An excellent discussion, which was most interesting to read. Your subtle account gives Postmodernism its due, while acknowledging its no more than partial success in its own terms. You distinguish helpfully between classicism as an act of reverent tribute to (and straightforward imitation of) the 1st century, the 16th century, and the 18th century, and the classical language of postmodernism which explicitly acknowledges its situatedness in the present (although, as you also note, postmodern architects have not tended to pay as much attention to context as their rhetoric implies) and the irony created by historical distance. A very good piece of work, thank you.
I just did a mock paper for this course and a question on this topic came up, so I wrote about it, but my exam essay wasn't as nuanced as my tutorial essay.
Anyway that made me really happy so I'm gonna put my entire essay here now!
Jiaqi Kang
St. Catherine’s College
Antiquity after Antiquity
Trinity Week 2
Would you
describe Postmodernism in architecture as classical revival or as classical
pastiche?
In The Language of Post-Modern Architecture,
Charles Jencks pronounces the death of Modernism at a time exact to the minute,
coinciding with the demolition of a Modernist building that had failed to
achieve its aims. The Modernist movement had reigned as the predominant style after
World War II as the International Style espoused by the CIAM (Congrès
international d’architecture moderne), founded by its most influential
proponent, Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, 1887-1965). Its radical
rejection of the classical forms, which had dominated architecture for
centuries, had gradually become integrated into the folds of society, resulting
in the once disruptive style becoming uncontroversial, uninspiring, and repetitive.
Postmodern architecture was first coined by Charles Jencks in the 1970s as
architects such as Robert Venturi began to promote an architecture that was
defined by pluralism: the combination of a multitude of ideas, styles, and
traditions that would provoke a multitude of meanings and interpretations. As
Postmodern architecture evolved throughout the years it acquired more
distinctive qualities, including anthropomorphism, contextualism, humor, and
irony, but always maintaining the core idea of complexity and hybridity. However,
it also drew much criticism from those that continued to prefer Modernist or
Pre-Modernist architecture such as Thomas L. Doremus and Prince Charles
respectively, with some using the mocking term “hokey-tecture”[1].
Today, Postmodern architecture is a relic of a recent past that some see as
having failed in its goals to revolutionise architecture; Ricardo Bofill says
of his Paris living complex that he “did not succeed in changing the city.”[2]
This essay will discuss whether Postmodernism in architecture is classical
revival or classical pastiche, citing the work of Ricardo Bofill and Michael Graves
as examples, and technology as a factor in the shift in style.
With
a building such as the M2 Building in Tokyo by Kengo Kuma (1991, Fig. 1) being
seen as an example of Postmodernism, it is clear that architects of the
movement incorporate classical forms into their buildings. However, discussions
around the intentions and effects of classical architecture vary. Classical
revival can be defined as an earnest and sincere attempt to revive and continue
the classical tradition, in the same way that conventional cyclical narratives
trace the history of art as having an inception, a progress culminating in a
peak of perfection and followed by a decline, and years later a renaissance. This
idea of progress is strongly associated with a veneration for Antiquity,
specifically Greece in the 5th century BCE, as it was implied in
Pliny’s Natural History and
subsequently interwoven in the works of Giorgio Vasari, Johann Joachim
Winckelmann, and modern scholars who founded the discipline of art history. As
Alan Colquhoun writes in his analysis of historicism in architecture, “in the
18th century the return to classicism was always accompanied by
elements of poetic reverie, nostalgia, and irretrievable loss.”[3]
Such an attitude towards the bygone glory of the classical era was exemplified
in the writings of Winckelmann.
On the other hand,
classical pastiche can be defined as the imitation of classical forms and
themes with underwritten irony; pastiche is both a tribute to and a
transcendence of the past, and is a key idea in postmodernism as a whole. In
the same way that Postmodern theorist and author Umberto Eco writes in the
postscript to his The Name of the Rose:
“Books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already
been told”[4],
Postmodern architecture acknowledges the impossibility of designing buildings
that are wholly original and do not in some way remind viewers of previous
buildings, and thus its allusion to classical architecture is made ironic
through awareness. The term pastiche is often used in a derogatory manner to
mean architecture that merely directly copies previous buildings with no
concern for novelty or creativity, but the word should rather evoke playful
incorporation of other styles into a building that nonetheless breaks new
ground in its own way. Postmodern architecture returns to the classical not
only because Modernism forbade it, but also because it knows that such tyranny
is unavoidable––classical architecture has for so long been upheld as the
paradigm of perfection that it is impossible to freely construct buildings
without foraging into it.
