Deconstructivism is a postmodern architectural movement which appeared in the 1980s. It gives the impression of the fragmentation of the constructed building, commonly characterised by an absence of obvious harmony, continuity, or symmetry. Its name is a portmanteau of Constructivism and "Deconstruction", a form of semiotic analysis developed by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Architects whose work is often described as deconstructivist (though in many cases the architects themselves reject the label) include Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, and Coop Himmelb(l)au.
The term does not inherently refer to the style's deconstructed visuals as the English adjective suggests, but instead derives from the movement's foundations in contrast to the Russian Constructivist movement during the First World War that "broke the rules" of classical architecture through the French language.
Besides fragmentation, deconstructivism often manipulates the structure's surface skin and deploys non-rectilinear shapes which appear to distort and dislocate established elements of architecture. The finished visual appearance is characterized by unpredictability and controlled chaos.
History, context and influences
Deconstructivism came to public notice with the 1982 Parc de la Villette architectural design competition, in particular the entry from Jacques Derrida and Peter EisenmanJacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman, Chora L Works (New York: Monacelli Press, 1997) and the winning entry by Bernard Tschumi, as well as the Museum of Modern Art’s 1988 Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition in New York, organized by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley. Tschumi stated that calling the work of these architects a "movement" or a new "style" was out of context and showed a lack of understanding of their ideas, and believed that Deconstructivism was simply a move against the practice of PoMo, which he said involved "making Doric temple forms out of plywood".Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi in Conversation, 18 May 2001, ETH Zürich.
Other influential exhibitions include the 1989 opening of the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, designed by Peter Eisenman. The New York exhibition has featured works by Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelb(l)au, and Bernard Tschumi. Since their exhibitions, some architects associated with Deconstructivism have distanced themselves from it; nonetheless, the term has stuck and has come to embrace a general trend within Contemporary architecture.
Early antecedents of the architectural movement could be found in industrial design, notably in Ettore Sottsass' design for the 1969 Olivetti Valentine typewriter, a non-conformist design that deconstructed what was typically the typewriter's bodywork, revealing elements normally concealed, using 'floating keys' and a body-colored plastic 'rail' ahead of the spacebar, visually detached from the typewriter's main body.
Modernism and postmodernism
The term Deconstructivism in contemporary architecture is opposed to the ordered rationality of Modernism and Postmodernism. Though postmodernist and nascent deconstructivist architects both published in the journal Oppositions (published between 1973 and 1984), that journal's contents mark a decisive break between the two movements. Deconstructivism took a confrontational stance to architectural history, wanting to "disassemble" architecture.Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction While postmodernism returned to embrace the historical references that modernism had shunned, possibly ironically, deconstructivism rejected the postmodern acceptance of such references, as well as the idea of ornament as an after-thought or decoration.
In addition to Oppositions, a defining text for both deconstructivism and postmodernism was Robert Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966). It argues against the purity, clarity and simplicity of modernism. With its publication, functionalism and rationalism, the two main branches of modernism, were overturned as paradigms. The reading of the postmodernist Venturi was that ornament and historical allusion added a richness to architecture that modernism had foregone. Some Postmodern architects endeavored to reapply ornament even to economical and minimal buildings, described by Venturi as "the decorated shed". Rationalism of design was dismissed but the functionalism of the building was still somewhat intact. This is close to the thesis of Venturi's next major work,Venturi (1977), Learning From Las Vegas that signs and ornament can be applied to a pragmatic architecture, and instill the philosophic complexities of semiology.
The deconstructivist reading of Complexity and Contradiction is quite different. The basic building was the subject of problematics and intricacies in deconstructivism, with no detachment for ornament. Rather than separating ornament and function, like postmodernists such as Venturi, the functional aspects of buildings were called into question. Geometry was to deconstructivists what ornament was to postmodernists, the subject of complication, and this complication of geometry was in turn, applied to the functional, structural, and spatial aspects of deconstructivist buildings. One example of deconstructivist complexity is Frank Gehry's Vitra Design Museum in Weil-am-Rhein, which takes the typical unadorned white cube of modernist art galleries and deconstructs it, using geometries reminiscent of cubism and abstract expressionism. This subverts the functional aspects of modernist simplicity while taking modernism, particularly the international style, of which its white stucco skin is reminiscent, as a starting point. Another example of the deconstructivist reading of Complexity and Contradiction is Peter Eisenman's Wexner Center for the Arts. The Wexner Center takes the archetypal form of the castle, which it then imbues with complexity in a series of cuts and fragmentations. A three-dimensional grid runs somewhat arbitrarily through the building. The grid, as a reference to modernism, of which it is an accoutrement, collides with the medieval antiquity of a castle. Some of the grid's columns intentionally do not reach the ground, hovering over stairways creating a sense of neurotic unease and contradicting the structural purpose of the column. The Wexner Center deconstructs the archetype of the castle and renders its spaces and structure with conflict and difference.
