‘All the Wasms have become Isms’: Slideshow

2. Minoru Yamasaki, Pruitt-Igoe, St. Louis, 1952–55, after being blown up in 1972, because of continuous vandalism. The failure of Modern architecture, in this award winning scheme, was apparent both on a social and linguistic level: it didn't speak the language of its inhabitants.

3. Eero Saarinen and Associates, Stiles and Morse Colleges, New Haven, 1958–1962. A medieval historicism meant to fit into the existing Yale context and provide a sense of ‘place’ with ‘peanut–brittle Gothic.’

4. Passarelli Brothers, Multi-Use Structure, Rome, 1965. Expressive historicism deriving from Italian Neo-Liberty Movement of the fifties: the top, Rudolphian concrete expresses dwelling, the middle Harrisonian glass and steel expresses offices, and bottom Corbusian concrete expresses three levels of parking (out of sight). The semantic use of styles.

5. Paolo Portoghesi, Casa Papanice, Rome, 1971–1973. ‘Organic’ ornament in ceramic tile refers to ‘blue’ sky and ‘green’ ground, while the gold ironically symbolises the wealth of the owner. The Rococo lightness of the vertical stripes was ‘composed’ according to a Vivaldi piece.

6. Casa Papanice, interior shows organic and applied ornament – the concentric circles – which focus on the traditional centre of the house: the hearth, the dining table and views.

7. Casa Papanice, analysis by Portoghesi, shows overlapping foci of space, an idea extended from the Baroque work of Francisco Borromini and applied in a new way. The mixture of codes is characteristically Post-Modern.

8. Bruno Reichlin and Fabio Reinhardt, Maison Tonini, Torricella, Switzerland, 1972–4. A well proportioned villa in the Albertian tradition and reinforced concrete, with mathematical harmonies and a grand arch framing the view.

9. Maison Tonini, showing strong axial planning and centredness of the house on the dining table, Aedicules (little houses) can be seen in deep focus.

10. Kisho Kurokawa, Odakyu Drive-In Restaurant, Otome, 1969. Traditional Japanese bracket construction and the upturned roof are mixed with Modernist capsules and space frame.

11. Robert Venturi and Short, Headquarters Building, North Penn Visiting Nurses Association, 1960. Applied ornament – arch and mouldings – are used in a new way to symbolise old important areas of the building – entry and view. The street line is kept by this early example of ‘contextual’ building.

12. Headquarters Building, plan, with its odd angles and skew space, inflected for view and movement, is an early example of the late, ambiguous, Post-Modern space. See also slide no. 64.

13. Moore, Lyndon, Turnbull, Whitaker, Condominium I, Sea Ranch, 1964-6. An early use of the shed aesthetic that was to spread like locusts in every American resort town. Part regional and historicist grammar and part mono-pitch of Modernism, these forms were grouped to provide a strong sense of ‘place’ fitting to the ocean site and informal living.

14. Sea Ranch interior shows aedicular layouts, back lighting, symbolic collage and all the ambiguous and delightful qualities of Post-Modern space.

15. Charles Moore and William Turnbull, Faculty Club, Santa Barbara, 1968. The local vernacular, Spanish Revival, wood and stucco, is combined with Post-Modern spatial surprise. The cut-out wall is a characteristic Moorian device to layer space.

16. Faculty Club interior shows punched-out layered space and symbolic collage (neon banners, tapestries and chandelier).

17. Moore and Turnbull, Kresge College, University of Santa Cruz, California, 1972–4. A meandering route threaded through a redwood forest has each plaza with a separate monument to define the ‘place’. Visible to the right is the seating fountain and mailbox monument. Allusions to the Spanish Steps in Rome and Italian arcades is also apparent, as are the Post-Modern ‘supergraphics’.

18. Kresge College, showing the street between dormitories.

19. Kresge College, symbolic collage on a punched out wall that frames the sky and culminates in the meandering walk – in the communal assembly area and cafe.

20. Kresge College, outdoor assembly area and cafe. The dramatic accentuation of nature framed, or given a yellow backdrop.

21. Charles Moore and U.I.G., Piazza D'Italia, New Orleans, 1976–8. A bull's eye focuses on Sicily, where most of the local Italians are from, while a contextual set of surrounding buildings hold the street line and prepare for this surprise. Five screens, the five Italian Orders, focus on a grand arch and the top of Italy – which houses a German restaurant. Colour and conventional signs are mixed with Modern elements such as asymmetry, supergraphics and neon.

22. Piazza D'Italia, the typical mixed-coding of Post-Modernism: written inscriptions dedicating the fountain ‘to the people’; representational elements such as the boot of Italy; conventional signs such as the colouring and use of the Orders. All this with water splashing out of capitals and neon enframing the form.

23. Piazza D'Italia, as shown on the cover of the third edition of Jencks’ The Language of Post Modern Architecture (1984).

