Revisiting Postmodernism PDF
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Sir Terry Farrell and Adam Nathaniel Furman REVISITING POSTMODERNISM © Sir Terry Farrell and Adam Nathaniel Furman Published by RIBA Publishing, part of RIBA Enterprises Ltd, The Old Post Office, St Nicholas Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1RH ISBN 978‑1‑85946‑632‑2 / 978‑1‑85946‑853‑1 (PDF) The rights of Sir Terry Farrell and Adam Nathaniel Furman to be identified as the Authors of this Work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 sections 77 and 78. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owner. British Library Cataloguing‑in‑Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Commissioning Editor: Ginny Mills Production: Richard Blackburn Typeset by Academic + Technical Typesetting Design by Gavin Ambrose Printed and bound by W & G Baird, Great Britain Cover image: RIBA Pix While every effort has been made to check the accuracy and quality of the information given in this publication, neither the Author nor the Publisher accept any responsibility for the subsequent use of this information, for any errors or omissions that it may contain, or for any misunderstandings arising from it. www.ribaenterprises.com CONTENTS SIR TERRY FARRELL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IV ABOUT THE AUTHORS V PREFACE VII INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 POSTMODERNISM IN ITS HISTORICAL PLACE 5 CHAPTER 2 THE ‘HIGH STYLE’ PERIOD OF POSTMODERNISM 19 CHAPTER 3 WE ARE ALL POSTMODERNISTS NOW 59 – IMAGE GALLERY – ADAM NATHANIEL FURMAN CHAPTER 4 MODERNIST ORTHODOXY CHALLENGED 123 CHAPTER 5 THE POSTMODERN SPIRIT TAKES HOLD 137 CHAPTER 6 BACKLASH AND RESURGENCE 177 REFERENCES 194 IMAGE CREDITS 196 INDEX 197 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is always a pleasure to be invited to write about a subject close to my heart and being asked by RIBA Publishing to write this book has given me the opportunity to revisit my experience of Postmodernism, and the chance to highlight people and projects that I think exemplify all that makes Postmodernism great. This was further enhanced by being able to co‑author with Adam Nathaniel Furman, a young designer whose enthusiasm for the subject has brought an extra dimension to the book. My assistant, Emma Davies, has been invaluable in organising research, text and images. My heartfelt gratitude also goes to Abigail Grater, who edited the text. I would also like to thank Ginny Mills and Richard Blackburn at RIBA Publishing, whose help and advice was much appreciated. As with all books, so many people are involved in varying degrees but I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the architects and photographers who have contributed. Sir Terry Farrell, London 2017 ABOUT THE AUTHORS Sir Terry Farrell obtained a first class honours degree from Newcastle University (his home town) and then a masters from the University of Pennsylvania, on a Harkness Fellowship where he studied under Louis Kahn, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott‑Brown. In 1965 he set up in partnership with Nicholas Grimshaw and then in his own right in 1980 to the present time where he now has offices in London and Hong Kong. He has won many architecture and planning awards, including the RTPI Gold Medal (2017) and a knighthood (2001) for services to architecture and urban design. From a long career his built achievements include MI6, Embankment Place, and headquarters for the Home Office in London and in China, Beijing South and Guangzhou stations, KK100, with The Peak and British Consulate in Hong Kong. He has written and published extensively, including Shaping London and The City As A Tangled Bank: Urban Design versus Urban evolution. At the request of the UK government he led the recent ‘Farrell Review of Architecture and the Built Environment’, described by the culture minister as ‘the most thorough and wide‑ranging exercise that has taken place in this sector for generations.’ Adam Nathaniel Furman is a London‑based designer whose practice ranges from architecture and interiors to sculpture, installation, writing and product design. He pursues research through his teaching role at Central St Martins, and the research group ‘Saturated Space’, which he co‑runs at the Architectural Association, exploring colour in architecture and urbanism through events, lectures and publications. He was Designer in Residence at the Design Museum in London for 2013–14, received the Blueprint Award for Design Innovation in 2014, was awarded the UK Rome Prize for Architecture 2014–15, was one of the Architecture Foundation’s ‘New Architects’ in 2016, and was described by Rowan Moore, architecture critic for the Observer, as one of the four ‘rising stars’ of 2017. He has worked at OMA Rotterdam, Ron Arad Architects, Farrells and Ash Sakula, and has written for Abitare, the RIBA Journal, Icon, the Architectural Review, Apollo Magazine, Architecture Today, amongst others. He is the founder of the Postmodern Society, has actively advocated and lobbied to increase awareness of architecture from the period, and led the successful campaign to list the UK’s first Postmodern building, Comyn Ching Triangle. PREFACE In this book Adam Nathaniel Furman and I will concentrate on re‑visiting perceptions of Postmodernism in architecture (rather than widening our remit to include planning, theory or philosophy, although these are touched upon), with the aim of sharing a deep appreciation of the buildings, architects and ideas that made the era such fertile ground for architectural invention. Both of our sections are broadly divided into three eras: the