a) is his characterization of Western rationalism accurate?
b) is the resulting posture of deconstruction - see esp. p. 81 - different in any meaningful sense from critical rationalism, beginning with Plato?On the sublime (Lyotard) [ 22-
"What we can conceive of - the infinitely great, for instance - but is not in our power to represent, exactly defines the sublime."
[from Kant [!]
For Lyotard, Modern art is caught in the apparently irresoluble paradox of having to re-present [in the sensible world of art media] something [the sublime] that is essentially un-presentable:
Modern art for [Lyotard] is that which presents "the fact that the unpresentable exists. To make visible that there is something which can be conceived and which can niether be seen nor made visible: this is what is at stake in modern painting." (22)Philosopher's comment: is this a peculiarly "modern" insight?
--> Plato on "triangleness"
Schroeder Haus, 1923 -- very simple unadorned facades. Construction is plain, simple - in order to define an architectural sense of space.
Through this extremely formal development of space, the human condition could be bettered. (Understood as an international/universal style - regardless of site, history, local culture: formal.)
Question: is this connected with cubism? Yes - we're supposed to already know these forms; they speak a universal language.
Corbussier - Villa Savoye, 1928. Literally raise the human spirit as you move from the garage, work spaces on the first floor to the living spaces on the second floor.
Lack of ornamentation, etc.
They were looking primarily at the machine - espouse the goodness of mass production, ease of construction, simple technological means, etc.
The machine as the embodiment of rationality?
Mies van der Rohe, 1929. Material transcendence, formalistic approach to space.
Corbusier - modular approach to dimensionality. Human beings are machines: our dimensions, our material, are very much like machines. (Doesn't deal with individual character, emotions [fear, etc].)
Mies van der Rohe, 1958, Seagrams Building, New York: typifies the kind of skyscraper, 1917-1960: strict, elemental - glass, steel, no ornament. Does nothing to address the site, the environment, the people who are using the building; the program - the actions which the building is going to contain.
Tomo: architecture is already divorced from humanity - I see the skyscraper as simply a utility.
Jason: That's the point. It's catering to an elitist kind of position - to take us to new heights of humanity, through the machine, new technology, new materials.
Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project - demolished in 1971. Criticized for its lack of individuality; people could not identify with its utilitarian aspects.
The modernist architecture was seen to exacerbate, not alleviate the conditions of the poor.
Postmodernism:
Robert Venturi, the Venturi House, 1961.
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture.
What does it mean to be human? We need the complexity of our emotional reactions to our surroundings.
Also dealing with a historical - phenomenological (?) - understanding of "what it means to be a house?"
Breaks the symmetry of pure formalism.
Relativism, a vernacular context. Charles Moore's Sea Ranch, 1965. Blends more into the site, the existing architectural site. Moore sought to replicate elements of the site by using local materials - "vernacular," associating with the characteristics of the local areas.
(But it is not necessarily the case that all high modern works ignored their sites.)
Charles Jencks, "What is postmodernism?" Double-coding, the combination of modern techniques with something else, usually traditional building, in order for architecture to communicate to the public and a concerned minority (other architects).
Aldo Rossi, 1970, Gallaratesi apartment complex.
Hearkens back to modernism in its cubist approach. But in Italy, modern architecture was seen as fascist. Looking back on those elitist ideals, termed them as such - but because fascism has passed, it is permissable to borrow openly from that style.
Eclectic/pop/kitsch - Robert Venturi, Shuykill Parkway Signs, 1975.
Charles Moore - blatant copying, transformation of early classical form, classical characteristics. Piazza d'Italia, 1975 (New Orleans). Criticized for his self-indulgence in this project - it states the commerciality of architecture: as long as he could find someone to pay for it, he can do what he wants.
Not postmodernism - but modern decadence.
But aren't a lot of things done just on a commercial aspect?
Is there a crisis in architecture as there is in art (the crisis of originality)?
James Sterling, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart. Classical borrowing, but then doing what he wants to do - wavy forms, new materials; addressing the fact that we're kind of fake now. Facade has holes, with blocks lying there which would fill them in.
Gehry House, 1978 - whatever
Michael Graves Portland building, 1980. Doesn't say anything about what happens inside the building, just dresses it up with paint. Continues the forms of cubism, formalism - but dresses things up.
Phillip Johnson, 1984, AT&T's headquarters. Borrowed a lot of classical elements - but also popular elements, e.g., the piece of Chippendale top.
Frank Gehry, Fish Dance Restaurant, Kobi, Japan
Robert Stern, a disney building - parody of medieval castles
Development of computer technology, including CAD programs - we can create and visualize forms we've never been able to realize before. Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, 1977. -- Critique of modernism's denial of site, context.
"Eclectic pluralism" as a feature of postmodernism.
Monet, The Haystacks, 1890-1890. Impressionists (as a response to the crisis of realism brought about by photography). E.g., deal with how light changes over time.
Giocomo Balla - 1901, Streetlamp. (Post-impressionism). More dynamics of light, more abstracted, stylized.
The crisis of representation - Magritte, Ceci n'est pas une pipe. 1928-29
Picasso, Head of Ferdinand - bridge between different ways of showing realism / moving to abstraction
Piet Mondrian - the Red Tree, 1908. More technique and style, rather than re-presenting the subject matter
The Grey Tree, 1908 - more abstract still
Horizontal Tree, 1911 - " "
The Flowing Apple, 1912 - (cf. our text, 24f.)
Balla - The Flight of the Swifts, 1913
"Experimenting to find the new and better"
Picasso, The Three Musicians, 1921 - three human figures, but not super-real. Architecture parallel: Simplified abstraction for the sake of better communication
Matisse, reclining nude, 1936
Kurt Switter, 1921, construction - Dada. Found objects. Rejects the higher art
Mondrian, Composition with red, blue and yellow, 1930. Doesn't represent anything. Not tainted with emotion, etc.
Malkevich - A white square in a white square - high formalism.
(Both in art and architecture, the drive toward formal as utterly divorced from/devoid of content, emotion, the particular, etc. - involves a dualistic assumption regarding the relationship between form and content.)
Duchamp urinal.
Picasso, Bull's head (out of bicycle seat, handlebar) - "junk art" Is this a bull's head, or just a bicycle seat and handlebars?
-- Jackson Pollock, emotional abstractionism, drip painting. Classically trained artists, but they chose to work in these ways.
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase - marks modernism's advent in America - Arsenal Show, New York (1913); achievement of desired universality.
Postmodernism:
Andy Warhol - Do it yourself, paint-by-numbers.
Instead of trying to reach for high modernist ideas of abstraction, etc.
The end of experimentation, the end of trying to get to this higher art, perfection through formalism. Became introspective, looking at the culture they live in.
Claus Oldenburg, Dual Hamburgers, 1962.
Postmodernists take a lot of delight in abandoning the seriousness with which modernists took themselves.
Op-art - just another way of looking at art (but really a neo-classicism). Make art which effects a biological change in the viewer.
George Chagall installation
Photo-realism - a painting of a photograph
Conceptual art - a field filled with iron rods. Disregard the art - the concept - here, to collect lightning.
Minimalism - postmodern/modern?