Wednesday, January 30, 2008

boo boo bear... venturi reading (handout) 1/30

I am not going to lie; I do not have a clue what I just read. After reading this article for the third time, to keep my sanity I am just going to give my two cents on postmodern architecture and art (I think was the subject of this article).

“Inevitably art and architecture must represent this paradoxical view, the oxymoron of ‘disharmonious harmony’, and it is there for not surprising that we find countless formal paradoxes in postmodern work such as ‘asymmetrical symmetry’, ‘syncopated ‘proportion’, ‘fragmented purity’, ‘unfinished whole’ and ‘dissonant unity’.”

This sentence is full of oxymoronic phrases describing postmodern art and architecture. What I really think this sentence is trying to say is that post modern art and architecture can be described as ugly beauty. I am not even really sure what classifies something as postmodern art or postmodern architecture but I did a google image search of postmodern art and architecture and got a sense of what it is. Some of the pictures and buildings were pretty cool looking but some of them just looked stupid. It looks like to me someone can just arbitrarily place random figures and shapes together and call it art. I am sure somehow it can be considered genius but I do not see it. Another picture from the google search was just a painting of a urinal. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!? If someone thinks that is genius there is something wrong with you!

There are some buildings that I saw that were pretty cool though. They don’t really make sense to me but I could look at some of them for hours and still be confused as to how they are even still standing. I wonder if the Leaning Tower of Pisa was discovered today, would we consider that postmodern architecture.

One of my favorite buildings of all time is the Wonder Works building. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think this theme park type fun house could be considered postmodern architecture. Below is the link to a picture of this place. I hope it works .

http://www.floridahome-rental.com/images/wonderworks.jpg

1 comment:

Notorious Dr. Rog said...

good struggle with the reading even if you feel you don't understand it: I like your concept of ugly beauty