It is significant to
note, however, that Postmodern architecture does not only refer to the
classical, as its central message is pluralism and avoiding the dominance of a
single style, whether this is the Parthenon or the International Style. Indeed,
the word “classical” itself is also extremely difficult to define, as although
it commonly is taken to mean the ancient Greco-Roman era many authors have
proposed that later movements including the Gothic and the Romantic also
embodied the classical ideal, with Doremus writing that Modernism was in fact
both an attack on and a continuation of the classical. (Doremus states,
“Modernism simultaneously incorporates and denies the classical ideal, and it
is this very simultaneity that is its primary characteristic: an innate
ambivalence that expresses irony rather than the classical ideal of harmony.”[5]
Doremus’ definition in fact fits Postmodernism in theory, but in practice he
despises Postmodern buildings, calling them “grotesque”[6]
and having failed in attempting to display irony.) I will take the classical to
mean architecture throughout the ages that have been influenced by Antiquity
and strove to emulate it in some manner.
Acknowledging the
fact that Postmodernism contains so many different arguments made by different
writers that much of it is contradictory, this essay will propose that
Postmodernism attempts to democratise art through classical pastiche, turning a
movement of the avant-garde into something that can be appreciated and
navigated by the masses by utilising kitsch styles. Kitsch includes dry,
ossified academic styles such as classical revival, as Clement Greenberg wrote[7]
in his seminal 1939 essay Avant-Garde and
Kitsch. Greenberg also claimed that avant-garde and kitsch were at opposite
ends of society, with the former being daring and sophisticated, a backlash
against the rich, cultivated ruling class that simultaneously it also “depends”[8]
upon, and the latter being “the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of
our times” and a form of art that “pretends to demand nothing of its customers
except their money––not even their time.”[9]
Kitsch appeals to the masses and is erroneously seen by Greenberg as a parasite
of the avant-garde to which it will never reconcile. However, Postmodernism
strives to introduce a radical, controversial new style to ordinary people,
thus bridging the gap.
Ricardo Bofill (b.
1939) is a Spanish architect who works with his Taller de Arquitectura, a team
of designers from around the world who cooperate unhierarchically on various
projects. Since the 1970s, Bofill and his team have built numerous low-cost
housing compounds in the suburbs of Paris. Unlike the machines-à-habiter of Le Corbusier, with whose principles Bofill
actively disagrees,[10] these
buildings are large-scale, monumental homes meant for low-income populations
that Jencks has on numerous occasions called “Versailles for the people.” This
is particularly relevant when viewing Bofill’s Les Arcades du Lac project that
is situated in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, near Versailles itself (1981, Fig.
