Postmodernism

Definition

Postmodernism names the cultural, architectural, and philosophical shift away from the certainties of modernism — embracing pluralism, pastiche, historicism, and the collapse of high/low distinctions. In architecture, it is associated with the rejection of Modernist purity (form follows function, truth to materials) in favor of symbolism, ornament, historical reference, and communicative legibility. Fredric Jameson theorizes it as the "cultural logic of late capitalism"; Charles Jencks identifies it with "double-coding"; Venturi and Scott Brown champion its embrace of commercial vernacular and the "decorated shed."

Key Thinkers

• Fredric Jameson — postmodernism as cultural logic of late capitalism; the Bonaventure Hotel as postmodern hyperspace.
• Charles Jencks — double-coding, enigmatic signifier, the language of postmodern architecture.
• Robert Venturi — complexity and contradiction; the decorated shed as postmodern alternative to Modernist purity.
• Denise Scott Brown — commercial vernacular, learning from Las Vegas.
• Hal Foster — postmodernism of resistance vs. reaction.

Related Concepts

• modernism — the movement postmodernism reacts against.
• modernism — the architectural tradition postmodernism challenges.
• decorated-shed — Venturi and Scott Brown's postmodern alternative to the duck.
• the-duck — the Modernist tendency postmodernism critiques.
• iconic-architecture — contemporary manifestation of postmodern monumentality.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• venturi-1977-learning-from-las-vegas
• hawthorne-2023-fifty-years-learning-from-las-vegas
• jameson-1983-postmodernism-cultural-logic-late-capitalism

Open Questions

• How does postmodernism's legacy continue in contemporary parametricism and digital architecture?
• Is the "critical/projective" debate a continuation of postmodernism's internal tensions?