Postmodernism 2

In this class we learn more about the postmodernism. We learn about ‘duck building’ case, where the form of the building is made to look like a duck that follows the function of the building that sells things related to the duck. These buildings even though it looks funny and looks like a joke but we can’t ignore it as it clearly demonstrates form follow function. The form follows function in this building has been expressed more clearly than any building the modernist has done!! So it is really interesting to see this case study. In this class we also looked at Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouve. After we looked at these architect and the ideas behind their buildings, I started to get some idea about the thinking behind the teaching in our design studio. Zaha’s building where capturing the pulse of the city and translated into the architecture, is very much like the site analysis that we are doing before we start in designing something. Also we also learn the reason behind the very extreme shapes and forms of Frank Gehry buildings. He was saying that the forms of the building would also perform as a function to the building. I actually agreed with this, the building which has a wonderful forms, would stunned the people right from the outside and would create the better impression to the people from the moment that they sees the building. This would be a really great thing, and would benefit the people a lot. However I’m not really sure about to what extend the architect should push the form to, because many of these forms did not work as a good usage space for the person inside, especially in Frank Gehry building where the forms outside is just decorative. In term of the financial aspect I’m not really sure for the owner of the project to do something right that, because the space inside the building would be reduced, and the cost of building would be higher. I also agreed with Jean Nouvel, where he saying that the modernists could not express themselves that well. The building that would express the purity of the geometrical forms and the construction details would be making sense in the view of the architects, but this would not be much appreciable by the normal people. So the wonderful forms those are much more than nothing would probably be more attractive than the purity in the forms in the eye of the normal people. So if it for me to choose between the modernist and the postmodernist, now I would probably choose the late postmodernist, like Zaha’s where there are clear reason and logic behind the forms. This would give the building more sophisticated quality and at the same time have the visual aesthetics. But I would go against the early postmodernist where they are doing thing just to tell that they are not modernist and has add up unnecessary structure which come out of unclear logic. However I think that It would be possible and would even be better to integrate the honesty of the modernist with the extreme forms of the postmodernists, I think that would be really interesting.