2). Its main portion, Le Viaduc, juts out onto an artificial lake and resembles
a massive Roman aqueduct with its six buildings that are joined at the top by
bridges with dome-shaped spaces in the gaps. Peter Hodgkinson of the Taller
writes that the buildings were based on “a poetic interpretation of Bath and
local French classical Versaillesque architecture”[11]
The influence of the Roman Baths in Bath is clearly seen in the use of water as
a central element to contrast against the classical columns and the pale brown
colors. The separation of the other buildings of the Arcades (Fig. 3) is
reminiscent of the division of lawns in Versaille’s gardens. In another instance,
Les Espaces d’Abraxas, (1983, Fig. 4) another low-cost housing complex in Marne-la-Vallée,
outside Paris, is composed of three elements: Le Théâtre, which forms a
semi-circle reminiscent of classical amphitheatres (particularly in Merida); Le
Palacio, an 18-storey bracket-shaped building that closes off the area created by
Le Théâtre on the east side; and L’Arc in the center. Decorated with ornament,
which the Modernists rejected, Abraxas is a preferable alternative to the
Purist, serious buildings designed by Bofill’s Modernist predecessors in a
country where there are few options for cheap mass housing.[12]
Bofill takes classical elements that we are familiar to seeing in a historical
context, adapts it humorously through amplification and transformation to make
it “a habitable monument in an amorphous suburban context,”[13]
as Bofill writes in the catalogue to a 1985 MoMA exhibition of his and Léon
Krier’s designs. Hodgkinson affirms this, writing that Abraxas achieves a
“startling decomposition of the classical orders, which are superimposed or
inverted to fragment the mass––an imposed and imposing eighteen floors [Le Palacio].”[14]
Yet, as Jencks
writes, classical scholars such as Nicholas Penny have an aversion to Bofill’s
work: it is being “excluded from their canon not because it lacks their
essentials (ideal proportion, harmony, monumentality and grandeur it does
have), but because it is crudely done in comparison with the pre-existing
canon. It is done in concrete not stone, with heavy, pre-cast walls and not
delicate sculpted pilasters. In a word it is proletarii not clasicii,
or for the ‘masses not the classes’”[15]––kitsch,
because it is aimed towards the poor who live in the banlieues, but avant-garde, because Bofill validates Greenberg’s
characterisation of the avant-garde artist as focussing upon his medium and
pursuing absolutes in order to create architecture valid on its own terms[16],
as is demonstrated when Bofill writes: “In the 1970s architecture begins to
concentrate on itself again. Architects rediscover the pleasure of creation,
and their craft.”[17] By
subverting the authoritative elitism associated with classical architecture,
Bofill states that people from all echelons of society deserve to live in
palaces, effectively using irony and pastiche to criticise the exclusivity
associated with classicism.
Because Bofill
appropriates and renews not only styles from Antiquity but also later
architects such as Ledoux, Gaudi, and Gabriel, Charles Jencks sees him as an
exemplary architect of what he has termed Free-Style Classicism in
Postmodernism: drawing inspiration from any period that has “developed the
classic archetypes (arch, dome, order etc)”[18]
A building that includes “essential types,
the major themes of the tradition: the arch/dome; the street/doorway/façade;
the Orders/the colosseum/palazzo; the temple/gable/aedicule”[19]
may be termed classical, whether or not the form is directly drawn from the
Greco-Roman period.
Thus the use of a
gable in Postmodern architecture is also an indication of classical pastiche. As
Marilyn Zurmuehlen notes, the gable is so ubiquitous in Postmodern architecture
that it seems mandatory.[20]
An example of such a gable is the Dolphin Hotel at Disneyworld, connected to
the Swan Hotel, both of which were designed by Michael Graves (1934-2015), a
notable American Postmodern architect. (1990, Figs. 5 and 6) The buildings were
commissioned by Disney head Michael Eisner as “entertainment architecture”[21];
Graves also designed Disney’s headquarters in Burbank California, and numerous
significant Postmodern peers were also involved with Disney, including Frank
Gehry, Aldo Rossi, Arata Isozaki, and Robert Stern, who designed the Yacht and
Beach Club Resorts.[22] The Disney
projects were highly controversial because they were seen to signify the
selling-out of the Postmodern movement as it transformed itself into
commercial, crowd-pleasing kitsch; a betrayal of the Postmodern avant-garde
ideal. By this point in time Postmodernism had emerged into the mainstream
after having started out as a counter-culture to Modernism, with Michael Graves
receiving dozens of new commissions––yet Jencks writes that his work began to
acquire a non-Contextualist aspect that prioritised Graves’ own personal
signature over the environment in which his buildings were set. This is
reminiscent of Bofill’s complaint that Modernists such as Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe represented “a technology and form language which could only be seriously
built in Chicago or New York,”[23]
a uniform style that pretended to be applicable everywhere. Indeed, the Swan
and Dolphin Hotels are so extravagantly Postmodern that it could be argued that
Graves has fallen into the trap of many successful artists: plagiarising his
own work over and over in order to sell to an audience that will recognise it. However,
Postmodern may have become a tradition, but the pluralism inherent in the
movement means that there are infinite possibilities to continue to explore.
Moreover, appealing to the masses does not need to be a negative thing, as this
essay argues that building avant-garde architecture for a wide audience is an
effective subversion of the ruling class’ stronghold on so-called high art. Although
Graves serves a corporate agenda, Disneyworld is one of the more accessible
travel destinations and likely to be visited by people from all income groups.