influential early stages of what grew to be known as Postmodernism, the high period when the approach came to dominate architecture around the world, and its apparent decline and incorporation into more recent generations of practice. We present two different but complementary perspectives of the same periods. My personal experience and thoughts about the Postmodern movement as a participant in these times will delve into the movement from the viewpoint of a participant. I revisit the period and its buildings as a lived experience, with explanations of the forces and influences that helped me to understand and frame what was occurring in the world generally at the time, and how it was transforming my own and others’ approach to architecture. My writing concentrates mainly on the movement in the UK, although I do touch on international projects that influenced me and colleagues in the UK at the time. Whereas I am remembering and recalling, Adam looks back with the perspective of someone for whom the era is entirely historical, a period he did not experience, but whose content and international spread he finds inspiring and relevant. With a broad overview and with new eyes that see the period through the lens of the twenty‑first century, his writing covers the development of Postmodern architecture internationally, with particular focus on Italy and the United States. This book aims to return to the buildings of this period, sharing their richness, diversity and brilliance, with an emphasis on what was interesting, beautiful and unique about the architecture which emerged from this unusually fertile moment in history. We hope that this book will act as a starting point for those to whom this architectural period is new, encouraging appreciation, interest, further reading, and hopefully the individual rediscovery of those aspects and architects that are found to be of particular interest. There is a vast amount of theory and philosophy on the subject, as well as countless more brilliant architects and buildings which we would very much like to have cited here, however in order that we be able to tell a broad introductory story within the limits of this book, we decided to include only those that directly aided the texts’ narrative arc, and to focus mostly on buildings and architecture, at the expense of theory and discourse. We hope that the book will encourage those with such inclination to explore these theories and other architectures. Sir Terry Farrell, 2017 IINNTTRROODDUUCCTTIIOONN It is generally accepted that the second half of the twentieth century was characterised by ‘postmodernity’. But in the world of design and architecture the term ‘Postmodern’ usually refers to a specific style, and even to a quite limited and specific period – actually just over a decade – from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Whilst in the worlds of literature, music, film, theatre and even philosophy, the term normally reflects a broad and open sweep of a long‑lasting cultural epoch, in design and architecture it is seen as a narrow, odd, even aberrant and short‑lived passing phase of a ‘style’. ‘Postmodern’ as a term wasn’t born in the 1970s. Indeed it was first used much earlier and in many fields: in painting in the late nineteenth century; in philosophy just before the First World War; in art, literature and music in the 1920s and 1930s. Postmodernity was consummated officially and as a broad cultural entity for all disciplines by none other than the eminent historian Arnold Toynbee in 1939, when he referred to ‘our own Post-Modern Age’.1 ‘Modernism’ was identified primarily by design and architecture as the enduring thrust of the Bauhaus – and it was in these fields that the Bauhaus revolution was seen as not only championing designers and architecture but firmly placing these disciplines within the ‘Avant Garde’. They assumed a leadership role in this exceptionally creative movement which, in my view, was a close identification that they tenaciously held on to whilst the rest of the world moved on. It became an enduring issue of belonging, particularly for architects. But, as this book will argue, Modernism was itself partly and importantly – though not of course exclusively – a style, and lasted for a relatively brief period in our cultural history. The broader culture of Postmodernism dominated the second half of the twentieth century such as that, in effect, we are all Postmodernists now. The stylistic phenomenon that was briefly perceived in design and architecture in the 1980s, generally called ‘PoMo’, was a tangential blip; by no means could it be said to be the formal expression of, nor encapsulating the totality of, Postmodernism. I was reminded of the natural tendency to bias in writing history during a conversation with a senior curator, in relation to our work remodelling Edinburgh’s Dean Gallery (now Modern Two) in 1996–1999, when the concept of the ‘other story’ of the twentieth century in art was discussed. Facing Modern Two across the road is Modern One (then the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art), which contains the official and accepted story of Abstraction and the new world of art that changed everything forever; meanwhile Modern Two was to tell the ‘other story’ of the twentieth century, of Surrealism, Dada and mavericks – a much more complex and diverse narrative. What fascinated me was that, as a culture of grand or meta‑narratives, Modernism itself was seen by those committed to it as a ‘movement’, a collective mind‑set to tell one single story of the Pumping station on the Isle of Dogs. John Outram, 1988
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