Venturi, Complexity, Contradiction and Eroticism

This journal entry is about the relationship between Venturi’s postmodern ideas of decoration and utility. The idea of the postmodern is something that is very ordinary which opposite to that modernism is. As time passed by people started to think that modernism is boring. People eager to have decoration on the building more than plain factory like building. Postmodern architecture is meant to be for ordinary client. It doesn’t mean to be luxurious like modern architecture. We have heard about the quote that form follows function by Louis Sullivan, which defines what modernism is about. The inversion of the quote defines what post-modern architecture is.  It means that the function of the building follows that form. People would recognize the function of the building by seeing its form. 

For example, the building with duck form, it is totally opposite to what modernism is. But if we look at it as a postmodernist we would be able to guess that the building has to do something with duck. And it does do something with duck. The function of the building is a shop for selling duck’s egg. 

Another example of building that implies the idea of postmodernism is the Hershey store in Time Square. The building becomes recognizable to the others that it is a store selling Hershey chocolate. So the building façade itself becomes as a sign of the building which Venturi suggest the idea of double function in one object.

It is the idea of building becomes a sign for its function, which means that graphic quality becomes something that is very important to architecture. By having integration of graphic quality into architecture, it allows architecture to be deceptive to the viewer and it attracts people to architecture. Therefore, I think it links to the idea of erotic architecture. Since erotic architecture is the idea of surprising and attracting, it is a reason why I think that Venturi’s ideas of postmodern architecture links to the idea of eroticism in architecture.