Despite comments
about Graves’ designs from the period, the Dolphin and Swan Hotels are clearly
Contextualist as they take the idea of Disney being “fun”[24] and push it
to its limit. Like all Postmodern buildings, it is pluralist and double-coded:
Graves created a design that would satisfy children and conventioneers alike.[25]
The bright colors that are typical of Postmodernism are utilised in contrasting
manners and are enhanced by the lights around the hotel at night. The Hotels
are posed on the water, with fountains throughout, again a classical reference.
The two giant swans on top of the Swan Hotel give the building an
anthropomorphic effect, as they resemble eyes. Versions of Corinthian columns
are everywhere: evoked in rows of evenly spaced palm trees whose foliage is
neatly trimmed so that their trunks are perfectly bare and straight and their
top leaves are short and radial; banana leaf sculptures installed inside the
Swan Hotel’s lobby (Fig. 7) resemble decontextualised capitals; and cylindrical
shapes jut out of the sharply linear perimeter of the Dolphin Hotel, capped by
what appear to be flowers with opened petals that could be interpreted as
highly simplified acanthus designs. By alluding classical orders in organic
forms, Graves reconciles the austerity of Antiquity with naturally-occurring,
straightforward symbols, reminding us that classical architecture is believed
to conform to nature’s absolute rules of proportion. The cartoonish dolphin
sculptures atop the Dolphin Hotel (Fig. 8) are quotations from Gian Lorenzo
Bernini’s famous Triton Fountain in Rome (Fig. 9): both are upside down, with
their mouths agape and on the ground, their bodies writhing, with wide eyes,
large scales, and abstracted whiskers on the sides of their faces. A
significant difference, however, is that Bernini’s dolphins brows are furrowed
and mouths are twisted so that they appear fierce, whereas Graves’ dolphins
have been given pupils and distinctive eyebrows to make them appear more
friendly––a light-hearted twist on his pastiche of Bernini’s Renaissance
design. On the Swan and Dolphin Hotels, Graves said, “I’ve tried to walk the
line between whimsical and jokey here. I’ve striven to navigate between the
chasm of the cute and abyss of easy irony, while serving the needs of the hotel
operators”[26]––another
example of double-coding within the project and an indication of the layers of
complexity. While some criticise the Hotels as being too literal, unlike
sophisticated architecture which is meant to present ideas in a subtle manner,[27]
these buildings are not “ducks”. Robert Venturi wanted Postmodern architecture
to be “decorated sheds, not ducks”[28],
where “ducks” were buildings whose form explicitly betrayed their function––for
instance, a duck-shaped building that sells duck-related products. Rather,
according to Venturi, a building should have a simple form with ornaments as
symbolic signs suggesting meanings. The Dolphin and Swan Hotels do not
represent an overly literal architecture because their function is not related
to dolphins or swans, but rather these iconic figures scattered repetitively
around the buildings embody their theme. The Hotels are a celebration of mass
culture because they are situated in the veritable temple of kitsch, Disney,
which has always, and will continue to, dominate the media produced for
commercial purposes, across genres––exemplified in its acquiring of Lucasfilms
(Star Wars) and Marvel Studios, whose franchises had previously rivalled Disney
itself. They both serve and ironise
the meanings of Disney and its packaged, all-inclusive theme park resorts.
Such pastiche has
been criticised by people such as Ada Louise Huxtable in 1992, who wrote that
the pastiche of icons results in a detachment from reality and living in
reality: “The replacement of reality with selected fantasy has been led first
by the preservation movement [e.g. Colonial Williamsburg] and then by a new,
successful and staggeringly profitable American phenomenon: the reinvention of
the environment as themed entertainment [e.g. Disney].”[29]
And yet allowing one’s fantasies to become material was precisely the intention
of Michael Graves and of Disney, and if Graves’ Hotels cause their visitors to
lose all connection of reality and immerse themselves within the fiction of
Disney, then they clearly fulfil their function as pawns of consumer culture.
