Annotated Mona Lisa, The - Strickland, Carol [141]
An experimental urge also entered his calculations. When he saw the Minimalist sculpture of Carl Andre and Donald Judd, made of firebricks and plywood, Gehry said he got interested in “the idea that you could make art out of anything.” He also liked the informal air these “anti-aesthetic” materials gave a design.
Gehry has also designed Post-Modern buildings that express their purpose through form. His Loyola Law School in Los Angeles (1985) has sleek columns and spaces that echo the stoa (columned pavilion) and agora (open meeting area) of ancient Greece, the birthplace of Western law. The California Aerospace Museum bursts with dynamism in jutting angles that suggest flight.
A quirky individual who tries to insinuate a fishlike form into every building, Gehry’s work is as unique as his outlook. “I am trying to respond to a particular time,” he said, “because I don’t think you can escape.”
Gehry & Associates, California Aerospace Museum, 1984, Los Angeles. Gehry’s forms seem on the verge of lift-off in this design that reflects the building’s purpose.
VENTURI: LESS IS A BORE. If Frank Gehry is the wild man of Post-Modernism, American architect Robert Venturi (b. 1925) is Everyman. The leading theoretician of Post-Modernism, Venturi demolished Mies’s famous “less is more” with his counterattack: “less is a bore.” In several influential books like Learning from Las Vegas he argued that architecture should accept not only historical styles but respect “dumb and ordinary” vernacular buildings. As Venturi put it, “Main Street is almost all right.”
Venturi practices what he preaches. He believes architecture should accommodate a multiplicity of styles, so in one structure (a vacation lodge in Vail, Colorado) he combined sources as diverse as the Swiss chalet, Palladio, Art Nouveau, and the International Style of Le Corbusier. More than anyone, he is credited with inventing the jaunty pluralism of Post-Modern architecture.
In Guild House, a home for retirees in Philadelphia, Venturi deliberately made the design unassuming and unpretentious. He used Pop poster-style lettering and crowned the arch that serves as focal point with a television antenna. The brick building puts on no airs, makes no big statement, and blends in thoroughly with its undistinguished neighbors. Critics have faulted this intentional banality. “Don’t take it so hard,” his partner John Rauch told Venturi when they lost another commission. “You’re only a failure. I’m an assistant failure.”
Recently Venturi has completed major projects, such as buildings for the Princeton University campus faced with a red-and-white checkerboard motif like the Purina Dog Chow logo. His Sainsbury Wing of London’s National Gallery (1991) is a collection of irreverent historical allusions, and his colorful Seattle Art Museum (1991) has the same playful quality.
AN ARCHITECTURAL SURVEY
Throughout the book, references to the evolution of architecture appear. Page 39 covered Renaissance architecture, for instance, and page 146 dealt with the International Style. Here’s a quick rundown of major names in the history of Western architecture.
BIRTH OF ARCHITECTURE
STONEHENGE — most famous megalithic monument used for ritual purposes, c. 2000 B.C.
ZIGGURAT — stepped, mudbrick temple designed as meeting place for man and gods in Sumer, c. 2100 B.C.
PYRAMID — gigantic monument for dead pharaoh; first named architect, Imhotep, built stepped pyramid for Egyptian King Zoser, c. 2780 B.C.
PARTHENON — Iktinos and Phidias perfected Greek Doric temple style, 447-432 B.C.
PANTHEON — best example of Roman monumental architecture, fully exploited arch, vaults, dome, concrete, c. A.D. 118-28
BYZANTINE — Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus supported dome of Hagia Sophia by pendentives to allow flood of light, 532-37
ROMANESQUE — church style with massive piers and towers, round-topped arches like St. Sernin, begun c. 1080
GOTHIC — vault supported by flying buttresses, strong vertical orientation and