non-mordern home. It feel that there is no limitation or so much program that force habitant to live.

PHOTOGRAPH AS A ROLE

Julius Shulman, the world’s greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream.

During the post-war, The architects believe that with better design, it will make you a better life. The architecture can change the world.

From post-modern to modern architecture, photographs have play a significant role in the movement. It is used as a tool to delivery the message to the public. Since after the world war, people seek a better life, The American dream. It was first expressed by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.”

Julius always remind us about the beauty of nature. As in the beginning of the movie, when he walking around the park and said “ This is my God”. He also encourage young architect to concern about it. Photograph is not always true, it is an one ’s eye behind the rectangular object, or in other word, it is just an moment that captured by photographers. It is depended on them what to show or what not to show. In this case, Julius want people to see architecture with the landscape. The landscape has an affect on the house, and the photograph are used to tell the story of it. Moreover, to show that architecture could help people to achieve have a better life by having a better living place. For instance, the famous photo from Julius which publish in the American modern magazine “ a shot in the dark” on his case study # 22, the house of Buck and Carlotta Stahl. It is a picture that set attention the American people in many different way and it bring architecture in attention that the time. (1945-1960, at time we building the rocket to the moon). It shows that picture of a house an wide city view of LA.

Without Shulman the modern architecture would not be the way it is today, who’s know!

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CASE STUDY# 22 : HOUSE OF BUCK AND CARLOTTA STAHL

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OTHER JULIUS 'S PHOTOGRAPHS

project 1.2 presentation

Architecture as painting

>Mass and Surface
are elements by the architecture magnifies it self.

>Mass
Architecture is the matterly correct and magnificent play of the masses brought together. And light our eyes are made up to see from in light; light and shade reveal these form: cube, cone, sphere.

>Surface (holes,voids)
These are doors and walls..

Villa Savoye< Le cabusier

When outside is rectangular shape but inside can play with staircase, balcony like in his painting.
The painting has frame but the detail of the painting can be painted according to particular artists, like inside of the building. Painting has no depth. It is all about form.

Give 'Em Props!" -- Piet Mondrian

De Stijl is in post-modern style.

>Small house by SANAA

I try to overlay all the plans and see what happen to those plans. If we see plans of the house as painting. Frist, I compared both paintings. I found that the different between Le cabusier's painting and Piet Mondrain painting is the detail of the painting. In Le cabusier's painting ,the frame is in simple shape, but the painting is express in free from. Similarly to the Villa Savoye where you have simple form on the exterior and have a interior space full with different geometry, like a playground which also express in the painting. On the other hand, Piet Mondrain's painting express in very rectangular painting, It is remind me a city plan when nowadays everything are build on square land. Moreover, it also a remind me of the Utopia of Le cabusier's idea of trying to create a pattern of living. Where individuals have the same inhabitant, the idea consider modernism. However, Small house is a unique house on the middle of Toyko. Small house form is totally different from other nowadays contemporary building. The building play with exterior of the house unlike in Villa Savoye. Futhermore, inside of the house every floor has a very specific function unlike Villa savoye where inside is similar to playground with a different form. These also show two different of thinking about mass-produce architecture and unique single house. Personally for me those two house are modern house, by looking in the form but they are different in the way it represent.

Metropolis (1927)

   Metropolis, movie in 1927 directed by Fritz Lang. I did not have many chances to watch the movie like Metropolis before, however I think it is a easy-understanding movie, even though it is a silent film, It is a visual representation of the  modern restorations of machinery to the human. How the machines affects human's behavior and society. Also the affect differ to different classes of people, which it separated in the movie. There is two level of people, one is ,city society consists of important people and elites, who live on the surface, and the worker city which is "in the depth" underground.

   The city is ruled by Joh Fredersen who create sophisticated metropolis and he also built Eternal garden for his son, Freder who never going to the working city before. One day after he saw a women and group of children coming from the surface, and the women said to him "These are your brothers and sisters". Since that day Freder seek the women and entered worker city. He surprise to see all the metallic moving, the workers have to stand there and control the machine all the time. Suddenly,the accident occurred because the exhaustion of the workers, thus the explosion. Son reported the incidence to his father. Freder try to talk to his father about what going on down "in the depth" compare to the city on the surface" and stated that those people are the one who built the city. Since his father don't listen to him, Freder is going down to the workers' city and swap the shift with one of the workers himself, because he hopes to find that girl before.

   Meanwhile, recently the head controller of the worker city found wried plan, which he did not know what it is at the time. As a result, Joh Fredersen went to Rotwang,the inventor. The inventor who loss his beloved women, Hel, have re-created a machine women to keep his beloved women lives. Then, Joh asked  Rotwang about the wried plan, the inventor tell him that it is a plan of 2000-year-old catacombs deep below the lowest levels of the Metropolis. After that, Joh want to go down and see what happened down there at the catacombs. Catacombs is like a cathedral for the worker, giving hope to the workers and reminds them of heart.

   Personally, the story is very wide to discuss, cause it is a silent film where you mind flow with it. For me, the main elements that I can get from the film, one is that the social status or social level problem is exist in 1927, in Industrial age. In that the one who powerful control and live on the surface while the slave are working underground, which is represented zombie-like in the film. Indeed, in the film the workers are also had been treated like a machine themselves. It could represent the society environment at that time. It rise concern of what is happiness in life. From the movie, we can see a clear different in environment and activities and occurred from above the ground and underground level. And, it also create doubt like how long the workers are going to stay in this way before they going to start uprise. When the scientist, Rotwang shows Joh his new invention, the machine man, it is not fully function like  real human being at all. Human is unique and machine couldn't compare with. Second is the relationship between machines and the workers. Since the invention of the machine, the workers are also becoming a machine, in the way they have to always stand stationary to control it. They does not need their heart to work just needed head and hand. I think that what the film trying to remind the people of a machinery impact could have disadvantages. I make us forgot that we are human, we are not the machine.


Refference : 

"The future of architecture"

From Bauhaus to our house storied by Tom Wolfe in 1981.

>After reading it, From my understanding, the reason that Wolfe is against the idea of Bauhaus and modernism is because the from it too simple and it is the same in design. For example, glass box, flat roof, white colour. I also really like the idea of the future architecture in the texts "no longer depend on the patronage of the nobility ex merchant, the state client. " you have to accept the form with no alteration, special order loud talk from client.

>In the old day, Egypt, Greek and Roman,the architecture is more than a building, house, or public. It is also a hidden message to the people or contain a religious means in to an architecture. Like the pyramid , or Parthenon. The architecture used to be huge and used to be a visual representation of the glory, the achievement, power and also it transfer the culture value. However, they did not really focus on the functional of the architecture. In other words, to minimize the architecture for it function only. On the other hand, Bauhaus style aims to create simple building not a grand scale and elaborate because they are focus on the usage. For instance, the worker housing. American architect bring the style and develop it to be modernism.

> For example : Small House


It is a house designed by Kazuyo sejima. (SAAN). The house located in the middle of Tokyo. The objective of the house is try to maximize the space. The method that use in the construction is stacking in that each floor has different height and weight. The building is modern and focus on the functionality of the building.