GRGR(29) - The Grid, The Comb

[Mark Wright AIA]

Howdy

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
 
> Charles Jencks was talking about "post-Modernist" architecture as
> early as
> 1975 as well, and his notion of "double-coding" was a really
> important one
> across the board I think; but there had been lots of rumblings and
> monographs on individual writers in the late 50s, 60s and early
> seventies -

If architecture is going to enter into this momo-pomo discussion, here,
then I would refer everyone to Robert Venturi's great book (written in
1962) "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture" where he champions
an architecture of realism in which the manifold complications and
inconsistencies of life as it is lived are accepted and used as the raw
material for the creation of art at the highest possible level.
Mechanisms by which this occurs include (quoted/paraphrased from
Venturi and Scott-Brown's subsequent book "Learning From las Vegas"):

"double-functioning or vestigial elements, circumstantial distortions,
expedient devices, eventful exceptions, exceptional diagonals, things
in things, crowded or contained intricacies, linings or layerings,
residual spaces, redundant spaces, ambiguities, dualities, difficult
wholes, (and) the phenomena of both/and (....) inclusion,
inconsistency, compromise, accommodation, adaptation, superadjacency,
equivalence, multiple focus, juxtaposition, or good *and* bad space."  

With one or two excisions, this list could neatly describe many of
Pynchon's devices and methods.

Though the book is intended for an audience of architects, it is so
beautifully written and thoughtfully argued that even you literary
types (no offense) will enjoy it, and learn from it.  

In contrast, Jencks was a journalist, borrowing his licks to suit the
gig.

Mark

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites.
http://invites.yahoo.com/