24. J.V. Richter, P. Rose, and P. Lankin, Pavilion Soixante-Dix, St. Saveur, Canada, 1976–8. Again, neon and Modern abstraction is placed against historicist references (including Palladio and cathedral fronts) to celebrate the public nature and fantasy of skiing. The architects studied under Moore at Yale.

25. Robert Stern and John Hagmann, Lang House, Washington, Conn. 1974–5. ‘Cardboard’ architecture of Venturi with applied decoration symbolising entry, window, etc. and typical villa colouring which sets it apart from a heroic landscape. The awkward proportions are calculated.

26. Lang House interior show Post-Modern space influenced by Lutyens, the wide slightly curved bay, indirect light and modernist coolness.

27. Lang House, plan.

28. Robert Stern, Apartment on Park Avenue, interior.

29. Stern and Hagmann, Pool House, Greenwich, Conn., 1973–4. Relates to its parent, Shingle Style house and celebrates sun and water through the rippling surface and surprising punched-out clerestory views. Vernacular language is used and distorted towards complexity.

30. Sir Clough William-Ellis, Portmeirion, 1926–60. View into Battery Square shows the eclectic mix of seaside vernacular, Italian campanile, English landscaping, and kitsch humour. Popular architecture, but not Pop or Populistm because a basic seriousness and creativity underlay the whimsy.

31. Walt Disney and Imagineers, Disneyland – Cinderella's Castle, Anaheim, 1956. Populist architecture based on stereotypes reduced to five-sixths their actual size, or smaller, and built out of ersatz material. The influence of such architecture on Post-Modernism is widespread, but indirect, as the themes are transposed.

32. Dr. Norman Neuerburg, et al. Getty Museum, Malibu, 1970–5. Straight Revivialism (in this case of various Pompeian villas) has also, like the two previous examples, influenced Post-Modernism without itself being so. The arguments concerning appropriate form are similar, but Post-Modernists would have indicated, with more that chlorine, that this is the 20th century.

34. Van der Bout and Ley, Bickerseiland Housing Infill, Amsterdam, 1972–6. Neo-vernacular in Holland gits into the traditional Dutch morphology with distortions of gable, window opening and centre courtyard.

34. Aldo van Eyck and Theo Bosch, Zwolle Housing, 1975–7. Traditional Dutch housing with a difference (of loggias, greenhouse and space) is knitted into a curving, historical downtown area.

36. Ralph Erskine and Team, Byker Wall on the outside, Newcastle, 1972–6. Incorporates old buildings into the pattern which is meant to shield inhabitants from traffic noise. The ad hoc style is typical of Erskine.

37. Byker Wall, inside shows semi-private space, walkways, gardens, pergola, ruins and mixed vernacular materials. Erskine and his team worked on the site and consulted closely with the 9,500 inhabitants they were rehousing. Hence the variety of codes and building types (75% are low-rise, not shown).

38. Lucien Kroll and Team, Medical Faculty Buildings, Louvain, 1969–74. Participants in architectural design with the students resulted in this adhocist mixture of building systems (wood, brick, plastic, asbestos, steel and glass) which articulates different functions. Mostly visible are individual student rooms (all different).

39. Medical Faculty Buildings, showing mixed uses and materials. The ‘individualised village’, like an Italian hill town, but given an instant patina by participation, the design of many.

40. Bruce Goff, Joe Price Studio Addition, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1974–8. Goff’s adhocism often relates very closely to the tastes of his clients and he participates closely with them in design as do the previous two architects with their clients. Here glass-cullet, leftover coal, insect tentacles, etc. are unified by triangular geometries.

41. Bruce Goff, Price Studio Interior, is sensuous, ambiguous Post-Modern space of thick-pile carpet, reflective surfaces and Gustav Klimtian like doorway.

42. Leon Krier, Echternach Project, 1970, stitches together as old city of medieval and Baroque streets with a ‘modern’ spine. Krier and his brother Robert along with Aldo Rossi are the leading contextualists, who abhor Post-Modern historicism. Nevertheless, they practice it.

43. James Stirling, Dusseldorf Museum Project, 1975. A sensitive example of contextual infill where the height, scale, and masonry of the area are respected. The square and circle, and path between, became major symbolic elements in a Post-Modern hybrid style.

44. Le Corbusier, Ronchamp Chapel, 1950–5. The first highly metaphorical building within the Modern Movement, and hence the first Most-Modern one? Among the visual codes this view suggests praying hands, a ship’s prow, duck – and parts of it resemble Swiss cheese, ice cream, or the metaphor Le Corbusier allowed, a crab’s shell (the roof).

45. Ronchamp and ocean liner, an old comparison of Modernism is implicit. Post-Modern architects started taking responsibility for metaphors by the seventies.

45a. Ronchamp, metaphor of parent and children.

46. John Utzon, Sydney Opera House, 1957–74, crystalises various metaphorical codes including shells, flowers unfolding, fish swallowing each other, waves breaking, the sails of Sydney Harbour, turtles making love, a scrum of nuns, and an accident with no survivors.

