DECONSTRUCTION ARCHITECTURE

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        Related: Architectural Deconstruction                                  Page URL: http://library.thinkquest.org/26491/db-s...



                                                                    Deconstruction
                                            In the 1980's a new tendency was born: the deconstruction, which was also
                                            called "new modern architecture" in its beginning. It was meant to replace post
Atrium                                      modern architecture. A very significant difference of this style is that it started
  Sitemap                                   rather from an intellectual movement than from a significant building marking it's
  Tours                                     beginning. The new slogan was "form follows fantasy" analogous to the tradition
     Overview Tour (*)                      formula pronounced by Sullivan "form follows function". In 1988 Philip Johnson
     Insight Tour (*)                       organized an exposition called "Deconstructive Architecture" which finally
                                            brought these ideas to a larger audience. Those ideas even had a philosophical
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                                            base developed by Jacques Derrida.
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                                            The idea was to develop buildings which show how differently from traditional
Main                                        architectural conventions buildings can be built without loosing their utility and
                                            still complying with the fundamental laws of physics. The houses looked as if a
 General
                                            bunch of parts had been thrown together and left exactly the way they fell on the
 Technical
                                            floor. These buildings can be seen as a parallel to other modern arts, which also
Styles                                      became more and more abstract, questioning whether a certain object is still art
                                            or not. Thanks to their significant differences to all other buildings, the
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                                            deconstructive ones made clear to the observer, that architecture is an art and
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                                            not just an engineering discipline. This movement was also inspired by the
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                                            futurists of the early 20th century in Russia who also broke with all architectural
  Building list                             conventions of their time. Because the deconstructive houses were huge
                                            abstract sculptures you can enter rather than real buildings, the number of
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                                            realized works is rather small. Due to the high costs and the fact that big
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                                            companies were not interested in such buildings for their representative
  3D Applet Documentation                   skyscrapers and even less for their functional buildings, only small projects for
  3D Gallery                                the public sector or private clients were realized. Like the new roof for a lawyers
  Contest (*)                               office realized in 1983 until 1984 in Vienna by COOP Himmelblau.
(*) Only available for recent               It looks like an arch under tension, dominating the classic building. The fact that
browsers.                                   COOP Himmelblau was founded in 1968 also gives a small indication on the
                                            opposition this generation sought in architecture, including everything that has
                                            been done before.

                                            Another example is the Hyper-Solar Institute in Stuttgart, Germany by Behnisch
                                            which shows many classic motives like leaned window frames or absolutely
                                            disproportional blocks combined with very contrasting colors and useless steel
                                            constructions.
                                            Zaha Hadid shows with her fire station in Weil on the Rhine, Germany, that
                                            deconstructive architecture is also possible with concrete and very little glass
                                            and steel. She was also a member of a group of architects who constructed the
                                            Follies 1982-1990.
                                            Other members of this group were Bernhard Tschumi and Frank O. Gehry who
                                            even constructed 1978 his own house in Santa Monika CA with trash materials
                                            usually used by the third world population to build their barracks.
                                            They show structures that are even more absurd than those of other
                                            deconstructive buildings. Others often only modified the facade of their
                                            buildings, but these pavilions go even further. They have staircases leading
                                            nowhere or pylons supporting absolutely nothing. Already their names indicate
                                            the idea behind them.




                                            Finally Daniel Liebeskind could realize in Berlin 1999 his "Jewish Museum" as
                                            an extension of the Berlin Museum which is such an important work of art that it
                                            attracts the visitors attention in a way that the art expositions in it are almost