In his exploration
of modern architecture’s engagement with the classical, Alan Colquhoun writes,
“it seems equally clear that the reintroduction of traditional stylistic
elements and structures into contemporary architecture does not in itself mean anything.” Indeed, the
Postmodern imitation of classical architecture is not isolated, as most Western
architecture since Antiquity has done the same––pastiche is only given meaning
through factors unique to the context in which Postmodernism operates. As a
reaction against the naïveté of Modernism that upheld Enlightenment concepts of
progress, reason, and science, Postmodernism questions the ontological reality
of such ideas, putting forth instead the notion that all knowledge is
interpretation, allowing viewers of Postmodern architecture to formulate their
own meanings. Realising that history is not a linear timeline of cause and
effect, pastiche is a way to confront the fact that culture has been hybridised
all along and that there are no distinctive categories such as the classical,
the gothic, or the modern. Postmodernism is not classical revival because it
rejects the traditional cyclical narrative of art; classicism as a concept
embodies all architecture that reveals the architect’s classical mindset, which
influences all of Western culture due to being its very foundations. Postmodernists
detach themselves from society, as Greenberg phrases the avant-garde attitude, therefore
being able to create collages from forms throughout history that speak of
society’s hypocrisy. Thus Postmodern pastiche must be considered in its
historical context, but Postmodernism itself dehistoricises architecture,
breaking the rigid conceptions of the history of art and the struggle between
the classical and the contemporary.
The reasons for
Postmodern pastiche, therefore, are as complex as the pastiche itself. As
Colquhoun writes elsewhere in his book, Postmodernism is defined as “not only
the revival of historical forms, but all those tendencies, apparently within
modernism itself, that have modified its original content.”[30]
Advancements in technology inevitably engender modification of classical forms;
even if Postmodern architects wished to slavishly copy Antiquity, their choice
of medium results in innovation and transcendance. Bofill is a significant
example: he pioneered the use of prefabrication in order to decrease costs of
materials and labor in France when building Abraxas.[31]
He incorporates Doric columns into Le Théâtre at Abraxas by placing them
intermittently between rows of windows, but uses black reflective glass panels,
so that public and private are intercalated as the columns allow us to see
ourselves on the outside and the windows allow us to see inside––a
juxtaposition of two conflicting ideas within eyeshot that is inherent in
Postmodernism. Bofill’s co-worker Hodgkinson acknowledges that the Taller’s
shift from historicism to classicism “is more easily understood when the whole
field of industrialisation and building technology is taken into account,
together with the enormous pressures to produce a marketable product.”[32]
Returning to Jencks’ description of what classical scholars despise about
Bofill’s work, it is because Bofill’s mass-housing architecture is seen as
“crude” simply because he has used the lower-cost resources at hand such as
concrete and prefabrication over hand-crafted sculpture.[33]
Bofill’s version of classical revivalism becomes pastiche because of its use of
new materials: as Jencks writes elsewhere, “On the one hand, there are the
demands of the existing language [the classical], its rules of combination and
the limitations of its imagery, on the other, there is pressure to use modern
fabrication techniques, for traditional materials and methods of construction
have become expensive. These opposite forces, combined with the creative will
of the designer, push straight revivalism toward a distortion of the stereotype.”[34]
The return to classicism can be exemplified by the machine-embracing Bofill on
one end, and Léon Krier, whose focus on vernacular architecture and artisanal
craft on the other reveals his and Prince Charles’ anxieties about the
radicalism of Modern and Postmodern architecture. While Krier’s work could be
classified as classical revival because of its sincere dedication to
traditional forms and lack of contemporary technology, Bofill effectively
creates classical pastiche. By showcasing his modernity, Bofill distances
himself from, and undercuts, the exclusive authority associated with classicism
and brings classical structures to the common people.
