Postmodernism: "The Mother of All This Is Las Vegas"

Against the "white box"

Robert Venturi ("Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture", 1966) — a manifesto of architectural postmodernism. Opposing the puritanism of Mies van der Rohe and his "Less is more", Venturi proclaimed "Less is bore." Architecture should be complex, contradictory, ambiguous, historically saturated.

"Learning from Las Vegas" (1972, with Denise Scott Brown and Steve Izenour): a provocative analysis of commercial American architecture. Venturi takes the "vulgar" and "low" — billboards, casinos, roadside diners — and analyzes them as architectural phenomena. Two models: "Duck" (a building in the shape of its product — a duck store) and "Decorated Shed" (a functional box with a decorated façade). Venturi prefers the latter: honesty of construction with symbolic decoration.

Postmodernist "quoting"

Postmodernism in architecture actively quotes historical styles — but ironically, "in quotation marks." The AT&T building (now 550 Madison Avenue) by Philip Johnson (1984) — a glass skyscraper with a "Chippendale" top (like an antique secretary desk). This is an ironic quotation — and a scandal.

Postmodernism creates "architecture of pleasure" — pleasant, playful, diverse, saturated with historical references. Its critics: it creates "Disneyland", not real architecture; historical quotations are empty signs without content.

Question for reflection: Postmodernism argued that the modernist "white box" is a dogma. In your profession, are there "white boxes" — conventions accepted as self-evident? What would become the postmodernist challenge to them?