Postmodern Architecture
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Designed by American architect Frank Gehry, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened in 1997 in Bilbao, a city in northern Spain. The building’s curvaceous form is made even more unusual by the rippling reflections in its titanium surface.Pablo Sanchez/REUTERSIn spite of threats and a thwarted attack by Basque separatists, the inauguration of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain, proceeded in grand style. The following report appeared in the October 1997 Encarta Yearbook.
New Guggenheim Museum Opens in Bilbao
Hailed as a masterpiece by architecture critics for its stunning use of materials, shape, and space, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was inaugurated in a gala ceremony attended by Spain's King Juan Carlos I on October 18, 1997, in Bilbao, Spain. Designed by American architect Frank Gehry, the 24,000-sq-m (260,000-sq-ft) museum rises from the banks of Bilbao's Nervión River in a series of sculpted curving undulations.
Vanna Venturi House
Robert Venturi’s architectural firm designed many of the most influential buildings of the 1970s and 1980s. Venturi’s theories, which advocate the use of historical allusion and symbolism, thus rejecting the perceived sterility of orthodox modern buildings, led to the development during the 1970s of postmodernism in architecture. Venturi designed the Vanna Venturi House (completed 1964) in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, for his mother.
Lloyd’s Building
Lloyd’s Building in London, England, was designed by Sir Richard George Rogers and completed in 1986. Rogers, a founder of what is known as the “high-tech” style of architecture, left the building’s structural elements highly visible.
Variously described as resembling a ship or a metallic flower, the building—with its base of Spanish limestone and titanium-covered exterior—was designed with the use of an advanced computer-modeling system. The museum houses 19 galleries, including one that is 140 m (450 ft) long. Spanish painter and... sculptor Pablo Picasso, American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, and Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky were among the artists featured in the museum's inaugural exhibition.
Funded almost entirely by the local government, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao will be directed by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which also maintains the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Guggenheim Museum Soho in New York City, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. Exhibits and works will rotate among the museums.
The inauguration was nearly disrupted by the Basque Homeland and Liberty Party (ETA), a Basque separatist group that has killed about 800 people since 1968. Police foiled an ETA plot to stage a terrorist attack during the October 18 ceremony on October 13. One policeman was killed.
Between about 1965 and 1980 architects and critics began to espouse tendencies for which there is as yet no better designation than postmodern. Although postmodernism is not a cohesive movement based on a distinct set of principles, as was modernism, in general it can be said that the postmodernists value individuality, intimacy, complexity, and occasionally even humor.
Postmodern tendencies were given early expression in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966; revised ed. 1977) by the American architect Robert Venturi. In this provocative work he defended vernacular architecture—for example, gas stations and fast-food restaurants—and attacked the modernist establishment with such satiric comments as “Less is a bore” (a play on Mies’s well-known dictum “Less is more”). By the early 1980s, postmodernism had become the dominant trend in American architecture and an important phenomenon in Europe as well. Its success in the United States owed much to the influence of Philip C. Johnson, who had performed the same service for modernism 50 years earlier. His AT&T Building (1984) in New York City, with its Renaissance allusions and its pediment evoking Chippendale furniture, immediately became a landmark of postmodern design.
By the early 1980s, postmodernism had become the dominant trend in American architecture…
Other postmodern office towers built during the 1980s aspired to a similar high stylistic profile, recalling the great art deco skyscrapers of the 1920s and 1930s or striving for an eccentric flamboyance of their own. Vivid color and other decorative elements were effectively used by Michael Graves in several notable buildings, while Richard Meier developed a more austere version of postmodernism, influenced by Le Corbusier, in his designs for museums and private houses. Outstanding American practitioners of postmodernism, in addition to Venturi, Johnson, Graves, and Meier, are Helmut Jahn, Charles Gwathmey, Charles Willard Moore, and Robert A. M. Stern.
Skyscraper, New York City American architect Philip Johnson strongly influenced the rise of the postmodern style of architecture. His design for the AT&T Building (now the Sony Building), constructed in New York City in 1984, had a particularly strong impact. The building’s architectural devices, such as the use of allusion in its Renaissance detail and Chippendale-style pediment, make it a symbol of postmodern architecture.Guy Gillette/Photo Researchers, Inc.
Rem Koolhaas House in Bordeaux Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas designed this house in Bordeaux, France, on three levels. The lower level is carved from the hillside as a series of caverns, and serves for communal family life. The middle level of glass is designed to accommodate the husband, who is confined to a wheelchair; the central part is an elevator platform that moves between levels. The third level is divided into sections for the husband, wife, and children. Koolhaas was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2000 for his innovative work.Courtesy of OMA/Rem Koolhaas
Closely related to the postmodernist interest in historical styles was the historic preservation movement, which during the last decades of the 20th century led to the renovation of many landmark older buildings and to a tendency to resist new architecture that seemed to threaten the scale or stylistic integrity of existing structures. The stark, confrontational approach of modernism has been replaced by a more inclusive sense of the architectural heritage that acknowledges and seeks to preserve the very finest achievements of every period.
