Postmodernism deserves a little love too!

[Arenacale]

Praise the Wayback Machine! Saved some of these photos myself just because this place doesn't exist anymore and it's worth preserving images here. Love that crunchy early digital image look. First 2 are 2006 (when I would have been over there occasionally, since I was at WPI), the others 2001 https://web.archive.org/web/20190306133332/http://www.labelscar.com/massachusetts/greendale-mall

 

[kz1000ps]

Green, whether it's forest, teal or jade, is a wildly underused color today. Love that look ^^

I also shared these to the 400 Summer Street thread but wanted to share them here as well.... Hasbro's freshly renovated headquarters from a June 1988 article https://www.usmodernist.org/AJ/A-1988-06.pdf

^ That kitchen servery is something else

Also from the same issue, Herman Miller's headquarters

That iconography is *chef's kiss*

 

[393b40]

Someone should post the PoMo Pru central tower reclad that was proposed in the late 80s.

 

[Arenacale]

It's weird to me that Hasbro's headquarters were so much more understated than Herman Miller's. You'd think the toy company would want to be more playful.

 

[RandomWalk]

I’m failing to dig up good shots of Burlington Mall during and shortly after its second floor expansion. That wasn’t quite as over the top as CambridgeSide, but it was a major shift from the 60s wood and tile look it had.

 

[kz1000ps]

I’m failing to dig up good shots of Burlington Mall during and shortly after its second floor expansion. That wasn’t quite as over the top as CambridgeSide, but it was a major shift from the 60s wood and tile look it had.

Believe it or not but I've actually collected some photos of this very thing! Who would've ever guessed??

So these came from the Burlington Mall's Facebook page back in February... my wife brought them to my attention and it turns out they've done a lot of throwback posts this year. Just right now in checking the source do I see way more vintage photos they've shared since that I had no idea about.

But from the photos I collected back in February, here's them literally raising the roof in 1987

And then also from their Facebook page, the mall in 1988 right after renovations finished

This is the best shot I've come across.... from the Burlington Retro page. THAT TEAL

And then these came from a video from 1990 that I can't find now but it was probably from a news segment

I've always liked that SEARS typeface

 

[theSil]

Welp, let's do a very shallow deep dive of Arsenal Mall courtesy of shots I saved years ago off of Labelscar, a now-defunct blog dedicated to retail archaeology, aka exploring dead/dying malls and big box stores.

Wow these images had completely faded from memory, and yet that first photo immediately transported me back to my childhood, remembering the food court down the hall beneath the giant scoreboard.

Thanks for digging up.

 

[Arenacale]

I've always liked that SEARS typeface

Awesome photos! Never got to the Burlington Mall until much later in life, and by that point it had been renovated again into it's current state. Looks like it was an amazing place in the 1990s.

Sears logo is burned in my memories as part of my childhood, mostly from going to another mall whose roof was also raised - South Shore Plaza, which got a similar 2nd level expansion in the mid-90s, and got a fresh, tail-end of PoMo look as a result. The renovations in conjunction with the Nordstrom wing neutered out most of the good stuff, unfortunately. Look at how perfect this was before they built the Cheesecake Factory:

(Also, the old Sears logo makes me think of old Wish Books, and luckily, they are mostly archived, you'll lose hours on here: https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ )

 

[kz1000ps]

^^ Bro I found those almost two years ago and went HOG WILD

Ended up saving around 200 pages worth lolololololol

 

[RandomWalk]

Believe it or not but I've actually collected some photos of this very thing! Who would've ever guessed??

So these came from the Burlington Mall's Facebook page back in February... my wife brought them to my attention and it turns out they've done a lot of throwback posts this year. Just right now in checking the source do I see way more vintage photos they've shared since that I had no idea about.

But from the photos I collected back in February, here's them literally raising the roof in 1987

And then also from their Facebook page, the mall in 1988 right after renovations finished

This is the best shot I've come across.... from the Burlington Retro page. THAT TEAL

And then these came from a video from 1990 that I can't find now but it was probably from a news segment

I've always liked that SEARS typeface

That is an amazing collection. I would love to see that video.

 

[kz1000ps]

That is an amazing collection. I would love to see that video.

OK I did a little more digging and found those "video" images on Burlington Retro: https://burlingtonretro.com/1990-now/

Now they say circa 1990 and that they're photos, but to my eyes they look like they could be much newer than that, perhaps late '90s or even early 2000s, and perhaps stills from a camcorder?

I could very well be wrong to say they came from a video, but my spidey sense is saying that's VHS or very early digital quality.

 

[kz1000ps]

I'm driving this car and I decide when we take a scenic route.... time to take a look at one of the most postmodern movies of all time, Wall Street

Bud Fox's office entry

Gekko's secretary's office..... hey there's the Robert Sonneman Saturn lamp!

The lion's den

"It's all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation."

