Greenhouses, Boathouses & Pumping Stations
A study of three unique Postmodern buildings that portray meaningful commentary on contemporary society.
Counter-Modernism
The ancient Greek temple form has become so ubiquitous in the fabric of London that its complex 2000 year development of layers of meaning, political ambition and symbolism are often overlooked and unknown.
It has become instead merely a Quasi-Classical sleight of hand which uses the historic forms sparingly to give the perception of prestige to what are essentially brick boxes. We have seen this process played out on a grand scale with the Georgian and Pseudo-Georgian great estates speculation boom during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The foremost example of which can be found in the area surrounding Russell square and later nineteenth century examples of Thomas Cubitt around Bloomsbury.
The designs of this period hijack the Classical style purely as a means to give prestige to mass housing speculations, a trend which continues today with evidence showing that simply the presence of the so-called Georgian aesthetic or neo-traditional style can increase property prices by up to 15%.
But beyond the command of market forces, the Classical style, and more specifically the portico form, have much more to give than a mere feeling of status. They have woven into their simple forms a plethora of political reappropriation, symbolic meaning, and taboo, which traverses its long historic development.
Umberto Eco writes about this characteristic of architecture as a relationship between a primary and secondary function. The primary function according to Eco, refers to either the form or the function of the architectural space, a roof has a requirement to shelter the inhabitant, for example.
What is interesting about the Classical style is when you consider its reading from what Eco describes as the secondary function, it metaphorical, symbolic or connotative quality. The roof when read from this perspective can be seen in many ways, for example as an upside-down boat, a primitive hut or as the wings of an eagle which give consent to the ritual of animal sacrifice which is happening within an ancient Greek temple.
Although not written about directly until Eco in the 1980’s and 90’s, it is this often subconscious secondary function which provides such a rich layering of connotative meaning to the Classical language.
If this is so, and the Classical style is loaded with such powerful imagery, what relevance do these layers of classical metaphor have in our contemporary society?
During the twentieth century, London experienced a period of symbolic and historical cleansing with the arrival of the Modernism city-machine. Classicism during this time became the taboo, reference to historicism and context shut down very quickly in favour of ideals of efficiency and visions of the future city.
Considering the ferociousness of this movement, the scale of which had not been seen before, it is no surprise then that what followed soon after was an equally bold rebuttal against these ideals, in favour of a more contextually rich, referential style, what would only later be branded as Postmodernism.
Postmodernism in this context is not a style, but the state of mind of being averse to the almost universally accepted ideology of the period which ran alongside it during the mid-to-late twentieth century; more Counter-Modernism than Postmodernism.
The result of this strong reaction against contextless, object architecture was profound, with its existence as a reactionary statement resulting in some of the richest layering’s of context and history ever seen in singular building forms.
In the context of reading these buildings as a reaction against a state of mind, rather than as a stylistic movement in and of themselves, the quality of their design and composition become apparent. If this ‘statement architecture’ is so, this raises a second overarching question;
How is it that historic forms of Classicism can be re-appropriated to portray a meaningful commentary on contemporary society?
The mindset which is common amongst those who practice in the so-called Postmodern movement (most at the time did not brand themselves as such), was first publicly promoted in the USA by Denise Scott-Brown and Robert Venturi, through their controversial teaching studio at the University of Pennsylvania.
They began promoting a more poetic appreciation for the architecture which results from popular culture in their publication Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture first published in 1966, an idea which was unheard of at the time. Their later works with Steven Izenour in Learning from Las Vegas in 1972 reconfirmed this interest in a more delicate appreciation of contemporary culture, everyday life and history which they deemed absent from the Modernist movement at the time in which they were working.
This work planted a seed for the revolution to begin and eventually made its way across the Atlantic to the UK with writers such as Charles Jencks announcing the death of Modernism with the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing scheme in St Louis on 15th July 1972 at 3.32pm.
This very design methodology of architecture which reflects the context in which it exists, in Venturi Scott Brown’s case popular culture, is the reason for the distinction between American and British Postmodernism which followed soon after. The British architects who picked up on this methodology, primarily John Outram, Sir Terry Farrell, James Stirling, and Jeremy Dixon, did so in a manner which delicately layered historic reference with British popular culture, to create some uniquely British designs.
This essay series will delve into the stories behind three unique buildings chosen to exemplify how historic forms of Classicism can be re-appropriated to portray a meaningful commentary on contemporary society. All of the buildings share four distinct characteristics:
- They were built during the 1980s, a potent time in the UK for the experimentation of reactionary theory against Modernist principles.
- They all exist with a relationship to the River Thames and therefore to London itself, the city stage where the political and stylistic trends at the time played out most spectacularly.
- They all represent a uniquely British interpretation of the reaction against the Modernist ideologies resulting from their primary purpose and context.
- Arguably most important in the context of this essay series is that each of these buildings manipulates the formal qualities of the ancient Greek temple, and the hidden metaphors woven into each element, to provide a commentary on both popular culture and wider society at the time.
Whilst these buildings share a great deal of characteristics, they differ in their primary internal function and intended length of existence. What results therefore are three entirely different interpretations and therefore statements about the relevance of historic styles of architecture in contemporary society, in this case, Classicism.
The essays which follow will analyse these three case studies in great detail, to expose the character of their relationship with Classical principles of design, and the manner of their re-appropriation of it for contemporary symbolic meaning.
“Temple of Storms” Pumping Station, John Outram, 1986–1988
Clifton Nurseries, Sir Terry Farrell, 1980–1988
Henley Royal Regatta Headquarters, Sir Terry Farrell, 1984–86
References:
Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, 6th Edition (London: Academy Editions, 1991).
George L Hersey, The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture: Speculations on Ornament from Vitruvius to Venturi (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998).
John Summerson, The Classical Language of Architecture (London: Methuen, 1963).
Marc-Antoine Laugier, Essai Sur l’architecture, ed. by Wolfgang Herrmann and Anni Herrmann, 1977 Trans (Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, 1753).
Robert Venuri, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 2nd Edition (London: The Architectural Press, 1977).
Sir Banister Fletcher, Palladio: His Life and Works (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1902).
Umberto Eco, ‘Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory’, in Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture, ed. by Neil Leach (London: Routledge, 1997).
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