Deconstructivist philosophy Some deconstructivist architects were influenced by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Eisenman was a friend of Derrida, but even so his approach to architectural design was developed long before he became a Deconstructivist. For him Deconstructivism should be considered an extension of his interest in radical formalism. Some practitioners of deconstructivism were also influenced by the formal experimentation and geometric imbalances of Russian constructivism. There are additional references in deconstructivism to 20th-century movements: the modernism/postmodernism interplay, expressionism, cubism, minimalism and contemporary art. Deconstructivism attempts to move away from the supposedly constricting 'rules' of modernism such as "form follows function", "purity of form", and "truth to materials".
The main channel from deconstructivist philosophy to architectural theory was through the philosopher Jacques Derrida's influence with Peter Eisenman. Eisenman drew some philosophical bases from the literary movement Deconstruction, and collaborated directly with Derrida on projects including an entry for the Parc de la Villette competition, documented in Chora l Works. Both Derrida and Eisenman, as well as Daniel LibeskindLibeskind, Daniel. "Imperial War Museum North Earth Time" quote "This project develops the realm of the in between, the inter-est.... Pointing to that which is absent". Retrieved April, 2006 were concerned with the "metaphysics of presence", and this is the main subject of deconstructivist philosophy in architecture theory. The presupposition is that architecture is a language capable of communicating meaning and of receiving treatments by methods of linguistic philosophy. The dialectic of presence and absence, or solid and void occurs in much of Eisenman's projects, both built and unbuilt. Both Derrida and Eisenman believe that the locus, or place of presence, is architecture, and the same dialectic of presence and absence is found in construction and deconstructivism.Eisenman and Derrida, Choral Works
According to Derrida, readings of texts are best carried out when working with classical narrative structures. Any architectural deconstructivism requires the existence of a particular archetypal construction, a strongly-established conventional expectation to play flexibly against.Derrida, Of Grammatology The design of Frank Gehry’s own Santa Monica residence, (from 1978), has been cited as a prototypical deconstructivist building. His starting point was a prototypical suburban house embodied with a typical set of intended social meanings. Gehry altered its massing, spatial envelopes, planes and other expectations in a playful subversion, an act of "de"construction"Holloway, Robert (1994)."Mattaclarking" Dissertation Exploring the work of Gordon Matta-Clark. Retrieved April, 2006.
In addition to Derrida's concepts of the metaphysics of presence and deconstructivism, his notions of trace and erasure, embodied in his philosophy of writing and arche-writingDerrida, Of Grammatology (1967) found their way into deconstructivist memorials. Daniel Libeskind envisioned many of his early projects as a form of writing or discourse on writing and often works with a form of concrete poetry. He made architectural sculptures out of books and often coated the models in texts, openly making his architecture refer to writing. The notions of trace and erasure were taken up by Libeskind in essays and in his project for the Jewish Museum Berlin. The museum is conceived as a trace of the erasure of the Holocaust, intended to make its subject legible and poignant. Memorials such as Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Peter Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe are also said to reflect themes of trace and erasure.
Constructivism and Russian Futurism Another major current in deconstructivist architecture takes inspiration from the Constructivist and Russian Futurist movements of the early twentieth century, both in their graphics and in their visionary architecture, little of which was actually constructed.
Artists Naum Gabo, El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, and Alexander Rodchenko, have influenced the graphic sense of geometric forms of deconstructivist architects such as Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au. Both Deconstructivism and Constructivism have been concerned with the tectonics of making an abstract assemblage. Both were concerned with the radical simplicity of geometric forms as the primary artistic content, expressed in graphics, sculpture and architecture. The Constructivist tendency toward purism, though, is absent in Deconstructivism: form is often deformed when construction is deconstructed. Also lessened or absent is the advocacy of socialist and collectivist causes.
The primary graphic motifs of constructivism were the rectangular bar and the triangular wedge, others were the more basic geometries of the square and the circle. In his series Prouns, El Lissitzky assembled collections of geometries at various angles floating free in space. They evoke basic structural units such as bars of steel or sawn lumber loosely attached, piled, or scattered. They were also often drafted and share aspects with technical drawing and engineering drawing. Similar in composition is the deconstructivist series Micromegas by Daniel Libeskind.
Contemporary art