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New Guggenheim Museum Opens in Bilbao
Hailed as a masterpiece by architecture critics for its stunning use of materials, shape, and space, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was inaugurated in a gala ceremony attended by Spain's King Juan Carlos I on October 18, 1997, in Bilbao, Spain. Designed by American architect Frank Gehry, the 24,000-sq-m (260,000-sq-ft) museum rises from the banks of Bilbao's Nervión River in a series of sculpted curving undulations.
Vanna Venturi HouseRobert Venturi’s architectural firm designed many of the most influential buildings of the 1970s and 1980s. Venturi’s theories, which advocate the use of historical allusion and symbolism, thus rejecting the perceived sterility of orthodox modern buildings, led to the development during the 1970s of postmodernism in architecture. Venturi designed the Vanna Venturi House (completed 1964) in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, for his mother.
Lloyd’s BuildingLloyd’s Building in London, England, was designed by Sir Richard George Rogers and completed in 1986. Rogers, a founder of what is known as the “high-tech” style of architecture, left the building’s structural elements highly visible.
Variously described as resembling a ship or a metallic flower, the building—with its base of Spanish limestone and titanium-covered exterior—was designed with the use of an advanced computer-modeling system. The museum houses 19 galleries, including one that is 140 m (450 ft) long. Spanish painter and... sculptor Pablo Picasso, American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, and Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky were among the artists featured in the museum's inaugural exhibition.
Funded almost entirely by the local government, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao will be directed by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which also maintains the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Guggenheim Museum Soho in New York City, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. Exhibits and works will rotate among the museums.
The inauguration was nearly disrupted by the Basque Homeland and Liberty Party (ETA), a Basque separatist group that has killed about 800 people since 1968. Police foiled an ETA plot to stage a terrorist attack during the October 18 ceremony on October 13. One policeman was killed.
Between about 1965 and 1980 architects and critics began to espouse tendencies for which there is as yet no better designation than postmodern. Although postmodernism is not a cohesive movement based on a distinct set of principles, as was modernism, in general it can be said that the postmodernists value individuality, intimacy, complexity, and occasionally even humor.
Postmodern tendencies were given early expression in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966; revised ed. 1977) by the American architect Robert Venturi. In this provocative work he defended vernacular architecture—for example, gas stations and fast-food restaurants—and attacked the modernist establishment with such satiric comments as “Less is a bore” (a play on Mies’s well-known dictum “Less is more”). By the early 1980s, postmodernism had become the dominant trend in American architecture and an important phenomenon in Europe as well. Its success in the United States owed much to the influence of Philip C. Johnson, who had performed the same service for modernism 50 years earlier. His AT&T Building (1984) in New York City, with its Renaissance allusions and its pediment evoking Chippendale furniture, immediately became a landmark of postmodern design.
By the early 1980s, postmodernism had become the dominant trend in American architecture…
Other postmodern office towers built during the 1980s aspired to a similar high stylistic profile, recalling the great art deco skyscrapers of the 1920s and 1930s or striving for an eccentric flamboyance of their own. Vivid color and other decorative elements were effectively used by Michael Graves in several notable buildings, while Richard Meier developed a more austere version of postmodernism, influenced by Le Corbusier, in his designs for museums and private houses. Outstanding American practitioners of postmodernism, in addition to Venturi, Johnson, Graves, and Meier, are Helmut Jahn, Charles Gwathmey, Charles Willard Moore, and Robert A. M. Stern.
Skyscraper, New York City American architect Philip Johnson strongly influenced the rise of the postmodern style of architecture. His design for the AT&T Building (now the Sony Building), constructed in New York City in 1984, had a particularly strong impact. The building’s architectural devices, such as the use of allusion in its Renaissance detail and Chippendale-style pediment, make it a symbol of postmodern architecture.Guy Gillette/Photo Researchers, Inc.Rem Koolhaas House in Bordeaux Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas designed this house in Bordeaux, France, on three levels. The lower level is carved from the hillside as a series of caverns, and serves for communal family life. The middle level of glass is designed to accommodate the husband, who is confined to a wheelchair; the central part is an elevator platform that moves between levels. The third level is divided into sections for the husband, wife, and children. Koolhaas was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2000 for his innovative work.Courtesy of OMA/Rem Koolhaas
Closely related to the postmodernist interest in historical styles was the historic preservation movement, which during the last decades of the 20th century led to the renovation of many landmark older buildings and to a tendency to resist new architecture that seemed to threaten the scale or stylistic integrity of existing structures. The stark, confrontational approach of modernism has been replaced by a more inclusive sense of the architectural heritage that acknowledges and seeks to preserve the very finest achievements of every period.
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
posted by Ronald @ 3:22 AM
1 Comments:
As far as modern Architecture concern ,one Museum that is quite certainly more spectacular than the artwork inside is the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Spain. it's exhibits are modern and contemporary. there architectural design is very fascinating. It is worth visiting this museum.
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