With its disturbing images, celebration of tension
and conflict, and convoluted vocabulary, incompre-
hensible to most people outside the discipline, the
movement failed to achieve much popularity be-
yond California and the East Coast.
New York’s Museum of Modern Art hosted the ex-
hibitionDeconstructivist Architecturein 1988, display-
ing designs by Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Peter
Eisenman, and Bernard Tschumi from the United
States, as well as three European architects. Few of
the proposed designs were ever built.
Reaction to the sterility of modernism spawned
the growth of postmodernism. One of its earliest
proponents, Robert Venturi, parodied the modern-
ist aphorism “Less is more,” describing the move-
ment with the phrase “Less is a bore.” Postmod-
ernists favored traditional and classical forms that
invoked the past, rather than the harsh concrete and
glass facades of modernism.
Three main tenets of postmodernism were orna-
mentalism, contextualism, and allusionism. Orna-
mentalism was the use of color, texture, and decora-
tion to add interest and meaning to a building’s
exterior and interior, in opposition to the modernist
belief that decoration is unneeded and therefore
inappropriate. Contextualism was an effort to in-
tegrate new buildings with their surroundings, in-
cluding natural features as well as other nearby
buildings. It opposed the modernist practice of con-
structing monolithic designs that ignored the sur-
rounding landscape. Allusionism considered the
building’s purpose when developing its design,
rather than following the modernist principle of us-
ing generic styles for all buildings, no matter where
they were or what they would be used for. For exam-
ple, a new postmodern home in a seaside commu-
nity might be designed to blend in with existing
beach cottages.
Trends Computer technology, including computer-
aided design (CAD), e-mail, and faxes, had a pro-
found effect on architecture. Architects no longer
needed pencil, paper, and ruler to create their
plans; three-dimensional views could be created and
complex engineering problems resolved with com-
puter programs.
As environmental concerns became more impor-
tant to the public, more old buildings were saved
and restored or adapted for new uses. Private com-
missions increasingly required that architects dis-
play a concern for and new skills in energy conserva-
tion, as well as a commitment to adapting a building
to its site.
Along with environmental awareness came a
movement sometimes referred to as “new vernacu-
lar.” More a philosophical approach to architecture
than an architectural style, it incorporated the sen-
sual aspects of a site, such as its geography and sea-
sonal variations, into the design of the building. It
also paid attention to local traditions and lore. An ex-
ample of this sensibility is a complex designed in 1982
by Jefferson Riley for Ann Elliott and Peter Gruen in
the Appalachian countryside of Pennsylvania. A split-
rail fence that Elliott had played on as a child was used
to connect the house visually with the adjacent struc-
tures for Elliott’s sculpture studio and Gruen’s office.
In the 1980’s, the public at large became more
aware of architecture as an art form and of individ-
ual architects. Two books on architecture became
best sellers: Tracy Kidder’sHouse(1985) detailed
the challenges a family and their architect faced in
building a new home; Tom Wolfe’sFrom Bauhaus to
Our House(1981) castigated both modernism and
postmodernism. Despite the hostile reaction to his
book from many architects of various schools, Wolfe
was invited to be the keynote speaker at the 1985
convention of the American Institute of Architects
(AIA).
Public television hosted two series on architec-
ture in the 1980’s.Pride of Place(1986) dealt with ar-
chitectural history, disparaging modernism but ap-
plauding postmodernism.America by Design(1987)
discussed the sociological, technological, and politi-
cal forces shaping the built environment.
The growth of suburbs not only resulted in the
building of more large developments of very similar
homes but also increased the demand for small strip
malls and large shopping malls. As the U.S. economy
improved and the country became more consumer
oriented, shopping malls, hotels, and museums be-
came prized commissions for architectural firms.
Festival marketplaces, originated by James Rouse
in the 1970’s, became increasingly popular in the
1980’s. Such marketplaces often were developed in
rundown older areas, with historic older buildings
restored, redeveloped, and repurposed into retail
shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues.
Both the dependence on computers and the in-
crease of large-scale projects forced the growth of
megafirms, the decline of individual practices, andThe Eighties in America Architecture 63