Radical Post-Modernism and Content: A Debate

Author: Charles Jencks & Rem Koolhaas (transcribed/ed. Eva Branscome)
Year: 2009 (Architectural Design)
Source type: article (debate transcript)
Raw file: raw/articles/jencks-koolhaas-2009-radical-postmodernism.md

Summary

A debate between Jencks and Koolhaas (28 December 2009) on "radical post-modernism" and content. They discuss the 1980 Venice Biennale ("subversion from within"), the iconic building and the "enigmatic signifier," Koolhaas's houses/route buildings (Casa da Musica, CCTV, Seattle Library), the generative section, and content/branding — including Koolhaas's EU/e-conology project (the bar code flag). Central themes: communication and content as the condition of a "radical" architecture today; the architect's (im)potence; and the ambiguous (anti-)value of the iconic.

Key Claims

• Radical post-modernism and content: Jencks: "A building has to be content-driven to be radical today, and that content must be public and significant." The iconic building's "mixed metaphor" and "enigmatic signifier" communicate "on many levels, and to many different kinds of people."
• The iconic building and its context: Koolhaas reads "iconic" neutrally ("opposed to Second World War architecture"); the Casa da Musica (Porto) is "both strong and weak," like CCTV — "from certain angles really impressive, and from other angles completely and deliberately unimpressive. That explains their oscillating relationship with the context." The CCTV client "explicitly asked for" an icon; the jury chose the "anti-skyscraper" over the "301st skyscraper."
• Who is the audience? Koolhaas: "Definitely not architects, but to some extent the clients, and of course more than anything the public at large" — in Porto "you can be a participant without even being inside." Jencks: icons as "lightning rods" necessarily attacked by iconoclasts.
• The architect's impotence: "you're omnipotent when you're getting the job and then impotent when it starts"; "you're dependent on the initiative of somebody else, then ... on the economy, and then the politics." Jencks: "I don't think a building has ... autonomy that it can complete itself"; Koolhaas has nostalgia for the Gesamtkunstwerk but "the current culture has an absolute phobia of sharing."
• Content/branding (EU): Koolhaas's EU work (e-conology, the bar code flag) addresses the EU's "iconographic deficit" and "invisibility"; Jencks critiques the bar code as "the triumph of the economy over nationhood," offering his own rising-sun variant. EU architecture: "glob-cult"/"mid-cult" (Jencks), "everything is more generic" (Koolhaas).

Connections

Concepts: Iconic Architecture · Star Architecture · Critical Architecture · Consumerism
Authors: Charles Jencks · Rem Koolhaas
Debates: Spectacle vs. Function · Critical vs. Projective
Related source notes: The Iconic Building Is Here to Stay (Jencks 2006)

Direct Quotes

"A building has to be content-driven to be radical today, and that content must be public and significant." (Jencks)

"[I]t is both strong and weak, and in that sense it has a lot in common with our CCTV building ... That explains their oscillating relationship with the context." (Koolhaas)

"[Y]ou're omnipotent when you're getting the job and then impotent when it starts." (Koolhaas)

"[A]n icon will be a lightning rod for people who don't agree with you." (Jencks)

Open Questions

• Does "content-driven" radical post-modernism (Jencks) offer a real alternative to spectacular star-architecture, or is it compatible with — even a rationalization of — the iconic/celebrity economy (cf. the "anti-skyscraper" CCTV commission)?