Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Postmodern Architecture: Build a strong front, marking center and entrance with pediment and pilaster
- Type
- Set in Postmodern Architecture's manner (Set headings in serif capitals and treat them as ornament with their frames), and let Radical Architecture's lettering (Write in manifesto voice, short and flat, set beside the image as a note) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Postmodern Architecture's material (Tinted stucco, colored stone, metal trim switching color plane by plane); bring in exactly one thing from Radical Architecture (Photomontage, flat black and white planes, mass produced furniture overwritten).
- Colour
- Build on #e7d7c8, #b45d77, #526489 and admit one accent from #eae5d9, #d14a37, #24221f.
Where they fight
- Postmodern Architecture and Radical Architecture both belong to Modern Architecture, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Postmodern Architecture Pasting on pediments and pilasters without knowing what they quote loses the irony and leaves a dated theme park facade, so read what in modernism is criticized and who the building addresses.
- Radical Architecture Borrowing the giant grid imagery without naming what it criticizes turns a stance of doubt into futuristic wallpaper.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Postmodern Architecture (style, 1960s–1990s) and their accent from Radical Architecture (style, late-1960s–1970s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Postmodern Architecture exists for: retail and theater fronts that must read as a sign from the street, or additions in historic districts that quote local types while still declaring themselves new. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Postmodern Architecture - Historical quotation - Ornament returned - Strong color - Double meanings Composition: Build a strong front, marking center and entrance with pediment and pilaster. Type and lettering: Set headings in serif capitals and treat them as ornament with their frames. ## Accent comes from Radical Architecture, used sparingly - Speculative cities - Anti-functionalism - Vast grids - Play and critique Let one material quality come from it: Photomontage, flat black and white planes, mass produced furniture overwritten. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #e7d7c8, carry the structure in #b45d77 and #526489, and let a single accent come from #d14a37. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: play, rebellion, exhilaration, futurity. ## Where they fight - Postmodern Architecture and Radical Architecture both belong to Modern Architecture, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Postmodern Architecture: Pasting on pediments and pilasters without knowing what they quote loses the irony and leaves a dated theme park facade, so read what in modernism is criticized and who the building addresses. - Radical Architecture: Borrowing the giant grid imagery without naming what it criticizes turns a stance of doubt into futuristic wallpaper. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Postmodern Architecture 1960s–1990s / Style / Modern Architecture
Rebels against modernism's universality, reintroducing historical quotation, ornament, sign, color and irony to city and building.
- Radical Architecture late-1960s–1970s / Style / Modern Architecture
Objects to functionalism and consumer society, critiquing architecture's own premises with fictional cities, furniture, photographs and collage.
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