Postmodernism deserves a little love too!

kz1000ps

kz1000ps

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This might very well end up being a thread just for @Arenacale and I to geek out over the architecture, designs and AESTHETIC of our younger years, aka the 1980s-90s, and that's okay! Totally no need to be defensive about this topic or anything! Postmodernism deserves a little respect too, right? Or is it the Rodney Dangerfield of styles and it can't ever get no respeck?!

To start things off, here's a bunch of screenshots I grabbed nearly two years ago when I discovered the vast trove of archives of architectural magazines OVER HERE. Architecture Magazine used to be the official AIA publication, and as such its pages are chock full of great writing, great photographs, and wonderfully evocative ads as well. I grabbed a very random collection based purely on my whims, and that's how I'm gonna present them here.

Nike HQ

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Office lighting ad

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Reston Town Center

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CORAL PINK

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Syracuse U Arts & Sciences

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And to wrap things up, you can't have some Pomo without some Michael Graves 🤡

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Man, that Reston Town Center looks like such a great place to just exist in. It looks like 500 Boylston and Fanueil Hall Marketplace had a love child. I also appreciate the effort that was put in to make the cube farms at least somewhat dynamic - you don't get that anymore.

I feel like a lot of postmodern spaces are on the endangered list. Every time I'm in Longwood I try to get over to the Galleria just to see it. It's perfect, and I know it's not going to last. It's too colorful and too fun to last in modern society.

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One more thing I've found that I wish we got, the original PoMo New Garden. From https://archive.org/details/multipurposearen00howa/page/n157/mode/2up?q="New+boston+garden"
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Ally Detroit center 😍

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(Note detroits own 1 boston place but white nearby, cool)
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100 east wisconsin milwaukee
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One atlantic center, atl
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Ive always had the opinion that Atlanta did POMO the right way. It has lots of spires, set backs, and buildings that look good together as part of the overall whole. Plus at night its night lighting is incredible. Comparing it to the other POMO skylines of Dallas and Houston Ive always felt that Atlanta shiiits on both.

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Piedmont park
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Rowes Wharf feels like the Boston waterfront.
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I think this is the most concise summation of why I love it so much. It's one of those buildings that I can't imagine Boston without - which is crazy because it was actually built a couple of years after I was born. A great example of how Postmodernism can also be timeless.
 
Seeing the elevated expressway next to Rowes wharf breaks my brain. Those don't seem like they should overlap in my head but of course they were both there for years. What date is the magazine from?
 
Looks like May 1988.

Funny you should mention that about the Artery, my primary memory of the building is riding past in the back seat of my parent's car on the highway with the giant flag blowing in the arch. An elevated view that part of me is sad you can't get anymore, even if the city is better for it.
 
It was always an event to go to CambridgeSide as a kid. It was usually the last stop after a trip to the Museum of Science so we could get something at the food court. Also multiple trips to the Sports Museum. I still love the view of the place from across Canal Park, the building looks like a palace.

The death of the grand PoMo shopping cathedrals is both tragic and inevitable. In many cases, they haven't been replaced by better urbanism, they've been replaced by power centers and big box stores. Granted, the Worcester Outlets died so the city could live, but they're the exception. Silver City is just a warehouse. Prudential Center has been neutered. Copley Place has become sterile to the point of exclusionary. I think we're due for a course correction at some point. The grandiosity may not come back, but the ideal of making a compelling space will.
 
Arenacale said:
The death of the grand PoMo shopping cathedrals is both tragic and inevitable. In many cases, they haven't been replaced by better urbanism, they've been replaced by power centers and big box stores. Granted, the Worcester Outlets died so the city could live, but they're the exception. Silver City is just a warehouse. Prudential Center has been neutered. Copley Place has become sterile to the point of exclusionary. I think we're due for a course correction at some point. The grandiosity may not come back, but the ideal of making a compelling space will.
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Thanks to you both for this powerful retrospective/reflection. @kz1000ps, without those pictures it's sometimes hard to remember the exact details of the design (even though the collective effect of those details on one's memory is permanent): by details I mean the brass handrails (gone), the ridiculous gold escalator trim (gone), the bold patterns and stonework in the flooring (gone), the insane number of gold hanging flower pots (gone). I mean, CambridgeSide still does exist today (with < 1/3 the retailers and <1/10 the vibrancy), but its the absence of those details that make it a completely different place, however reasonably comfortable it still is inside.

But I want to focus on this excerpt from @Arenacale 's quote: "Copley Place has become sterile to the point of exclusionary. I think we're due for a course correction...":

^This nails it, in my opinon. The ridiculous grandiosity of PoMo malls was incredibly inclusive. It gave everyday people a sense of equal importance with wealthier people. Those over-the-top '90s Barnes & Nobles did that, as did these malls. Now we've got extremes: ordering things in super discount off Amazon that makes me feel icky (and thus which I am trying to remove from my life) OR walking through the sterilized Copley Place which feels incredibly unwelcoming. PoMo malls were actually a celebration of "everyone is special" in a way I don't think most of us realized at the time, but now in retrospective is pretty clear.
 
How about some brand new 2020’s pomo? A couple years ago charlotte added this new tower with a very cool pyramid crown to its uptown neighborhood. I think it plays nicely with the rest of its heavily pomo inspired skyline and the new crown makes for a more interesting skyline overall. Its the type of building that adds to the skyline yet looks like its been there already for a long time.

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The Michael Graves designed Humana building in Louisville deserves a shoutout as does it’s less grand cousin, also designed by Graves, the Portland Building in Portland, OR.

Also included an entrance photo of the Humana building as the water feature is pretty cool.
 

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Tom Nevers said:
Is this a rendering or a building that was constructed? It reminds me of what I believe is one of the better known buildings constructed in fascist Italy, the Palazzo della Civilta Italiana.


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That's the Hotel Il Palazzo and it was most certainly built, completed 1989 in Fukuoka, Japan and designed by the one and only Aldo Rossi. Definitely worth looking into more!
 
I've mentioned the book "Boston: Beacon for a New Horizon" on here before, but I went through it again and pulled out some more images of some neat PoMo stuff. The entire book is a window into 1994 and a Boston that doesn't quite exist anymore. Most of the companies who are featured in it as patrons are either gone or bought out. Shawmut Bank, Digital, Teradyne, etc.
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Yessssssss I may need to get my hands on that book. Also in the second picture is the Saturn desk lamp by Robert Sonneman which I think is one of the greatest pieces of design of the last half century -- it's a light that thinks it's a full-blown piece of architecture.

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I went and bought the smaller lamp of his back in 2018, and other than the fact that the halogen bulb gives off a metric ton of heat, I have zero regrets about it. Also it weighs 3-4 pounds and feels like it could withstand an impact with a Mack truck.

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