47. Charles Jencks, Face House, Cape Cod, 1977. The face metaphor, while having two eyes, nose, teeth and pitched head, is still fairly implicit.

48. Yellow Face House, 9003 Norma, L.A. Again the face is implicit and mixed with other abstract codes.

49. Stanley Tigerman, Daisy House, Indiana, 1976–7. An explicit phallus and more from the air; but from the ground the anthropomorphic metaphors are coded with strong geometrical shapes and precision detailing.

50. Daisy House, porch showing feminine curves and standardised details.

51. Stanley Tigerman, Animal Cracker House, Highland Park, Illinois, 1976–8. As well as the cracker box imagery a smiling face etc. Tigerman is the most self-conscious of all Post-Modern architects in using metaphor directly, but his caricatures are often saved from bathos by being tied to other meanings (usually pure architectural ideas).

52. James Wines and Site, Notch Project for Best, Sacramento, 1977. Another explicit metaphor generates part of a building, in this case the door that unrolls at 9:00 a.m. to let the shoppers in. The metaphor is here tied to the shear angle of 45 degrees and the ‘dumb box’ building type, two meanings which extend its simplicity.

53. Michael Graves, Claghorn House, Princeton, 1974. An implicit use of the body metaphor runs through all of Graves’ work as he uses classical scaling devices and motifs that Modernism eschewed (trellis, balcony mouldings, etc.). Other signs of context (the pitched roof indicates by the slant) are also implicit and hard to read – but there for the initiate.

54. Michael Graves, Schulman House, Princeton, New Jersey, 1976. A masterful use of layered planes, varying from thick clapboard to thin. Hieratic signs (the ziggurat) celebrate entry and chimney while colours suggest metaphors of the sky and earth. Note the column fragment which has jumped from the chimney to gable end.

55. Schulman House, asymmetrical symmetry, exploded scale and centre emphasis of windows – all in a symphony of pale blues.

56. Michael Graves, Fargo-Morehead Cultural Centre drawing, 1977, shows Post-Modern emphasis on coloured rendering, as well as implicit and explicit historical reference (Ledoux salt works, Ponte Vecchio, mushroom columns). The half arches reaching toward each other symbolise explicitly the cultural aspirations of the two communities, uniting yet divided.

57. Charles Jencks, Cape Studio, 1977. Entrance shows frontal layering of space accented by various shades of blue. Double split pediment, mass produced mouldings and balustrades are composed of Modernist principles. The red indicates power supply; blue the changing sky.

58. Eugene Kupper, Nilsson House, Beverly Hills, 1976­–9. The ‘house image’, pitched roof, is here shrunk, and turned into an organizing spine which runs along the back of this linear building. Off this axis are various surprising events such as the living room/hearth/projection room and viewing platform.

59. Nilsson House, living room off spine orients diagonally to view.

60. Hans Hollein, Austrian Travel Bureau, Vienna, 1978, is placed under a Secessionist gridded ceiling with various places of travel picked out by conventional signs; the Lutyens ‘hat’ symbolises travel in India, the Nash palm trees signify travel in Morocco, the Greek column etc. One pays at the Rolls Royce radiator. Radical eclecticism: where the images each have a raison d’etre.

62. Thomas Gordon Smith, Matthews Street House, 1978. Greek polychromy vies with San Francisco ‘painted ladies’ in this fragmented building that is one part public pretence and one informal stucco. The handling of plastic form is masterful; the colouring less so. Asymmetrical symmetry orients south and view, while various local and Western references are subtly and forcefully blended.

63. Thomas Gordon Smith, Long House project, 1977–8. An undulating, Baroque and Modern mixture which fits into the rolling Nevada hills. Michelangelesque pediments, Maybeck’s gables and shingles, Palladian motifs are blended with a great facility.

64. Long House plan. The Post-Modern spatial manipulation since Venturi’s plans. The Bedroom is derives from K.I. Dietzenhofer’s church plans; each space is characterised and at the same time made part of a flowing whole.

65. Chicago Seven, Street Options, Exquisite Corpse game, 1977. Pluralism and urban propriety.

66. Matthew Kavanagh, Steiner Street Row, San Francisco, 1894–5. Urban propriety and pluralism.

70. Charles Moore, Rodes House in the Santa Monica Mountains, 1979–80.

71. Charles Moore, Rodes House in the Santa Monica Mountains, 1979–80.

72. César Pelli, The Pacific Design Centre, West Hollywood, California, 1973.

73. César Pelli, ‘Blue Whale’ metaphors.

74. César Pelli, ‘Child and toy’ metaphor.

76. Michael Graves, Portland Public Services Building ­– the Post-Modern Classical synthesis. (c. 1980).

77. Michael Graves, Portland Public Services Building, drawing (c. 1980).

78. Michael Graves, Portland Public Services Building, 1980.

79. Michael Graves, Portland Public Services Building, 1980.

80. Michael Graves, Portland Public Services Building.