After a considerable amount of time dedicated to the period of the modernists,
we moved further and entered the postmodern era, the period where most of us
could relate to, It is the period that shaped our concept and value, it’s the
breakthrough from the conformity of the glass boxes and values the uniqueness,
individuality rather than uniformity of the modern period. During the peak of
the modern period, people seek for order and uniformity since all was lost
during the war and there’s the need to “starting from zero” and rewrite a new
history. Postmodernism opposed
this idea by looking back at the past and used them as the inspirations, the
shapes and forms all which is embedded into our generation’s head, thus, when
we think of a house, Mies’ glass boxes didn’t make the first image in our mind,
instead, most of us with think of a rectangular houses with pinch roofs, thanks
to the birth of post modernism.
To understand the concept of
postmodernism, it would be crucial to mention Venturi’s theory of the
“decorated shed” as counterpart of the duck house, the duck house is a house
that is obvious of its purpose, it sells duck eggs, however the decorated shed
represent an architecture of ambiguity, without a sign (hence, decoration), the
identity of the building remains ambiguousม, Thus, the purpose, function of the
shed is determined by the decoration such as the sign. This concept became a
significant point in understanding postmodern architecture, as opposing to the
purity and clarity of the previous era of modernism. Postmodernism avoided
clarity and the “either-or” concept of modern architecture, postmodern prefers
“both-and”, which overall, makes the postmodern building very broad and
somewhat generic in concept. While the modernists would choose either black or
white, the postmodernists would go for “black and white…or sometimes grey”,
they values the ambiguity, complexity and contradiction in architecture. Furthermore, Venturi also commented
some of the modernists’ famous work to be quite complex and contradiction in
its manner, basically saying that actually, these buildings fall into his
categories of postmodernism, such example would be Le Corbusier’s masterpiece,
the Villa Savoye, where he said, despite the plain and simplistic exterior, the
plan of the interior present complexity and this is a contradiction to modern
architecture overall.
Personally, I’ve found
Venturi’s theory to be not as strong as Le Corbusier, not that I prefer
modernism more than postmodernism but his way of getting his point across in
his manisfesto is harder to understand and interpret. Saying that, I do
understand his decorated shed theory and how postmodernism is all about the
ambiguity in opposition to the clarity and transparency of modernism, to put it
simply, I think Venturi’s architecture failed to make an impression in my head,
thus I might not understand his intention fully, as I recognized Venturi’s
point more strongly when he used the Villa Savoye as an example. Another reason
why I might feel that Venturi’s point is weaker than most of the modernists’
might be because that we’re as a generation, so used to the idea of
postmodernism already, it seems quite ordinary to the point of mundane to us,
thus I felt that Venturi didn’t surprise me, or create that “realizing moment”
that Le Corbusier did in “Towards new Architecture”.
Beside that, I felt quite strange when I think that an architecture that
embodied Venturi’s postmodern concept of the decorated shed is the shop houses
here in Bangkok, think about it, like a shed, a shop house is utterly generic
and mundane in the exterior, yet the function and its purpose of it is defined
by the decoration such as signage and facades similar to the decorated shed.
However, the interior of shop houses and be quite different from each other,
each shop house could be adjusted to be unique in its own way, thus in the
interior it represents the complexity and contradiction to the exterior. Hence,
this idea can also be applied to erotic architecture since I defined erotic as
being mysterious and ambiguous, it draws us in and urge us to explore and
investigate, which during this process, interaction and even intimacy could
occur. Similarly the shop house and postmodern architectures might looks quite
mundane, but the interior could represent a different story, personally, I’m
always fascinated each time I got to go inside and “explore” beyond the “shop
area” of a shop house. Each floors can be quite exciting and I’m in a way,
always find something quite surprising during this experience. Thus, that’s why
I felt that a shop house embodied this idea of a decorated shed and represent
complexity and contradiction. This idea also embodies erotic architecture, the
unclear and ambiguity of the architecture teases us, lures us in to explore,
and while doing so, captivated us with its tightness, compact and unique
quality which had become the identity of its own.
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