Postmodern
architecture’s use of anamnesis––suggested recollection[35]––is
to, as Jencks notes, “augment the experience of architecture by calling up
related examples which surround the building with a certain halo effect.”[36]
Anamnesis through pastiche is an intermediary that allows the audience to enter
into a dialogue with the building, so that the impersonality of the concept of
Art, with a capital A to demonstrate its concept as a transcendental human
element, becomes a familiar experience shared by all those who encounter and
use architecture. Indeed, Postmodernism is an art of inside knowledge, both
within and outside of architecture: it only truly functions if its audience is
able to understand the complexity behind its classical pastiche. As Zurmuehlen
writes, “part of Post-Modernism’s appeal surely is that it allows us to
display, if only to ourselves, our knowledge of prior aesthetic and cultura
lpluralism, our astute awareness of ironies and paradoxes.”[37]
The backlash from the public or Prince Charles simply reinforces the notion that
Postmodern theory is too advanced for the masses. Such an attitude is more
prevalent in Postmodernism than in other styles because it is fundamentally
based on pluralism and hybridity that can only be recognised by the knowing
few. Although the intentions of the architect are exclusive to those versed in Postmodern
theory, Postmodern architecture simultaneously encourages viewers to interpret
their own meanings regardless of the architect. Bofill says of Abraxas:
“Different readings of the buildings […] have yielded the eclectic vocabulary
which characterises this project.”[38]
Thus while the irony of Postmodernism may be alienating to the masses, making
it avant-garde art reserved for the elite who have the means to educate
themselves on Postmodern theory, its very nature also allows it to belong to
the masses as kitsch. By taking classical architecture and creating their own
versions of the columns and vestibules, which traditionally intimidated wider
audiences due to their connections to incomprehensible banks and ruins sagging
with history, and turning them into servants of common people, as well as their
enthusiastic inclusion of modern construction technologies in order to bring
these costs down and innovate new techniques, Ricardo Bofill and Michael Graves
aim to building Postmodern architecture for an equalised audience. Whether or
not they succeeded is another matter––Bofill’s urban utopia of Abraxas, which
was supposed to be an inclusive, integrated community, failed, with its
inhabitants hating their homes.[39]
The complex was recently featured as a set piece for an instalment of the
dystopian film franchise The Hunger
Games, where it represented the luxuries of the ruling class in a society
entrenched with drastic inequality––a fascist symbol, the very opposite of Bofill’s
original idea, which is sure to be upsetting. Despite his best intentions, Bofill
did not achieve his goals. Postmodernism may love the people, but do the people
love Postmodernism?
Bibliography
Camus, Elvire, ‘Ricardo Bofill: Je n’ai pas réussi à changer
la ville’, Le Monde (8 February
2014).
Colquhoun, Alan, Modernity
and the Classical Tradition: Architectural Essays 1980-1987 (Cambridge,
Massachusetts and London, 1989).
Doremus, Thomas L., Classical
Styles in Modern Architecture: from the Colonnade to Disjunctured Space (New
York, 1994).
Eco, Umberto, The Name
of the Rose (London, 2004).
Greenberg, Clement, ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ in his Art and Culture: Critical Essays
(Boston, 1961), pp. 3-21.
Hetherington, Peter, ‘The godfather of urban soul’, The Guardian (28 June 2006).
Hodgkinson, Peter,
‘A Personal Point of View’ in Taller de
Arquitectura: Ricardo Bofill (London, 1981), pp. 4-9.
Jencks, Charles, Architecture
Today (London, 1993).
–––––, ‘Free-Style Classicism’ in A. Papadakis and H. Watson
(eds.), New Classicism: Omnibus Volume
(London, 1996), pp. 156-62.
–––––, The Language of
Post-Modern Architecture (6th edn., London, 1991).
–––––, ‘Ricardo Bofill and the Taller – Six Characters in
Search of a Script’ in Taller de Arquitectura:
Ricardo Bofill (London, 1981), pp. 38-47.
MoMA, Ricardo Bofill
and Léon Krier: architecture, urbanism, and history (New York, 1985)
Murphy, Douglas, ‘Prince Charles’ 10 principles for
architecture – and 10 much better ones’, The
Guardian (27 December 2014).
Norberg-Schulz, Christian, ‘The Two Faces of Post-Modernism’
in A. Papadakis and H. Watson (eds.), New
Classicism: Omnibus Volume (London, 1996), pp. 156-62.
Whiteson, Leon, ‘Disney Design: Architecture: A new hotel
reflects company’s ambitious plan to tap some of the world’s most innovative
designers’, Los Angeles Times (25
January, 1990).
Zurmuehlen, Marilyn, ‘Post-Modernist
Objects: A Relation Between the Past and Present’, Art Education, 45 (1992),
pp. 10-16.
List of illustrations
Figure 1
Kuma, Kengo, M2
Building, 1991 (Tokyo). Image: ArchDaily.
