Good post-modern buildings

[Hugh]

It was a strange time, and it yielded some strange buildings. Generally everyone sneers at them. But not all postmodernism was bad. Let's hear people's favourites.

My nomination for the best postmodern building in Britain: Jim Stirling's "Number One Poultry" in the City of London.

[GregF]

If there was anything good that came from Post-Modernism I suppose it would have to be a new found respect and sympathy for the architecture of the past.
Of course this went into overdrive and we got as well as the nausea flowery wallpaper, mahogany frames and furniture, cherub fountains etc...masquerading as chic.

Terry Farrells TVAM building across the water in Engerland would have to be ranked too for it's humourous egg in a cup decorations emulating the more traditional classical acorn motifs.

[Andrew Duffy]

The PPG Place complex in Pittsburgh is interesting. Not sure if I actually like it though.

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=121943

[Hugh]

That Pittsburgh thing is by Phillip Johnson, and he came damn near doing something similar in London in the 80s, round about where the Foster City Hall now is.

Bit of a jeu d'esprit - raises a smile. Which reminds me: surely Johnson's ATT building, the "Chippendale skyscraper" in New York, complete with broken pediment, might be one for our list?

[roskav]

Pumping station Isle of Dogs London yum yum

[Hugh]

Yes indeed, John Outram. more please...

[Andrew Duffy]

Chippendale skyscraper

This one?

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=115511

It's one of the most ridiculous looking buildings ever built, I'd say.

[aland]

"Best" examples of po mo Farrell's MI6 or MI5, whatever it's called. Or his Edinburgh Conference Centre or his Waterloo Station or is it Embankment............ The big Granite faced lump on the Thames and south of Covent Garden?

"Worse" example of po mo from an architect who should know better..........Clore Gallery at the Tate.

[aland]

This guy takes a bit of beating, the one and only Portland Building.

Philip J...... eat your heart out

http://www.architexturez.net/sub.gate/subject-listing/000109.shtml

[lexington]

God! Sony Tower (AT&T Building) is awful!

This picture below is of the Fairmont Dubai, in does kinda echo PPG Place but I think it has a strange element of elegance about it more prevalent than the latter. Though I can't say it's in my top favourite po-mo buildings.

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=131452

Another Fairmont Building that I have a soft spot for is this, the Hotel Vancouver -> love that copper roof!

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=112911


But THIS building, the Japan Center in Frankfurt, I dunno why, it just sticks with ya. Seeing it in real-life is far more impressive than through photo.

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=109786

[aland]

Lets not forget Farrells Peak Tower in Hong Kong, either. (Seems to be a thread working loose here)

Laugh?...........I nearly bought a drink
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/CIVCAL/book/peak.html

[lexington]

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=102052

Evil, yet arousing - this is the kinda building that should never leave paper.

[Hugh]

Blimey, Lexington, you've stumbled upon something there. The Triumph Palace? In Moscow? Taller than Frankfurt's Commerzbank and 100 times as wide, with a spire on top? Inspired by Stalin? Someone's having a laugh.

But who? No architect is named. And it's being built...

Russia adopted postmodernism later than the West, and seem to have stuck with it. As opposed to Stalin's neoclassicism, or as here mixed up with it.

[Hugh]

Alan, you're right to select Graves - surely America's best postmodernist (see also his Disney buildings) Farrell also, who I think gets a raw deal.

I'm probably alone in London in liking the MI6 building as a sort of 3D PoMo billboard. The Peak in Hong Kong is just a wonderful B-movie building, and you should like it because it replaced Ms. Hadid's first ever competition win.

True, Stirling's Clore is a big yawn. Then again, it is a fragment of a big masterplan that never got built...probably just as well. Poultry, however, I like more and more.

For me Farrell's best is the big aquarium called "the Deep" in Hull, where he shows that anyone can do a Libeskind if they mix things up a bit.

[aland]

that's cracker alright. "Evil yet arousing"......... good too.

God, how it all comes flooding back, I'd even forgot about the Humana Building.
http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=156938

Don't expect to sleep tonight now.

[aland]

When I just qualified I met Vivien Duffield of the Clore Foundation and wanting to make an impression was very complimentary to the Clore..............big mistake.

Agree about the Aquarium, the spa building in Edinburgh is good too. Can't understand how it could have come out of the same office, frankly.

[Hugh]

Late European postmodern: the Groningen museum by Mendini, Starck, Himmelblau etc:

http://www.groninger-museum.nl/gm/ie4/open.php?section=&subsection=&itemID=

Not very Dutch.

[sumatra]

big jim's art gallery in stuttgart and rossi's bonefanten (i don't konw if i spelled it correctly) museum.

[aland]

oooooooooooohhh Stuttgart Staatsgalerie. How we all drooled in 1983.

And the Performing Arts Centre at Cornell, Fog Museum at Harvard and the never to be forgoten Wissensh.....Wessenschaft
.......Wassenshi..............Berlin Science Centre.

In those days you never saw Michael Graves and Jim Stirling together, could have been the same person.

As for Rossi, would you describe his work as post modern, seemed to me it never changed since 1964?

[phil]

Has anyone been to Poundbury?

[Paul Clerkin]

Originally posted by aland
oooooooooooohhh Stuttgart Staatsgalerie. How we all drooled in 1983.

And the Performing Arts Centre at Cornell, Fog Museum at Harvard and the never to be forgoten Wissensh.....Wessenschaft
.......Wassenshi..............Berlin Science Centre.

The Wissenschaftszentrum ..... a startling building especially when after viewing the classical reticence of Mies' Neue Nationalgalerie

[shonagon53]

I like some of the Philippe Starck buildings (Nani Nani, the Beer Hall etc...).



Check him out at his ugly website: http://www.philippe-starck.net under "architecture & interiors".

For the rest, I'm not such a fan of pomo architecture.


Monstruous beer hall, Tokyo.





It's called the Nani Nani, also Tokyo.

[Hugh]

Got to include this one: Edward Durrell Stone's 2 Columbus Circle in New York. Completed 1964, which makes Stone one of the early Postmodernists (he was also joint architect of the late 30s Museum of Modern Art, back in his International Style days).

Designed as an art museum, currently empty, threatened by re-skinning plans to turn it into a design museum. The perforated marble facade would be hidden.

Columbus Circle, right at the bottom corner of Central Park, is now dominated by a grossly overscaled and underwhelming SOM skyscraper development. Next to it, Stone's little building is a jewel.

[Paul Clerkin]

a MAD building, looks like it should be in South America.... would be great to get inside it.....



interesting conservation battle in new york
http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2568&highlight=durrell

[BRG23]

i am facinated by every single one of them, i am a early learner, that is facinated by architectural