Re: DECONSTRUCTIVISM anyone?

- - The original note follows - -

From: gsd94hp1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Howard Park)
Subject: Re: DECONSTRUCTIVISM anyone?
Date: 11 Feb 1994 19:57:23 GMT

Deconstructivist architecture is, as Mr. Molick indicates, "pro-expression,"
rather than "anti-human." For deconstructivist architects, this expression is
typically carried out through geometry and composition.

I disagree with Mr. Molick, however, in his characterization of deconstructivist
architecture as "free flowing" and lacking a "well defined methodology." It is
difficult to conceive of an architecture that is more highly controlled than,
e.g., Peter Eisenman's or Bernard Tschumi's. Although the finished buildings
(or, in some cases, the finished drawings) may appear to "flow" spatially, they
are the results of extremely rigid formal manipulation.

In addition, the methodology of the deconstructivists is more clearly defined
and more uniform than any other group of architects working today. They
subscribe to a more or less canonical body of expressive ideas, resulting in an
articulable, and perhaps monolithic, ideology. I think all of the
deconstructivists would agree, for instance, that their architecture is grounded
in the semiology of de Saussure and Barthes and in the critical theory of
Benjamin and Adorno.

I do not mean really to defend deconstructivism; I mean only to point out the
mistake in comparing it to aesthetic ideologies like Expressionism.
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