Retrofitting "Henwood before Butler" (was Re: Force &Truth...)

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Nov 4 13:07:09 PST 1999


Tom Lehman wrote:


>The first time I ever encountered the term postmodern was in a mid-1970's
>discription of the buildings designed by Michael Graves. I have
>also seen some
>of the later designs of Robert Venturi and Philip Johnson described as
>postmodern.

Yes, I was poisoned by these influences as a tender undergraduate in 1974-5. My modern architecture prof, Vincent Scully, had us read Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, and his, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour's Learning from Las Vegas.

From these books I learned that Main St. is "almost all right," that "our buildings must learn to live with the cigarette machine," and that the ironic appropriation of tradition is groovy. I doubt Bill Bennett would approve.

Doug



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