Bud Fox's new condo being built out to his interior decorator girlfriend's choosing

And one from the boardroom of the former AT&T/Sony headquarters

 

[kz1000ps]

Time for a little NYC pomo

Carnegie Hall Tower.... a personal fav

Worldwide Plaza. There's an entire PBS documentary on the construction of this project that makes for a very compelling watch. WELP it used to be on Youtube but now I can only find it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Skyscraper-Part-1-Paper-Rock/dp/B008VHAUMC

And two iterations of what would become Time Warner Center

1988

 

[Arenacale]

I remember watching that Skyscraper series on WGBH back in the day. I was only 5 so much of it went over my head but I was still fascinated by it. I don't have Prime but maybe there's a DVD set somewhere out there. Gorgeous building.

I really like that first render for Columbus Circle with the faceted skylights. I'm sure there's a building out there that's done that since but I'm not aware of it.

 

[stick n move]

Time for a little NYC pomo

Carnegie Hall Tower.... a personal fav

Worldwide Plaza. There's an entire PBS documentary on the construction of this project that makes for a very compelling watch. WELP it used to be on Youtube but now I can only find it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Skyscraper-Part-1-Paper-Rock/dp/B008VHAUMC

And two iterations of what would become Time Warner Center

1988

I never knew until today there was two buildings at worldwide plaza. Had no idea there was a little brother right in front of it. Cool!

 

[Arenacale]

Got nostalgic tonight for one of my favorite PoMo spaces that isn't in Boston - Harborplace in Baltimore. It's on the early side of things so it's less ornate, but the openness and color are there. It's sort of their version of Faneuil Hall, but it's right on the water's edge and it has the brick paving of City Hall Plaza, only at a more human scale. As such, it feels like a combination of a lot of my favorite Boston spaces into one locale. We had a weekend-long school trip to Jamestown and Williamsburg that stopped there in 1999, and the vibes of the complex at night were absolutely impeccable. That probably explains why I'm so drawn to it even today, it's intrinsically linked with a memory of my teenage self's rare opportunity to spend time with his crush*. The times I went to Baltimore, for work in 2008 and the IndyCar race in 2012 and 2013, it remained an awesome place to be, though since then the recession has taken it's toll and the buildings have apparently been largely vacant and the area as a whole seems to be stuck in redevelopment hell.

I, stupidly, never took any photos of Harborplace itself the times I went, but these photos are from a nice little history of the place: https://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/items/show/785

*The other funny story about this is the skater bros who were in our cohort during the trip who begged incessantly to go to the Hooters in the southwest pavilion. Eventually the chaperone relented and took them up, but I stayed back with the girls to get caricatures done because I was more interested in my crush than any Hooters girl. Also, we were all only 14. Anyways, the bros came back with sweatpants, which will forever be hilarious to me and may be the single biggest reason this place is embedded in my brain forever.

 

[RandomWalk]

That footnote is straight out of a 90s TV series writers room.

 

[kz1000ps]

Never underestimate the power of a random Hooters visit!

 

[kz1000ps]

Just went on a little vacation to Denver and on the way out we had a layover in the postmodern temple that is Helmut Jahn's United Terminal at O'Hare. As I've looked more and more into Chicago's near-endless stash of awesome architecture, the more I've been drawn to Jahn's quirky style, which manages to bridge the divides between modernism, postmodernism, and so-called "high tech" architecture as well as anyone else working back then. And this terminal might be his ultimate creation.

It is clearly designed from top to bottom by him, and within this realm he created something that is both brimming with details almost delicate in nature, as well as a robust overall vision. And testament to this is the fact that the building has barely been modified in the nearly 40 years since its completion.

These next few come from Architecture Magazine scans

Postcard

Random finds from the internets

And last from the throwback shots, this terminal was the stand-in for the Paris airport in Home Alone

And here are some shots I took two weeks ago

 

[Stlin]

Just went on a little vacation to Denver and on the way out we had a layover in the postmodern temple that is Helmut Jahn's United Terminal at O'Hare. As I've looked more and more into Chicago's near-endless stash of awesome architecture, the more I've been drawn to Jahn's quirky style, which manages to bridge the divides between modernism, postmodernism, and so-called "high tech" architecture as well as anyone else working back then. And this terminal might be his ultimate creation.

It is clearly designed from top to bottom by him, and within this realm he created something that is both brimming with details almost delicate in nature, as well as a robust overall vision. And testament to this is the fact that the building has barely been modified in the nearly 40 years since its completion.

These next few come from Architecture Magazine scans

Postcard

Random finds from the internets

And last from the throwback shots, this terminal was the stand-in for the Paris airport in Home Alone

And here are some shots I took two weeks ago

I have to admit, that neon tunnel, complete with a synth heavy rendition of Rhapsody in Blue, is basically PoMo distillate.