This Friday is the Centre for Building Research (VUW) symposium on 1980’s architecture. Robert Venturi is the designated Godfather of Po-Mo architecture because the publication of ‘Learning From Las Vegas’ (2nd ed. 1977). But I prefer his earlier treatise, Complexity and Contradiction, where Venturi cites Paul Rudolf’s critique of Mies:
All problems can never be solved, indeed it is a characteristic of the twentieth century that architects are highly selective in determining which problems they want to solve. Mies, for instance, makes wonderful buildings only because he ignores many aspects of a building. If he solved more problems, his buildings would be far less potent.
– and from which emerges ‘less is a bore’. Post-Modernism Architecture had a fairly dreadful habit of making complex buildings that not only failed to address the complexities of the programme, but made new and even bigger problems.
But anyway, the quest is on to name the finest Po-Mo architecture in New Zealand, and though the temptation maybe to just aim for the tackiest pile of plastered polystyrene you can think of, I think Post-Modernism was the saving grace of architecture. And thus, speaking seriously (no matter how much Po-Mo likes to to ridicule seriousness!) I nominate Manning/Mitchell Architects School of Music Building in Auckland, New Zealand’s finest piece of Po-Mo.
