Paean to Postmodernism: A Book Review

Postmodern Design Complete, 2017, by Judith Gura, Thames & Hudson, Ltd., London and New York.

You may have forgotten Postmodern design, assuming you’re old enough to remember it. Now comes an exuberant celebration of the movement, barely lift-able at 480 pages, 9-1/2″ by 12″, on fine stock, with 580 color illustrations. It documents PoMo’s accomplishments – some famous during its heyday, some relatively unknown. Supporting this visual smorgasbord are thoughtful texts by design historian Judith Gura and several guest authorities.

Postmodernism seemed to have fizzled out by the early 1990s. And for many in the design professions, it was “Good riddance.” But the issues that inspired the movement, starting in the 1960s, were never fully resolved. The PoMo insurgents rebelled against the strictures of Modernism – its limited focus on function and structure – which was not producing the new world it had promised. They pointed out that symbolism and ornament remained deeply significant to the public, that harmony with the existing built context was essential.

Once they realized that Postmodernism was a serious threat, the adherents to Modernism fought back fiercely. They had waged a decades-long crusade against the previous recycling of historical styles, and it wasn’t till the late 1940s that they had succeeded, dominating the design schools and major firms. Modern design had become the accepted mode for commercial and public buildings of all kinds (while scoring only scattered victories among single-family houses). From their hard-won dominant position, the Modernists succeeded, after a couple of decades, in dismissing PoMo as a mere bump along the path toward a destined design future.

The book effectively traces the growth and salient accomplishments of the Postmodernists in the design of buildings, interiors, furniture, objects, and graphics. It summarizes and vividly illustrates works by recognized leaders of the movement, such as the Americans Robert Venturi, Michael Graves, Charles Moore and Robert A.M. Stern, architects who designed iconic PoMo buildings.

While the others in that group designed mainly buildings, plus some influential writings and notable furniture, Graves covered a broader swath of design disciplines. His 1980s furniture showrooms for Sunar Hauserman were among the key landmarks of the movement, along with furniture offered there. But his works ranged in scale from office buildings, libraries, museums, and hotels to his whimsical 1985 teakettle for Alessi, of which millions have been sold – and it’s still in production.

The book summarizes and illustrates the work of other well-known PoMo designers from several countries, among them Ettore Sottsass of Italy, Arata Isozaki of Japan, Hans Hollein of Austria, and Leon Krier of Luxembourg. Also contributing significantly to the movement were Chicagoans Stanley Tigerman and Thomas Beeby, Terry Farrell and John Outram of England, Ricardo Bofill of Spain, Philippe Starck of France, Paolo Portoghesi and Gaetano Pesce of Italy. Charles Jencks of London, best known as the chronicler of the movement in books and essays, is revealed as an inventive designer as well.

Jura’s book reminds us that some major architects not known primarily as Postmodernists, such as the American Frank Gehry and the Italian Aldo Rossi, did dabble in the quotations from historical design typical of the movement. Hardly represented in the book is architect Philip Johnson, who vacillated wildly between styles, but gave America some of its boldest Postmodern structures.

An essay by design curator R. Craig Miller draws a distinction between “Radical Postmodernism,” which played mainly with disrupting our expectations for geometries and colors, and “Historical Postmodernism,” which introduced forms and motifs from earlier styles. Either version may also display references to Pop imagery derived, for instance, from the era’s jukeboxes and retail strips.

It’s inevitable today to ask: Where are the women in this movement? Denise Scott Brown, Venturi’s wife and professional partner, contributes a thoughtful essay to the book and gets fair credit for their influential PoMo guidebook, Learning from Las Vegas, but Venturi had produced the cornerstone text of the movement, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, before she joined him.

The chapter where women get equal treatment is the one on graphic design, where the contributions of April Greiman, Katherine McCoy, and Deborah Sussman are impressive matches for those of Michael Bierut, Seymour Chwast and Michael Vanderbyl. This portion of the book is a valuable reminder of the bold innovations then taking place in graphics, comparable to those in other design areas.

Is the book an appropriately color-drenched memorial to a bygone movement? Or is it a herald of Postmodernism’s revival, as the latest phases of Modernism begin to seem tiresome. Gura maintains that reports of Pomo’s demise in the 1990s were premature, while pointing out that it broadly influenced the work of those who never joined it. She concludes there’s little point in speculating on the movement’s revival, since “it never left.”