Postmodern Architecture: Twenty Lectures

Author: Xu Li, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: From classical architecture to modern architecture, and even to the diverse postmodern architecture, buildings have been changing, and architects have been changing too. Perhaps architecture is alive, and any discourse is merely a moment in its life; perhaps architecture is absolute, and any discourse has always seemed redundant. Whether it is a moment or redundant, it has nothing to do with the original intention of this book. The real purpose lies in exploring architecture as an art with readers, reviewing its past, and looking forward to its future. The main authors of this book, such as Professor Xue Enlun and Academician Li Daozeng, are all leading scholars and experts in China who have conducted long-term and in-depth research on the postmodern architectural movement. In 1977, American architectural critic Robert Venturi published a book titled Postmodern Architecture. In this book, Venturi said, "Modern architecture died on July 15, 1972, at 3:32 a.m. in St. Louis, Missouri?" Due to this sarcastic remark, the theory of "the death of modernism" spread rapidly at the time. And the new banner of "postmodern architecture" was thus raised on the historical stage. Of course, Robert Venturi was the one who truly developed the theory of postmodern architecture. In a conversation in 1980, Venturi said, "In a sense, I think we ourselves are part of modernism, a part that has evolved from it." In fact, the definitions of "modernism" and "postmodernism" have always been ambiguous and vague, especially in the field of Chinese architecture. The purpose of publishing this book is to attempt to clarify the context and help readers gain a clear understanding of this architectural movement. The nearly 300 exquisite illustrations in this book are also rare and valuable architectural materials.