Figure 2
Bofill, Ricardo, Les
Arcades du Lac, Le Viaduc, 1981 (Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines,
Paris). Image: Pinterest.
Figure 3
Bofill, Ricardo, Les
Arcades du Lac, 1981 (Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Paris). Image: ArchDaily.
Figure 4
Bofill, Ricardo, Le Théâtre & L’Arc from Les Espaces d’Abraxas, 1981 (Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines,
Paris). Image: Fête de la musique aux Espaces d’Abraxas.
Figure 5
Graves, Michael, Dolphin
Hotel, 1990 (Florida). Image: Dezeen.
Figure 6
Graves, Michael, Swan
Hotel, 1990 (Florida). Image: Dezeen.
Figure 7
Graves, Michael, interior of Swan Hotel, 1990 (Florida). Image: Stephen Brooke.
Figure 8
Graves, Michael, detail of Dolphin Hotel, 1990 (Florida). Image: Yesterland.
Figure 9
Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, Fontana
del Tritone, 1642-3 (Rome). Image: Pinterest.
[1]
L. Whiteson, ‘Disney Design: Architecture: A new hotel reflects company’s
ambitious plan to tap some of the world’s most innovative designers’, Los Angeles Times (25 January 1990).
[2]
E. Camus, ‘Ricardo Bofill: Je n’ai pas réussi à changer la ville’, Le Monde (8 February 2014).
[3]
A. Colquhoun, Modernity and the Classical
Tradition: Architectural Essays 1980-1987 (Cambridge, Massachusetts and
London, 1989), p. 6.
[4]
U. Eco, The Name of the Rose (London,
2004).
[5]
T. L. Doremus, Classical Styles in Modern
Architecture: from the Colonnade to Disjunctured Space (New York, 1994), p.
4.
[6]
Ibid., p. 2.
[7]
C. Greenberg, ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ in his Art and Culture: Critical Essays (Boston, 1961), p. 11.
[8]
Ibid., p. 9.
[9]
Ibid., p. 10.
[10]
Camus, ‘Ricardo Bofill’.
[11]
P. Hodgkinson, ‘A Personal Point of View’ in Taller de Arquitectura: Ricardo Bofill (London, 1981), p. 7.
[12]
C. Jencks, Architecture Today
(London, 1993), p. 166.
[13]
MoMa, Ricardo Bofill and Léon Krier:
architecture, urbanism, and history (New York, 1985), p. 5.
[14]
Hodgkinson, ‘A Personal Point of View’, p. 8.
[15]
C. Jencks, ‘Free-Style Classicism’ in A. Papadakis and H. Watson (eds.), New Classicism: Omnibus Volume (London,
1996), p. 159.
[16]
Greenberg, ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’, p. 6.
[17]
MoMa, Ricardo Bofill and Léon Krier,
p. 11.
[18]
Jencks, ‘Free-Style Classicism’, p. 160.
[19]
Ibid.
[20]
M. Zurmuehlen, ‘Post-Modernist Objects: A Relation Between the Past and
Present’, Art Education, 45 (1992),
p. 10.
[21]
Whiteson, ‘Disney Design’.
[22]
Ibid.
[23]
MoMa, Ricardo Bofill and Léon Krier,
p. 11.
[24]
C. Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern
Architecture (6th edn., London, 1991), p. 166.
[25]
Whiteson, ‘Disney Design’.
[26]
Ibid.
[27]
Ibid.
[28]
Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern
Architecture, p. 42.
[29]
Doremus, Classical Styles in Modern
Architecture, p. 4
[30]
Colquhoun, Modernity and the Classical
Tradition, p. 239.
[31]
Camus, ‘Ricardo Bofill’.
[32]
Hodgkinson, ‘A Personal Point of View’, p. 8.
[35]
Zurmuehlen, ‘Post-Modernist Objects’, p. 13.
[36]
C. Jencks, ‘Ricardo Bofill and the Taller – Six Characters in Search of a
Script’ in Taller de Arquitectura:
Ricardo Bofill (London, 1981), p. 45.
[37]
Zurmuehlen, ‘Post-Modernist Objects’, p. 14.
[38]
MoMa, Ricardo Bofill and Léon Krier,
p. 5.
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